New to Steam
 

Hi all,

I've never really been a Steam user before, because it never really seemed to work very well, and I'd heard a lot of horrer stories with crashes, updating, and just general broken-ness.

Since then, I've relented, and downloaded Steam, as well as a few games, and with the new GUI updated among other things, I do quite like it. I especially love that pretty much the whole interface is CSS-based. Makes configuring it very easy.

I've come across a problem though: The Steam overlay seems to crash Star Trek Bridge Commander. Sometimes right before it would hit the main menu, sometimes right after. This is without even toggling the menu. This is the first game I've come across this behavior in, though admittedly, I haven't tried a lot of games, as I've only had Steam for a few days.

Any help on this one lads?

Re: New to Steam
 

Never had any such issues with steam. Ever.
It has always worked without issue, & I have never heard of an issue where the steam overlay has caused crashing in games. Not to say it isn't possible, but I have never personally heard of this.
Maybe run BC in offline mode?
Also, try to disable the community menu from running during the game.- right click on the game from the library list & choose properties & uncheck the box for steam community.

Re: New to Steam
 

Sorry, I should mention that this is a non-Steam game. Doesn't have those options.

As far as I can tell, all my other games work fine, just BC that doesn't like Steam for some reason. I can play it fine outside of Steam.

Re: New to Steam
 

What do you mean...non steam game? Did you purchase this game through steam? If it does not launch from steam, how do you know steam is causing the problems. If you did buy it through steam, yes, the options are there.

Re: New to Steam
 

I didn't buy it from Steam. I bought it from a physical shop. I added it to launch from Steam - thereby giving me access to the overlay while playing it - by using the Add a non-Steam game to My Library option.

Re: New to Steam
 

Oh...never done that. I guess I would just disable it.

Re: New to Steam
 

Eh, I have all kinds of issues with Steam. You've no idea how many times it's locked me out of my games. :p

Interesting, though. I've never seen the overlay crash a game. Aside from the obvious disabling of the overlay, I don't know any way around that, sorry.

Re: New to Steam
 

I've never had any problems with Steam, and I'm constantly using their beta upgrade features. o.o

Re: New to Steam
 

you might want to just not use the overlay while in game with BC. It might be giving you issues since its a non-steam game

Re: New to Steam
 

^ Got that. =p

Was looking for something that would let me play BC with the overlay, funnily enough.

Re: New to Steam
 

The overlay also crashes Minecraft somehow (Usually when opening a conversation window to reply) but it's not too much of a hassle to just alt-tab to the conversation.
I believe the rest of the overlay is functional, as I can't remember it crashing from anything else =p

Is there a specific time it crashes, or just as soon as you open the overlay?

I might actually file a bug report to Steam and Mojang if there isn't one already.
I'm not sure which side would have to make a modification, but I feel I'd have more luck with Mojang.

Re: New to Steam
 

Overlay in some situations can be problematic in Windows. It's the same way with video overlay conflicts with WMP and Clipboard. Just on a whim you might try using Ctrl+Alt+F9 after launching Steam before starting the game to see if disabling the overlay W7 Aero uses allows it to work without conflicts. I doubt it will but it's worth a shot.

Re: New to Steam
 

That's the first thing I tried - no luck.

Re: New to Steam
 

^ Ctrl+Alt+F9 didn't help.

Out of about the thirty or so time I've tried, it crashed only once when I was in the main menu. I'm not sure what that was. Funny thing is it doesn't crash when I get messeges, only right when the game should have loaded.

I don't get the Minecraft crash actually. The overlay just doesn't work in MC for me.

Re: New to Steam
 

I haven't had any problems with Steam for a long time. I used to think it was crap a few years ago when my internet couldn't keep up. Now i love it. 95% of the games i've bought the last year or two have been during Steams awesome sales. I don't use the overlay though, so i can't comment on any issues with that.

The only thing i would like is the ability to turn off games automatically downloading updates. My ISP sets a 5GB DL limit per month so it kinda pisses me off when a game starts auto-updating and i don't notice it right away. I just use my friends unlimited 10MB/s cable for downloading my games and big updates.

Re: New to Steam
 

I've read that some have problems with games updating through Steam even when updates for the game are turned off. One person said it's because when Steam auto updates itself the settings are automatically reverted to game updating.

Anyways, there's a support solution related to it but I'm not sure it works. Have you seen/tried this?

Steam repeatedly updates or verifies game files
To resolve this issue please do the following:
On Windows
Restart Steam
If the issue persists, exit Steam, rename your ClientRegistry.blob, and restart Steam. The ClientRegistry.blob can be found in your Steam installation directory. C:\Program Files\Steam by default.
If the issue still persists, you may have issues with your local Steam files. You may refresh these files without deleting your game files. Please follow this process to refresh your Steam files:
Exit Steam
Navigate to your Steam installation directory. (C:\Program Files\Steam\ by default.)
Delete everything in that directory EXCEPT the following:
steam.exe
steamapps directory (All of Steam's game files are kept here.)
Restart Steam to test the issue

Source: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_...2971-RUAG-7390