Part of Epic Games Platform Overhaul · 2 stories · since Oct 11 · newest 6h ago
Valve Speeds Up Steam a Day After Epic Touts 'Vibe Coded' LauncherCoverage frames Steam's response as a rebuke of 'vibe coding'
6 Yesterday 12:03 PM · 1d ago · 3 articles · 6 posts · 66 comments · 4 sources · development 6 of 8
Gaming outlets and a large Hacker News thread highlighted that Valve's targeted optimization on its decades-old client beat Epic's AI-assisted rewrite, with commentary noting Epic's launcher still lacks long-missing features like forums, reviews and guides.
“Epic may have “vibe coded” a faster client, but Valve proved that targeted optimization on a decades-old ecosystem can still beat out AI speedruns.”
Respawn FirstTim Sweeney Epic Games CEOMartin Keely Epic VP and GM of Epic Games StoreEpic Games Developer of the new launcher and FortniteValve Maker of the Steam client
The whole story articlespostscomments the bright band is this development · numbered dots are the others · click one to jump
Reported in the same hours no headline names this development itself — these 2 claims were published in its stretch
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first by HN Best, 1d ago · also HN Frontpage
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first by TechRepublic, 1d ago
What people said 24 voices · best of 68 · verbatim
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but $3.6 was a completely over the top scenario of keeping your PC sleeping the entire month (not using it at all, not even once), with a high idle consumption (typical is 2-3W, not 5), and at twice the price of the most expensive rate in the US (Hawaii, as far as I know, is at 48-50 cents). As I put it at the end, it's 90 cents a month tops, but…
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This is why software is slow and everything uses 2GB of RAM at idle: because nobody really cares.I'm sure that AI made this speedup work much easier and quicker; probably just access to the monorepo and a prompt of "make the launcher boot up faster while changing no functionality. Keep track of before/after benchmark numbers" would be fine as long…
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Epic Games Confirms Fortnite Is Coming to Linux with New Easy Anti-Cheat https:// linuxiac.com/epic-games-confir ms-fortnite-is-coming-to-linux-with-new-easy-anti-cheat/
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It’s about recognising that competition is what keeps markets healthy I think this viewpoint is naive at this point in time. Instead of competing most companies cut out their own slice and then work together with their "competitors" to keep prices high so they still maintain large profit margins. Then they use their massive wealth to lobby or take…
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> Epic may have “vibe coded” a faster client, but Valve proved that targeted optimization on a decades-old ecosystem can still beat out AI speedruns.Optimizing a project with AI is one of the most trivial things you can do with AI.I also wouldn't buy it for a second that Valve engineers aren't using AI, especially for something as trivial as "hey…
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competition works apparently https:// respawnfirst.com/steam-client- is-now-faster-than-epics-new-vibe-coded-launcher/
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Ah thank you for being specific about Steam's update not being released yet. It seems that people are saying that Steam opens faster than epic games launcher today, right now, which is not the case. In fact, from completely closed launchers, I can launch Unreal Engine (which launches from Epic Games Launcher), then launch FreeCAD, and both will…
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> No Discussion forums and community hubs> No User-written text reviews> No Community-created guides and walkthroughs>No Screenshot, clip, and artwork sharingI can’t believe they don’t have the resource to bring these features to their launcher, they actively refuse to make it a tool for communities.It must be a way to buy game and launch them…
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I agree with you on the unskippable splash screens (although I understand they sometimes are basically disguised loading screens) but leave our friend the shader compilation alone. It's statements like this that still makes some devs think it's fine that their game is a stuttery mess just so that impatient gamers don't have to wait a few minutes…
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All I can think with this whole situation is how much time is wasted by people getting angry and defensive on behalf of a Valve. It's almost like people have a parasocial relationship with the application itself.That's not even getting to some of the "missing" features.No Community marketplace for in-game itemsNo Direct player-to-player item…
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I used to work for Epic and HAD to have the fucking thing installed. I've never gotten an intrusive advert from Steam (I mean the little right hand screen pop over), Fuck me though Epic store (and GOG Galaxy lately unfortunately) got removed from my start up list swiftly. I know I can turn them off, but better yet they don't exist in the first…
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I actually think that vibe coding lends itself well to stuff with really strict type systems. When you use Claude Code, it basically works on a loop until it gets something "right". A type system allows for part of the "right" criteria to be baked into the compilation, giving a hard block if it doesn't at least pass that.I've had reasonably good…
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They're not necessarily holding back features, they just don't care to release anything without a reason. They have a monopoly, so when a potential competitor tries to start something, they embarrass them immediately. Players aren't going anywhere, so they might listen to what they want, but Valve is not going to release anything until they want…
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What are the possibilities of AI learning how to code efficient apps, e.g. low memory apps, or faster apps, or both? I feel like that is the kind of cheap work that requires too much intelligence for humans, yet provides immense benefits to users.Just recently I learned Listary has a new beta written in Rust. It is fast! The previous one kept…
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That's the weirdest thing about this story. How did reddit get the idea in their head that Valve doesn't use AI? I get that there's a super creepy cult dedicated to Valve on reddit, but even within the context of that super creepy cult... of fucking course Steam uses AI. What year do you weirdos think this is?
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And that's why having some competition is useful for consumers. I would like to see this trend to continue and game launchers improving not only startup times, but RAM usage and disk size usage. I just looked into my `.steam` directory, and it is taking up over 10GB of disk size, and I have only single game installed, that is only about 500MB in…
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It would be so fucking funny if Valve somehow had inside intel that Epic was working on that and held back the update on purpose. Trolling at the highest level. I know realistically that Valve doesn't do anything based on what Epic is doing but it's a really funny thought to me.
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I have to say, Epics vibe is just malicious and toxic. Steam is silent and just lets things speak for themselves. What is the value of an idea if it does not work in the real world?I just wish the people at Epic collectively took some vacation and came back with a less breathing down neck attitude towards everything. Just chill out, relax, it is a…
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They do exist, RAM leaks are prevalent in Windows 11 today. But to your point, I agree. 1996 computers would stop working if you left them on too long, whereas current computers can run just fine for a whole year, until they don't run fine anymore and need a simple reboot.
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I used to think vibe coding would get us slow Electron apps but now we got speed wars between game launchers. I hope this comes for all types of software.With that said, I tested it right now and Steam takes about 2 seconds to restore from tray and 10-15 for cold boot. The new Epic launcher is around 0.5 and 5 like the article mentioned. Maybe…
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This seems like an incredibly weird metric to compete on too. Don't people usually have Steam start running in the background at startup? With everything loading at that time, 10s is very acceptable for startup load. It's not like you have to restart all the time anyway.
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I think vibe coding will force everyone to stay on their toes and keep being at the edge, moat defences have lowered and competition is up, as consumers we will get much better products for much cheaper. Let's just hope there is enough people left with jobs to pay for the services and the others can re-invent theirselves in a career that is still…
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Doesn't matter. Every store that has the same business model as steam is a rival or potential rival. Besides GOG has a way way way smaller userbase than Epic c'mon man xD... As much as i'd like to agree with you because I prefer GOG over Steam/Epic that's just not true.
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There are broken windows everywhere I look when people are using AI, including the launcher. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory even with large companies the acceptance of small issues here and there is concerning.
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