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New patent lets you play Steam games while downloading them

There's no mention as to when the tech could launch.

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If you are playing on Steam, you know the procedure of getting a game, waiting for it to download and install - and then you can play. But recently, there has been ways to avoid this mainly for the consoles, and Microsoft is also having plans to let you play Xbox Game Pass titles on the cloud while actually downloading it at the same time.

It turns out Valve is also thinking in the same direction, and thanks to Pavel Djundik from SteamDB, a new patent has been been discovered aimed at letting you play while downloading. The patent basically checks all the data for games and learns which data is used most frequently, and uses this to prioritise the most important data so you can get started much sooner than the full download. It could also use the same tech to get rid of data simply not needed.

As usual, we have no idea when this tech will be launched, or even if it will be used at all. Still, it is nice to see Valve doing 'quality of life' research making life smoother for all Steam users.

New patent lets you play Steam games while downloading them


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