Interesting Steam 'Problem'

[ABOMINATION]

Ok, I'm not much of a computer techie. I admit it. What I do know is that games and the like should take up memory on a computer, correct? Well, back in Febuary I downloaded Steam onto my computer so as to play Civ 5. My laptop had 452 free GB when I got my computer. So, I downloaded Civ 5 onto my laptop, and none of the GB was taken up. Later, I bought Call of Duty: World at War and that didn't take up any space either. Last week, I downloaded Black Ops and yet again, no memory was taken up. As I type this, I have 381 GB left of free space, so I dug a little deeper ito see if any of that taken up space was from the Steam games.

I went to programs and found that downloading Steam took up 42.2 MB of memory, while still...absolutely no memory was used for the games. Also, the graphics and gameplay in all three games are great. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to have no memory taken up despite the fact I have 2 very graphics intensive games, but I'm a bit puzzled as to what is going on. Maybe one of you techies can help me out. (Just so you know, I bought Civ 5 at a store, and then bought the two CoDs at the Steam store)

[jschild]

I'm confused, you state nothing was taken up. But the gamse did take up alot of your HD space.

Games do not take up space in your memory unless they are actually running. Steam, which runs in the background constantly unless told otherwise, will take up a small amount of memory.

Memory is not the same thing as Hard Drive space, they are completely different. Think of Hard Drive space as all your pots and dishes, while your memory is how many of those pots and dishes you can actually juggle at once.

[ABOMINATION]

Originally Posted by jschild

I'm confused, you state nothing was taken up. But the gamse did take up alot of your HD space.

Games do not take up space in your memory unless they are actually running. Steam, which runs in the background constantly unless told otherwise, will take up a small amount of memory.

Memory is not the same thing as Hard Drive space, they are completely different. Think of Hard Drive space as all your pots and dishes, while your memory is how many of those pots and dishes you can actually juggle at once.

What I was confused about was that I checked my HD before I installed the game, and then after I installed the game it was the same as before I had installed.

I guess I got confused because I went to control panel, selected 'programs' and then clicked on 'programs and features' and all of the game sizes were blank, whereas programs such as Steam, Bonjour, and Microsoft had memory sizes. Is that the wrong way to go about checking to see how much space a game has taken up?

[jschild]

Just go to their file folders through Explorer.

That will tell you exactly how much space the program takes up. Also, Steam might not have finished downloading the programs, which is why the HDD space is taken up. Just use Windows Explorer or any file manager to see how much space the program is actually taking up.

[ABOMINATION]

Originally Posted by jschild

Just go to their file folders through Explorer.

That will tell you exactly how much space the program takes up. Also, Steam might not have finished downloading the programs, which is why the HDD space is taken up. Just use Windows Explorer or any file manager to see how much space the program is actually taking up.

It's odd, because I get updates from Steam saying it did download all of my games, yet when I go to explorer and go to my games, only Civ 5 is there.

Anyway, thanks for your help, jschild.

[jschild]

You must be looking in the wrong place them, because they should be there. Also, I'm not talking about the Games Explorer box but the actual folder the game is contained in - IE, C:\Program Files\EA\CoDBO (just as an example).

If you are not sure where the folder is, right click on the games icon and go to properties and it should list the actual file folder location of the game.