If there’s one thing Valve loves doing, it’s bolting new features onto the already hulking mass that is Steam with little warning.
One future feature appears to have been revealed in a recent build. Discovered by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik as he pored over the app’s most recent update, it seems Valve is preparing to introduce peer-to-peer downloads over the LAN connections.
Valve is seemingly working on peer-to-peer Steam downloads on LAN. pic.twitter.com/o6fXYo7gHK
— Pavel Djundik (@thexpaw) October 27, 2022
Peer-to-peer downloads over LAN are essentially a direct connection for downloads over a private network. This would mean, rather than creating a Steam backup, transferring it to a different PC, and reinstalling it there, whole installs could be sent over your private network from one machine to another.
Why would Valve want to include functionality like this? The current thinking is that this is to help speed up the installation process on the Steam Deck. Rather than having to download games onto the device over the internet, anything you have installed on the PC app could be quickly sent to the Steam Deck. Obviously, in countries like Australia where the Steam Deck isn’t available, this functionality is a little less exciting than in territories where you can get it, but it would still be a useful bit of functionality and would save those with a meticulously wired LAN in their homes a bit of extra time.
Much of the code required to get the P2p functionality working seems to be in place. Some replies to Djundik’s tweet indicate that some people were able to get it working with minimal tinkering.
Seems to work already (after setting some convars) just downloaded CK3 on my PC from my Mac laptop. pic.twitter.com/8ryApF7EDz
— Andy Simpson (@aiusepsi) October 27, 2022
It is not clear at this stage when Valve intends to make this functionality available on the live version of Steam.
Leave a Reply