I only have steam on my gaming computer so yes, it just runs. Thats what the PC is for.

Wait, the poll doesn't work? Weird.

I keep it on all the time even though I barely play games because I only have a 100/30 connection available so on the rare weekend occasion that my friends have time to play games, I don't have to boot it up only to see that the game we want to play of course has a 5GB update that will take me a half hour to download.

Forget about Squad where every file has to be reworked for a 10Mb update so it will max out an SSD for 20 minutes if it gets any hint of an update...

I am halfway in between manually turn it on and close after finishing and just leaving it on after I finish. Half of the time I flip-flop on doing one way or the other.

I manually start it when I want to play something.

I shut down the computer when I'm done for a while. Like before bed, or if I'm leaving the house.

But if I play a game and then spend some time on the computer doing something else, I don't explicitly close steam.

I can’t believe so many people here autorun it.

Steam is, objectively, a chonky boi. If I’m not actively using it, why would I want it slowing down what I am actually doing? What’s the upside?

And to be specific, I’m not concerned with RAM usage personally, but interrupts, CPU, networking, vram…

I close it completely when I'm not playing a game.

I’m almost always using my laptop which isn’t the most powerful so I try to keep open software to a minimum. When I’m using my desktop I do leave it open though.

I auto start it and leave it running. I have lots of friends that will reach out on steam if we're both online to play together. If I'm always offline because steam is off, I'll miss games with friends.

Yeah, I leave it on.

On any machine that I'm regularly using steam I have it open on startup and never close it. The only exception is my laptop, but usually once it's started I just leave it going until I reboot or the popups annoy me.

I don't autostart it, but yeah, like most programs, I just leave it running once it is. Not like it makes any performance difference. Firefox chews memory WAY more readily than Steam does.

Of course not. Why would I do that?

I mean like umm my PC is a steam machine so like. Generally always running even in desktop mode. It never really takes that much resources for things as tr heaviest things I do is gaming on steam anyways.

I mostly use my Steam Controller to control my PC and the Steam keyboard is the best to use with the two touchpads.

I don't autostart it, but when I do use it, I keep it running until I turn off my computer. I don't notice any slowdowns, so it's not an issue.

Not started on boot, but once I fire up steam, it stays running unless I start up Star Citizen. I need all the help I can get with that mess.

If I'm not using it, I shut it down. Steam. Web browser. Any GUI program.

Tells me I've already voted

No