Finally! Steam Can Download While You Play

Like most PC gamers, I love Steam. Sure, its awesome sales have put a dent in my wallet and given me a library of games I’ll probably never finish, but it’s a brilliant service nonetheless. I’ve always had one major problem with it, though – downloads pause while playing. Countless times I’ve wanted play something while I download a couple of titles in order to scratch them off my backlog, but no such luck. Thankfully, the most recent Steam update fixes this issue. The catch is that this is done on a per-game basis, meaning that the option to “let other games download while game is running” must be selected in the properties menu for each game the user wants to play while others are downloading in the background. 

Here’s the full patch notes for those interested: 

General:

• Add ability to limit what time of day Steam is allowed to automatically update apps
• Add option to let other games download while a game is running (this is a per-game setting)
• Add download regions for Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Ottawa in Canada
• Add ‘Copy all text to clipboard’ context menu option in the System Information dialog.

Steam client UI

• Improve downloading status text at the bottom of the main window

Big Picture

• Added ability to opt into game betas and edit launch options
• Added Inbox item under Linux if your machine requires a reboot due to OS level updates
• Fix infinite loop of Cloud sync error dialogs on game launch
• Fixed mouse cursor being visible during startup animation even if it hadn’t moved

Linux

• Fix paste pasting stale text.
• Fix Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V in client-hosted web page text controls.
• Fix incorrect foregrounding of a blank window in some -silent startup cases.