Steam games - User sharing question

[wheresmycar]

I've been using Steam for donkey years and i've never attempted shared Win-user accounts for gaming via steam and i'm oblivious to the pros/cons. So...

1 gaming PC, 2 Windows user accounts, 1 Steam account - i understand both users can access the same games but only 1 at a time. What i'm not sure about is, will game progress be saved independently per Windows user account or will both users be stepping on each others feet - Ouch!?

Today, briefly googling, i believe I have found the solution with "steam family sharing" but fancy double checking with you guys first. I also read somewhere not all games are supported with this feature. Bottom line, i'm not keen on allowing anyone else fiddling with my personal gaming progress/achievements. If not possible, i'm happy to purchase the games again (only 3-4 which are of interest to other users) with a second steam account for the second windows user account.

 

[Nater]

I have 2 kids and my wife shared to my steam in the family setup, and any game they've ever installed always starts from scratch and leaves my progress in said game alone.

 

[wheresmycar]

I have 2 kids and my wife shared to my steam in the family setup, and any game they've ever installed always starts from scratch and leaves my progress in said game alone.

Thank you for your reply

Is this as simple as enabling family sharing in steam settings in the primary win user account and then logging in with the same Steam account on the second windows user?

Also i read some games dont support this sharing feature hence not all games will be accessible by the second user. Anything of that effect?

 

[Shihab]

For using the same account, save game conflict is an issue only as far as cloud saves are concerned.

Game saves are scoped locally to the Windows user account, stored in some sub-directory of its home folder (i.e. c:/users/username/). So no conflict as far as local saves go. The problem is the Steam's cloud save system may try to "update" local saves when syncing with the cloud. I'm not exactly sure how the algorithm works, but I wouldn't be comfortable using it in such a scenario.

You can set up your accounts the way you want, and disable cloud saves. You won't have any issues with save conflicts between accounts. And since you're physically limited to one user at a time on the PC anyway, the equivalent Steam limitation isn't an issue.

Note that [Steam] achievements are awarded for the account. So sharing the same account means other users' playtime would count towards said achievement. The same goes for achievements on secondary launchers that has games linked to your Steam account. In-game achievements that aren't tied to an account are unaffected.

That said, family sharing *can* be a better approach for parental supervision. And you do get separate cloud saves and achievement tracking. But as you said, it may not be supported in the games you want to share, so do your research beforehand.

 

[wheresmycar]

For using the same account, save game conflict is an issue only as far as cloud saves are concerned.

Game saves are scoped locally to the Windows user account, stored in some sub-directory of its home folder (i.e. c:/users/username/). So no conflict as far as local saves go. The problem is the Steam's cloud save system may try to "update" local saves when syncing with the cloud. I'm not exactly sure how the algorithm works, but I wouldn't be comfortable using it in such a scenario.

You can set up your accounts the way you want, and disable cloud saves. You won't have any issues with save conflicts between accounts. And since you're physically limited to one user at a time on the PC anyway, the equivalent Steam limitation isn't an issue.

Note that [Steam] achievements are awarded for the account. So sharing the same account means other users' playtime would count towards said achievement. The same goes for achievements on secondary launchers that has games linked to your Steam account. In-game achievements that aren't tied to an account are unaffected.

That said, family sharing *can* be a better approach for parental supervision. And you do get separate cloud saves and achievement tracking. But as you said, it may not be supported in the games you want to share, so do your research beforehand.

thanks for the heads-up. Will disable cloud saves.

I guess shared achievements I can live with providing the game progress load-ups remain unaffected.