Steam now allows you to download games and software in the background while playing a game

[TopWargamer]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/11/13/steam-update-allows-background-downloading-while-playing-a-game/

So along with letting you download games in the background, here's everything else that's in the update:

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.

THANK YOU VALVE. It only took you fore er to implement this, but whatever. Looks like while you're downloading all of your games onto your new PC, you can play a game while waiting for them to download.

[Lord Pantaloons]

about time

[Yun4xGaming]

You could always download a Game and play at the Same time. You just had to pause the downlaod while you were playing and then activate it

[miyabwah]

Yay for PC Gaming!

[Snickerzz]

Yayayayaya

[Lord Pantaloons]

You could always download a Game and play at the Same time. You just had to pause the downlaod while you were playing and then activate it

inconvenient

[Humbug]

Since the beginning Steam would automatically pause downloads when you launch a game. It was just a way of minimizing background processes  that may could have a small impact on game performance.

 

Probably less of an issue these days...

[Frix]

FINALLY, I used to have to start a download start the game and unpause the download after I started playing the game.

[ERSCreeper]

Whoop!

[JupiteL]

You can do that before, but manually. Thank god they're do this now!

[AlwaysFSX]

You could always download a Game and play at the Same time. You just had to pause the downlaod while you were playing and then activate it

You just contradicted yourself there. You could never download something while playing a game before, it either had to be you were playing and the download was paused or you were downloading and couldn't play a game.

[Ghost]

You just contradicted yourself there. You could never download something while playing a game before, it either had to be you were playing and the download was paused or you were downloading and couldn't play a game.

Going into the game paused the download.

If you then paused it and hit resume while still runningthe game, the download would continue when you tabbed back into the game.

[Yun4xGaming]

You just contradicted yourself there. You could never download something while playing a game before, it either had to be you were playing and the download was paused or you were downloading and couldn't play a game.

 

This:

Going into the game paused the download.

If you then paused it and hit resume while still runningthe game, the download would continue when you tabbed back into the game.

[SMURG]

Really not a big deal, alt+tab, 2 clicks, alt+tab is not an overly complicated way to ensure downloads resume in-game, and if you're playing online you won't want them running in the background anyway. It's nice, but I wouldn't say it was worth making a thread about lol

[Lord Pantaloons]

Really not a big deal, alt+tab, 2 clicks, alt+tab is not an overly complicated way to ensure downloads resume in-game, and if you're playing online you won't want them running in the background anyway. It's nice, but I wouldn't say it was worth making a thread about lol

inconvenient

[SMURG]

inconvenient

Not really, my point (and that of several others it seems) is that there's no new functionality just another way to get the same effect. It still takes 4 clicks per game to set them to continue downloading while running, although you only have to do it once - which as I said is nice, but not exactly anything to write home about lol

[HaZardousLP]

As a per game setting, this doesn't really improve much... why couldn't they set it globally?

[DudeWazap]

It's about time now game time won't ever be interupted again.

[mymouthandi]

This was always possible but it's nice that you don't have to alt-tab out of a game to do it. 

[Agons]

OMG why did they allow this in the first place? every freaking time I would have to tab out of my game I just started to restart my downloads. COmmon valve its just silly we had to ask for this.

[qwertywarrior]

ehh i always used to do this

start downloading a game

start game ( it gets paused)

ctrl + tab

 

right click resume

[bob345]

Its about time that they actually implemented this

[Brainless906]

About.god.damn.time.

[KakaoDj]

It was always possible...

[dalekphalm]

Wow a lot of people are making a big deal about the fact that this was "always possible" using an inconvenient and non-intuitive method. You guys realize that most gamers don't even KNOW that you can alt+tab out of a game?

 

The fact that you have to launch a game, alt+tab out, then manually resume any downloads/updates is ridiculous from a user-interface perspective. For Online Multiplayer games, this might make sense, but for any single player game, c'mon!

 

I'm WAYYYYYY more interested in this: 

 

 

Add ability to limit what time of day Steam is allowed to automatically update apps

 

I mean, this is fantastic! In my opinion, this is way more important than having downloads continue while you game.

 

Let's face it, in Canada especially, our bandwidth caps SUCK! Even mine, which is a fairly substantial (By Canadian standards) 300GB/mo, could easily be ripped through if I bunch a bunch of cheap games during a particularly good Steam Sale.

 

The reason why this is a good feature, is that certain ISP's in Canada are now giving you an "unlimited" grace period between 2 am and 8 am every day (My ISP, TekSavvy, uses this system). Anything downloaded during this time period does not count towards your over-all bandwidth usage.