Yesterday, Epic introduced its new launcher, which was built entirely with the help of AI, and although it is still in an early stage of development, that didn't stop the company from boasting that it now does certain things—like loading the library—up to 30 times faster.
Likewise, that didn't stop Epic from taking a bit of a jab at Valve itself with comparisons to Steam, bragging on their blog that the new Epic now launches faster than Steam—by as much as 46%—5.47 compared to 10.07 seconds. Evidently, that information quickly reached the folks at Valve, since less than 24 hours after Epic's bragging, Steam received a new update that significantly improved startup performance.
The Steam update officially released on October 13 includes the note “Improved Steam Client startup performance.” As is usually the case with changelogs, there are no concrete numbers or details on what exactly was changed to achieve this optimization. The results Epic published came from Keywords Studios—an independent testing company that ran five tests per machine, with the three lowest-end systems excluded from the final averages.
Those tests were almost certainly conducted before this update that sped up Steam and which, to be fair, actually arrived a day before Epic's announcement. Still, judging by a test from user @girlglock_ on the social network X, Steam now launches faster than Epic, once again.
Of course, this should be taken with a grain of salt because we don't know what kind of machine that test was performed on, but what is certain is that Steam is faster than what the creators of Fortnite presented. At the same time, one should consider that the new Epic is in an early stage of development and practically has only the bare essentials required to call something a launcher, while Steam on the other hand runs Steam Recording, chat rooms, Remote Play, a music player, and then some.
You can download the new Epic at the link and see that speed for yourself.
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