How and When does stuff save to Steam?

from Elemental Forums

I travel a fair amount, and play on both my home computer and my laptop.  

The whole save-to-cloud thing on Steam seems opaque to me.  Today I had a game going on my home computer, then headed onto the road, and fired up my laptop in the evening.  Steam suddenly (and for the first time) presented me with the choice of loading my home games to the laptop and wiping the laptop saves, or vice versa; since I usually just use quicksaves and autosaves.  Furthermore, when I decided to just play my home game on my laptop, the savegame was about an hour behind the latest save game at home.  It was interesting replaying those turns, but at times it'd really torque my bacon.  

So, what's the bloody algorithm?  

5,926 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

I believe this typically happens after exiting (you'll sometimes see a dialog from Steam about it syncing with the cloud).

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

After you exit the program, before shutting down, mouse-over the Steam icon in your system tray.  If it says "Synching", don't shut down yet.  Once it no longer says "Synching", then it's done uploading your save games.  The transfers are slow and LH's saves are big, so it can take a couple minutes.

I've had the same problem since I play at home on one computer and at work... er, I mean, at other places, on a different computer.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Ahhh...I almost always quit the game then shut down immediately.  Got it.  

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

OK, back again.  When, pray, does the save/ synch happen?  Because this morning I finishede up on my laptop after plsying 15 min or so, let the thing sit for a good half-hour, then shut it down.  Then I get home, and confusion and demoralization, the last cloud-save is from last night.  

Consistency, consistency.  Save early, save often.  If you're going to save things to the clous, people, have it save things to the cloud.  Immediately.  

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm pretty sure Steam handles the synchronization, and Stardock has no control over that aspect.  When you quit the game, mouse-over the Steam icon in your system tray and see what it's doing.  It may have gotten stuck synchronizing, or if you were doing torrents or something there may not have been enough bandwidth to upload the save games in a half hour's time.  The save games are quite large, and torrents can cut your Steam synchronization down to 10-15 KBps.

As for when it occurs, it begins synchronizing within a minute of closing the program.  You can actually tell that it's synchronizing by looking at the system tray icon, because it'll have dots at the top.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Wasn't any torrenting going on, or anything except packing and expecting the silly thing to update; but thanks.