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Comment by smolgumball | Hacker News Reader

I truly cannot describe the amount of confusion that courses through me each time I open the Epic Launcher. I know that Epic decided to create it using the Unreal Engine UMG technology, but it truly shines as one of the most sluggish applications on my entire PC.

At this point, I would _gladly_ accept an Electron application in it's place. Just wild to me that UX teams at Epic seem happy to deliver this to users.

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Legendary's frontends are great cross-platform, but especially if you're on Linux: https://github.com/Dummerle/Rare

This one uses the native Qt library and less resources than Steam.

> Uses the native Qt library

It's described as a CLI in the readme you linked, so how does it use Qt?

Thanks for catching that, I updated it to link to Rare (the Legendary frontend I use)

Also an excellent alternative (also for Linux initially, but now on Windows and MacOS too) is Heroic Games Launcher: https://heroicgameslauncher.com/

I started using it instead of Lutris for most of my non-Steam installs and it just works for the most part, which is fantastic. Even auto-updates my GOG and EGS games.

Heroic is built with electron. Gross!

Still faster than using the Epic Store app. The GUI is incredibly responsive

Lutris is also an alternative. They use GTK if I'm not mistaken.

https://lutris.net/games/epic-games-store/

Is there any command line launcher for both Steam and Epic Store games?

I find that Steam can also be quite sluggish, but Steam has the excuse of possessing an enormous number of features.

Steam still feels orders of magnitude more responsive

Huh, the only time it's sluggish, is from internet delay for me. What parts are slow for you?

Not OP but on Mac at least I find it wayyy faster to browse the steam marketplace and community sites in Safari or Chrome than in-app. Everything about it is slow from loading pages to scrolling to clicking buttons.

Huh. Not an issue for me, but I use windows, maybe their Mac app sucks?

The Linux one is slow too. You have to manually turn off animated profile pics in the friends section otherwise it’s unusable slow, like 1fps.

> What parts are slow for you?

Not OP, personally the Steam UI seems to freeze in the following cases for me:

  - when opening or scrolling my library, as the icons load in (~400 games)
  - when trying to install a game (delay until the install dialog pops up)

The other slowness feels inconsequential, like when opening a store page or launching a game - on par with what you'd get when an average web app is loading or an Electron app is being launched.

Pretty much every other store out there has been worse in comparison, GOG Galaxy seems to be reasonably close to me though, Origin and Epic are both slower in my experience.

OS? I don't have freezes, with more games (though most are in closed categories). Galaxy is second best for me as well, but it's also the only other app trying.

I don't remember any install freezes, but I wouldn't bet on that one.

Guess what? During the last few years, more and more parts of Steam's UI got rewritten to work in a very similar way to how Electron does (using CEF). Back when these views were still in the minority it was easy to identify them by how sluggish they felt compared to the rest :)

I use the GOG launcher, which centralizes my Steam, Epic, and GOG games.

You can play games you bought in the Epic store, and are usually launched with the Epic launcher, without having the Epic launcher installed??

It depends on the game, but if they require the Epic launcher it will automatically open the Epic launcher and run the game for you. No need to keep it always running or search multiple store launchers to find which store you purchased X game with. They're all in one place.

https://heroicgameslauncher.com/ seems to work well on my steam deck.

I'd also recommend https://playnite.link/ which is an open source launcher that does the same stuff.

That's really fantastic. Better integration than the GOG client, and it isn't always trying to sell me something!

I think they use the same devs as the Amazon prime twitch gaming thing. It's just as slow.

> Amazon prime twitch gaming thing

What are you referring to?

They have this free gaming app with Amazon prime that changed names several times.

Also what kind of shitty launcher requires admin privileges every time it runs?

Not denying it's shittiness but it doesn't do that for me.

maybe it's not just a launcher

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