In response to the huge global demand for game data downloads, Valve recently began to introduceNew compression technology, claiming to be able to improve the transmission efficiency of compressed game data, thereby reducing the waiting time for players to download.
Pavel Djundik (xPaw), founder of the third-party Steam database website SteamDB, revealed earlier that the Steam service platform has begun to introduce a new compression technology called "ZSTD" (Zstandard).
Although the file data blocks compressed by "ZSTD" are larger than the "LZMA" (Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain Algorithm) compression technology previously used by Steam, the overall transmission efficiency will be higher, so players can shorten the waiting time for downloading games through the Steam service platform.
In addition to shortening the time it takes for players to download games, Valve may also hope to further reduce the connection costs during transmission. Especially when the Steam service platform currently has a huge player base in the global market, its accumulated network transmission costs will also be quite staggering.
Overall, reducing the waiting time players need to wait for game downloads is beneficial to the operation of the Steam service platform. In addition to increasing players' willingness to download, it also allows users of handheld gaming devices such as Steam Deck to enter the game in a shorter time instead of waiting for a long time.
However, Valve currently seems to be only testing the "ZSTD" compression technology for specific game content, and it is not yet possible to confirm whether it will be widely used in the future.
