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fire 16 Sep, 2012 @ 3:05pm
Steam has had a GDI Object leak in it for around two years. It's an incredibly annoying bug that poses a great risk to system stability itself.
You can check your current GDI object count by opening your task manager, clicking view -> select columns, scrolling down, and checking "GDI Objects". Then click ok.

Steam constantly creates new GDI objects for nearly everything you do, clicking tabs on chats, clicking the chat box itself, clicking between store and community, refreshing the store, clicking the scrollbar, etc. The count rises and rises until it hits the 10,000 GDI Object limit per process ( Windows enforced limit ), then Steam stops drawing it's windows, and this happens:

http://i.imgur.com/tyWxE.png

Steam's only been running for around 7 days for this test, what gives? This problem has been around since the revamp in 2010.
Last edited by fire; 16 Sep, 2012 @ 3:09pm
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Showing 1-13 of 13 comments
deer ♪ vs. the World 16 Sep, 2012 @ 4:21pm 
30 days steam ruuning at 1,400 gdi objects now, using hibernation for this period.
#1
DarkCrystalMethod 16 Sep, 2012 @ 5:07pm 
Sounds like you haven't been restarting steam every time there is a steam client update. I recommend letting steam update itself and then see if this GDI issue still exists.
I do get your point though, memory object leaks of any kind (GDI objects too) are probably going to be someone's problem, especially if you let steam collect so many (30 days? yikes!).
#2
em_t_hed 16 Sep, 2012 @ 5:21pm 
I saw this:

Hi,

I suggest increasing the GDI handle limit to check the result.

1. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows
2. Right click Windows, choose export, save the reg onto desktop for backup.
3. In the right pane, find GDIProcessHandleQuota, set its value to 50,000 Decimal
4. After that, test the issue again.

Best Regards,

here http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ieitprocurrentver/thread/af4ee94a-89ac-4e55-90ff-43dbd4a4e612
#3
fire 16 Sep, 2012 @ 6:51pm 
Originally posted by DarkCrystalMethod:
Sounds like you haven't been restarting steam every time there is a steam client update. I recommend letting steam update itself and then see if this GDI issue still exists.
I do get your point though, memory object leaks of any kind (GDI objects too) are probably going to be someone's problem, especially if you let steam collect so many (30 days? yikes!).

Please don't take me for a fool :) http://i.imgur.com/i0pSd.png

As I said in the original post, the problem has existed since the 2010 client revamp ( I originally thought it was related to chromium's GDI leak, though I'm not so sure anymore )

Here's another thread on the matter, much older than mine:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2298336

Originally posted by em_t_hed:
I saw this:

Hi,

I suggest increasing the GDI handle limit to check the result.

1. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows
2. Right click Windows, choose export, save the reg onto desktop for backup.
3. In the right pane, find GDIProcessHandleQuota, set its value to 50,000 Decimal
4. After that, test the issue again.

Best Regards,

here http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ieitprocurrentver/thread/af4ee94a-89ac-4e55-90ff-43dbd4a4e612

The point of this thread is to try and garner Valve's attention so they fix the problem, no-one should have to modify registry settings to counter a leak in Steam itself.
Last edited by fire; 16 Sep, 2012 @ 6:55pm
#4
em_t_hed 16 Sep, 2012 @ 7:43pm 
Originally posted by Fire:

The point of this thread is to try and garner Valve's attention so they fix the problem, no-one should have to modify registry settings to counter a leak in Steam itself.

I won't disagree with you on this, but it seemed fair to point out that the infromation was offered to a similar problem with ie9?
#5
fire 16 Sep, 2012 @ 7:46pm 
Originally posted by em_t_hed:
Originally posted by Fire:

The point of this thread is to try and garner Valve's attention so they fix the problem, no-one should have to modify registry settings to counter a leak in Steam itself.

I won't disagree with you on this, but it seemed fair to point out that the infromation was offered to a similar problem with ie9?

Aye, I found the same information when I was looking for a fix for the Chromium GDI leak. It's kind of like putting a bigger bucket under a leaky roof instead of fixing the roof in the first place.
#6
 KARR™ 17 Sep, 2012 @ 5:38am 
They're aware of it.

I had a great time yesterday going from 0 to 9999 on my GDI counter in about 30 seconds. It does make your pc look a bit weird though. :P
#7
Nacimota 17 Sep, 2012 @ 10:33pm 
That's really weird. I've never seen that happen to me and after playing around with it I can't reproduce the leak on my machine so it must only affect certain installations.
#8
Lostedge 17 Sep, 2012 @ 11:48pm 
Originally posted by Fire:
then Steam stops drawing it's windows, and this happens:
http://i.imgur.com/tyWxE.png

What exactly happens? Steam stops responding for 5-10 secs, and then continues to work normally?
#9
Felix 18 Sep, 2012 @ 3:06am 
Huh, crazy. It adds 4 GDI Objects to close the friends list...

Yeah, I think this could do with a bit of patching, dearest Valve.

I've noticed in some cases, though, the GDI Objects count does - in fact - lower. So maybe it does "try" to clear them but in some cases it doesn't manage it, or wasn't coding in properly, or something like that, meaning in those situations the Object count just rises and rises?
Last edited by Felix; 18 Sep, 2012 @ 3:08am
#10
Dragonsbrethren 18 Sep, 2012 @ 2:46pm 
Will having NOD32 installed prevent this from happening? (Sorry, sorry. Terrible C&C joke.)
#11
TheCodifier 20 Sep, 2012 @ 6:27am 
It's possibly fixed in the yesterday's patch: http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/bigpicture/announcements/detail/1731889327494305399
#12
Kai-CAKE 20 Sep, 2012 @ 8:58am 
Well I mean Ive never hit the limit I must not be hardcore. Also after closing ym steam windows it went from 4k (where i got from ctrl+tab chat) to 1400
Last edited by Kai-CAKE; 20 Sep, 2012 @ 9:00am
#13
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Date Posted: 16 Sep, 2012 @ 3:05pm
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