A tiny program to condense Steam’s resource usage by controlling its CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework) and offering lightweight launch options.
Note
Steam Lite is a DLL that Steam will load at startup (it replaces the system DLL user32.dll when placed in the Steam folder).
Once loaded, it presents an options dialog on first run and a system-tray icon for quick CEF toggling.
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CEF control – Turn CEF off, leave it on, or set it to Automatic (off while a game is running, on when no game is running).
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Launch Options – Configure Steam's launch options: launch minimized, no joystick, no GPU for CEF.
If no options are checked, no shortcut is created. -
Desktop shortcut – When you save options, Steam Lite creates or updates a Steam Lite shortcut on your Desktop that starts Steam with the chosen launch options.
Use this shortcut instead ofsteam.exeto launch Steam. -
Config file – All options are stored in
SteamLite.iniin the same folder as the DLL (Steam root directory).
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Download the latest release from GitHub Releases.
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Place
user32.dllin your Steam installation directory (the folder that containssteam.exe). -
Start Steam normally, configure the options. Then close Steam again.
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Use the Desktop shortcut to launch Steam.
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Use the system-tray icon to switch between Automatic CEF, Enable CEF, and Disable CEF, or open Options to change settings again.
Notes
- To reset everything, delete
SteamLite.iniin the Steam folder (and optionally remove the Desktop shortcut). - To remove Steam Lite, delete user32.dll.
Steam Lite is built with GCC in an MSYS2 environment.
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Install MSYS2.
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Launch MSYS2 UCRT64 and update:
pacman -Syu --noconfirm- Install the required gcc MinGW toolchain:
pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-gcc --noconfirm- Browse to the project directory, and run the build script:
cd /path/to/SteamLite
./build.sh- The built DLL will be at
src/bin/user32.dll.
This program is inspired by AveYo's steam_min.bat from which it takes its shortcut creation commands.
