
First, launch the registry editor by clicking Start, typing Regedit into the Start menu, and pressing Enter.
DEFAULT MAC KEY FOR STEAM OVERLAY WINDOWS
Windows has hidden the compatibility mode setting it applied – you can only remove it from the registry. If you right-click the Steam shortcut and select Properties, you won’t see any compatibility settings being applied:

If Steam detects it’s running in compatibility mode, you’ll see a message like this one: Windows automatically assigns compatibility mode settings to certain programs – including Steam – when they crash. You can disable the overlay for an individual game by right-clicking the game in your Steam library, selecting Properties, and unchecking the Enable Steam Community In-Game check box. Some old games may also have graphical issues with Steam’s in-game overlay – the screen that appears when you press Shift+Tab while in a game.


Windows doesn’t “save” CPU affinity between sessions – when you close Steam and reopen it, it will use its default CPU affinity settings. Right-click your taskbar and select Start Task Manager to open the task manager.īe sure to change Steam’s CPU affinity back to the default – using all cores – before launching a demanding, modern game. One trick you can use is setting Steam.exe’s CPU affinity instead – when you launch the game through Steam, it will inherit Steam’s CPU affinity and launch with the correct CPU affinity. However, this may not always solve the problem – if the problem has already started occurring, the gameplay may be glitchy until you relaunch the game. The easiest way to do this is by launching a game, alt-tabbing out, opening the task manager, right-clicking the game’s process on the Processes tab and using the Set Affinity option. You can tell Windows to run on the game on only one CPU core to solve this problem – this is referred to as setting the game’s CPU affinity. Common symptoms include glitchy, jumpy animations and the animations playing too fast – the game’s animations may even be out of sync with the audio. Some older games don’t play nice with multiple CPU cores on modern computers. You’ll have to restart Steam after changing this setting.
DEFAULT MAC KEY FOR STEAM OVERLAY DOWNLOAD
From the Settings window, click the Downloads + Cloud tab and select a different server from the Download region box. To change your download server, click the Steam menu and select Settings. You can view each download server’s load on the Steam Content Server Status page. However, these download servers can become overloaded – if games are downloading slowly, you may want to change your download server. Steam periodically detects the closest download server to you. Be sure to close Steam completely (click the Steam menu at the top of the Steam window and select Exit) before deleting this file. You’ll find this file in your Steam directory – C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam by default. After deleting this file, you’ll have to log back into Steam and other local settings will also be lost – for example, you’ll have to re-categorize your games. If Steam itself is failing to launch or you still experience odd issues with games not working properly, you might want to try deleting your ClientRegistry.blob file.

In the properties window, click the Local Files tab and click the Verify Integrity of Game Cache button. To validate a game’s cache, right-click the game in your Steam library and select Properties. Steam will examine the game’s files and – if any problems are detected – will re-download the corrupted files from Steam’s servers. To fix corrupted game files, you can have Steam validate the game’s cache on your system. Corrupted files can also cause a multitude of other odd game bugs. If a game fails to load, crashes as soon as it loads, or crashes when you reach a specific level, your game’s files may be corrupted.
