SteamPipe

SteamPipe is Steam's new content distribution system introduced in 2013.
It changes the way programs (including dedicated servers and the Source engine) are downloaded, updated and stored.
== Benefits ==
=== Players ===
The benefits to players are:
*Faster and smoother downloads
*Faster game boot times and map load times
*Easier distribution, installation, and management of mods
*Smoother dedicated server distribution and update rollover
=== Server administrators ===
Instead of a proprietary delivery protocol, SteamPipe uses HTTP, which allows datacenters hosting multiple servers to set up a caching HTTP proxy, necessitating only a single download of an update from Valve's servers.
=== Game developers ===
Game developers using SteamPipe can issue updates themselves; the previous system required manual intervention by Valve when an update was to be published.
=== LAN Caching ===
As SteamPipe now uses HTTP it allows not only datacenters hosting multiple servers to setup a caching but is also very useful for LAN's. Setting up a caching proxy can significantly reduce the amount of bandwidth required for multiple clients or servers to preform updates.
LANcache – Dynamically Caching Game Installs at LAN’s using Nginx is an example of how to setup caching proxy for SteamPipe as used at Multiplay's Insomnia Gaming Festival.
steam-squid is a Docker image containing a Steam-optimised version of the Squid caching proxy for easy installation.
== Downsides ==
=== Players ===
* Many Source SDK mods that use (and/or its Episodes) content that did not make the jump to the update are broken, this also includes some (but not all) mods.Fortunately, there are known fixes for many Half-Life 2 mods. Those fixes can be found here.. 
* Most games (including third-party games) now contain duplicate copies of the base files , wasting storage drive space.
:
*After the SteamPipe update, was not properly updated which resulted the game having more bugs and glitches, with graphical issues. This issue has never been fixed and Valve instead de-listed the game from search in favor of promoting the original version instead, 10 years after the SteamPipe update was released.
=== Developers ===
The Source SDK Launcher does not have support for games. Tools for games that used to be in the Source SDK Launcher must now be launched by going to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\[game name]\bin" (see example path below) then launching the .bat files (Example: Hammer.bat to launch ).
Example path to SDK: 
== Changes ==
* Downloads are performed using HTTP instead of a proprietary protocol.
* Data files are no longer placed into GCFs but directly into the file system.
** To counteract the performance issues with accessing many tiny files (the reason why GCFs were used in the first place), all Source games (prior to ) distributed via SteamPipe now store their assets in VPK archives.
* Data generated before/during gameplay is no longer stored in user-specific subdirectories of SteamApps; instead, the common subfolder is used.
* Dedicated servers are using SteamCMD (a stripped-down version of the full Steam client).
== See also ==
* GoldSource SteamPipe Directories for the list of directories used by GoldSource engine games
* IFileSystemV009 for the C++ interface used to access files through SteamPipe in GoldSource
== External links ==
* Steam Support page
Category:CDN
Category:Steam
Category:Source
Category:Dedicated Server