Epic Claimed Its Launcher Was 46% Faster; Valve Cut Steam Startup to 5.23 Seconds

Epic Games and Valve traded competing claims about launcher speed after Epic released a preview of a new “vibe-coded” Epic Games Launcher.

Epic said its launcher was 46% faster than Steam in a cold-start test and 14% faster when restoring from the System Tray to the Library. The figures are claims attributed to Epic in Wccftech’s report.

Valve responded with a Steam Client Update. According to the report, the update cut Steam’s startup time to 5.23 seconds and also brought several improvements to Big Picture Mode.

The episode puts attention on performance comparisons between the rival PC game launchers. The available source information does not specify the testing method behind Valve’s 5.23-second startup figure or provide further details about the Big Picture Mode changes.