OS X Steam is a power hog

[christarp]

I've installed steam because I regularly hang out in a chat room and like to play some of my games obviously, now I understand battery life isn't gonna be astounding when playing a game, but even idling in a chat room steam is using a LOT of power.

Picture here of the energy impact: http://i.imgur.com/4cDhKUR.png

Is there any way I can alleviate some of this? Is it something in particular steam is doing that is causing it to consume so much power? I can't believe a chat window in an otherwise idling client is causing so much power drain. Any ideas?

 

[SingularityG]

Strange. I just checked it on my system and when I have Steam up & downloading an update, the energy impact doesn't go over 25.

When I minimise Steam, the energy impact lowers to ~0.6.

Also, in the Activity Monitor, I have Steam listed as bash/Steam, not just Steam.

What Mac do you have?

 

[christarp]

Strange. I just checked it on my system and when I have Steam up & downloading an update, the energy impact doesn't go over 25.

When I minimise Steam, the energy impact lowers to ~0.6.

Also, in the Activity Monitor, I have Steam listed as bash/Steam, not just Steam.

What Mac do you have?

13" Retina macbook pro, Late 2013.

Dunno what's wrong really. There's nothing happening right now, I figured it might be steam cycling through the store page but I tried going into small mode so it's just a list of my games and that hasn't helped.

 

[edddeduck]

I've installed steam because I regularly hang out in a chat room and like to play some of my games obviously, now I understand battery life isn't gonna be astounding when playing a game, but even idling in a chat room steam is using a LOT of power.

Mine sits at around 8% if I close game window (not shrunken down) that drops to around 4% iChat is usually around 2 to 3% on my Mac.

Edwin