Steam vs PA Launcher

It's been a while since I've revisited this. Back during beta, I remember hearing reports that if you played with the steam client instead of PA Laucher that you'd get significantly worse performance, and this resulted in me deciding to stick it out with the PA Launcher. Is this now a non-issue and can I move to Steam worry-free to join the rest of my gaming library?

Thanks!

I haven't noticed any difference between them for a long while now...

Thanks. I guess I'll start transferring to steam today.

Steam Automatically updates ;-) The PA launcher, you have to update manually.

Pro Steam: Updates automatically
Pro Uber Launcher: easy to switch to PTE mode

You can use both side by side anyway - I use the launcher for PTE and Steam for normal play

just saying but if you are using Steam and Windows I recommend to check if you are using the 64X version and not the 86X version.

Pro Uber Launcher: Badass looking, Insta Shortcut to PA

Yeah, I get tired of it constantly checking for updates every time I open it up, and I never use the PTE version. I'm already happy I don't need to log on either anymore (HUGE plus), since steam is always up.

Also, what do you mean 64x or 86x versions (yes, I know it's for ram utilization within a game to go over 2GB for 1 program)? Do you mean for the game, or for steam? And how do I check?

Steam never slowed down game for everyone except some AMD GPU users, but Steam Overlay do.
Still if you keep community overlay disabled you shouldn't get any performance loss.

Heh, I have an AMD Radeon 7950 boost Hope I'm not affected.

By all accounts amd cards are performing well now. Early in development nvidia cards had significant advantage in part due to better support from nvidia guys with the graphics engine. Since then driver updates and improvements to the graphics code have leveled the playing field so I think you should be ok

They both automaticly update when you launch the program last time I used the launcher.

But Steam is alot faster, unless you have a SSD drive, as the Uber laucher first scans your installation to see what needs to be updated.
And Steam lets you know about a new update without having to restart Steam.
As mentioned acces to the PTE verions (test builds) is more anoying on steam, you have to use the laucher in the steam folder.

64 version of PA? How can we set that?

well you need to go to:
Steam\SteamApps\common\Planetary Annihilation\bin_x64
and use that PA, so delete your PA in desktop and use that, or you can configure on Steam to always open on that...

How do I configure Steam to open a different exe file? I tried looking and can't seem to figure it out. Could you provide a step by step for those of us who haven't done this before?

Steam should install the appropriate version for your os... if your running on a 64 bit os it should be running the 64 bit exe....

That's good to know, as I'm using 64 bit Win 7. I guess I'll just find out when I play and see if it's able to go over 2GB without crashing.

No, you can activate it from the steam library, righclick the game, go to "properties" and then choose Betas, then select pte.

Yeah, how much ram do you have? If you have 6gb+, then try loading up the pax system, it uses about 4gb as far as I'm aware so that'd prove it for certain