Steam has to be running before launching game?

[amoeba00]

Hadn't noticed until recently that when I launch a Steam Game from Vortex, it won't launch unless the Steam client is already running. I don't recall that to be the case, but then I only recently went back to playing a Vortex supported game (Elex) and I also recently switched to Windows 11 (clean install). Same thing happens with Horizon Zero Dawn - though it does generate a Steam SDK error whereas Elex shows "running" in Vortex, then doesn't. (Running latest version of Vortex with custom installer.)

 

The program link in Vortex has the correct SteamID listed and if I just launch the desktop shortcut (points to SteamID) without Vortex the game auto launches Steam and launches the game. Again, I don't recall this behavior when I was running Windows 10. Am I missing something? Thanks!

 

[Pickysaurus]

Vortex will launch all Steam games via Steam. Some of them require that due to DRM. If you'd rather not have Steam running you can create a dashboard shortcut that simply runs the EXE file.

[amoeba00]

Vortex will launch all Steam games via Steam. Some of them require that due to DRM. If you'd rather not have Steam running you can create a dashboard shortcut that simply runs the EXE file.

 

Sorry I wasn't clear. The difference is that previously, I didn't have to launch Steam. Vortex launched Steam if it wasn't already running. Now I have to manually launch Steam in order to launch it from Vortex.

[amoeba00]

So did something change or am I missing a setting somewhere? Just updated to latest version (v1.5.6) and I still have to manually launch Steam before launching the game from Vortex. Thanks!

[amoeba00]

No suggestions? Does Vortex no longer have the ability to auto-launch the required DRM launchers?

[rmm200]

This is just personal experience.

As a rule, I always launch Steam when I reboot my computer.

If I don't do that, when I use Vortex to launch Skyrim or Fallout 4, Steam gets launched, but the Bethesda launcher starts instead of SKSE or F4SE.

If I get the game Options window, I just exit the game and launch it again from Vortex. Works normally this time.

 

I have not tried this scenario, calling SKSE64_loader.exe directly. Might be worth seeing what happens - although I suspect it will be the same.

 

This is not a bug to me; just the way it is.

 

Oh - and this is not new behavior. It has always worked this way for me.

[amoeba00]

Oh - and this is not new behavior. It has always worked this way for me.

 

Thanks for the reply. It's been while since I've played any Vortex supported games, but when I was on Win10 - I didn't have to launch Steam separately. Now that I'm on Win11 - I didn't know if that was it or the multiple versions of Vortex since - or a combination of both.

 

If I have some time, I'll put my Win10 drive back in the computer and see if that alone makes a difference. Meanwhile, it's not that big of a deal to launch Steam beforehand - but I don't have anything but the bare minimum auto-load with Windows.