Steam is a service, so it will use some of your computer's resources. It runs in the background and uses about 1% of cpu resources (on my system anyway) most of the time. That can rise dramatically if you enable a lot of optional things, such as Steam Overlay. And if you use cloud sync, you may find a lot of resources being used on startup as Steam syncs all your game saves.
Your milage may vary, but for me, Steam is the best and easiest way to organize and maintain my library of games. It is stable, reliable, and uses far fewer resources than a service like Windows 10. And the game sales aren't bad either.
If you sow your wild oats, hope for a crop failure.
The past two versions of Farm Sim I purchased directly from Giants, but I have decided to go the Steam route this time around mostly to take advantage of any DLCs that go sale through Steam.
PC player of FS19, FS17, FS15, and FS13
Don't criticize the farmer with your mouth full.
Computer Specs in spoiler.
Intel i3-6100 3.7GHz CPU
Gigabyte Radeon RX 470 w/ 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM
8GB of DDR4 RAM
Windows 10
275GB SSD + 1TB HHD
JTaylor801 wrote:While I don't play Arma, the games I do play (FS15, ETS2, ATS) all work without an internet connection. I'll admit that was always something I wondered about and would have been reluctant to go the Steam route. But they do work fine if no internet connection is present.
I would assume that the Steam client will not steal "to much" of the computers resources ... but ... do we know how much?
I used to not like steam, however over the past few years i have come to love it, its not just about games, its about everything it allows you to do.
Updates Automatically all games.
Create groups.
Add friends. Message friends, stream to your friends.
The steam market place, (No good for FS but other games its cool)
One of my fav things is in house stream, i care for my wife, so someday i cannot get upstairs on my main gaming system. However i can use steam to stream the game to my old dual core 2GB on-board graphics system down stairs, so i can be with her but also gaming witch is great.
Reviews from members so you can see what a game is like before buying.
Sales steam has plenty of sales witch is the only time i buy games really, that or g2a.
All your games in one place, we do manage to travel a bit, and i just take my laptop, its not the best but plays some games, i can just login to steam and i have the games i want.
Apps for phones ect so you can stay in contact with friends via your phone.
I was even aware you could still get games on disk, i really dont see any point to them anymore. You buy a digital copy of the game you own the game just the same has if you had a disk, plus you dont have to worry about losing it or it getting marked ect.
Another benefit to Steam is the money back option. Not that any of us would request this for FS17, but I've purchased games on Steam and just realized it wasn't my cup of tea.
W1der wrote:Hjm ...
Thanks for all the feedback ... !
You guys are not making it easier for me ...
But at least I learned a bit more about Steam ... and I might be less "anti" from now on ...
However ... I will probably go with a download from Giants for FS17.
"Fingers crossed" I will have my Saitek wheel back by then ...
I think you going with a good choice. I think you can actually add the game to Steam once you buy an "outside" game. When I installed Steam one time, I noticed the "add game" option...
Steam is a service, so it will use some of your computer's resources. It runs in the background and uses about 1% of cpu resources (on my system anyway) most of the time. That can rise dramatically if you enable a lot of optional things, such as Steam Overlay. And if you use cloud sync, you may find a lot of resources being used on startup as Steam syncs all your game saves. 
