I have 16gb or Ram and Ryzen 2600 and sometimes it takes quite a while also, but not always, I think that on my case it has something to do with the internet, maybe the client is trying to communicate to the servers and it can't do it, not sure. Also I found that if you leave the client on the front page of the store it uses more resources than leaving it on the library or the activity page.

kokoko3k

Spoiler, click me

Maybe it is not the right section to post this into, feel free to move, if needed.

Anyway,
In my system, steam takes quite a bit of system resources (cpu memory, gpu memory, sometimes cpu cycles).
Things are no way better since the introduction of the new library system since it seems everything now is done via the embedded browser, but I don't want to dig into how inefficient this could be.

Since my system specs are not stellar (only 3GB of video ram), i have to shut down the whole steam client when starting games which doesn't run from Steam.
(and for the games I start with the steam client, I just kill steamwebhelper processes; it somehow helps a bit, but this is not relevant now).

Question is in the topic, if I shut down the client, when I need to start it again, it takes something like a bunch of seconds (more than 10), even on an SSD. Of course i can live with that, but since my whole system starts in about the same time, i ask myself if there is some magic/hidden/locked switch i can use to make the client to start faster.

Thanks!

Thanks, definitely something to try, and thank you for the detailed explaination!

I'm waiting for the day you will need a browser based application to do 1+1=2.
Just wait and see

For the full-size client, there's a “Low Performance Mode” in the settings, under “Library”. I found it helped a lot when they introduced the new library, although not with the startup speed. “Low Bandwidth Mode”, on the same page, might be worth a shot too. Although, as the name suggests, it's intended to save network bandwidth, anything that loads less stuff into memory will surely help.

Count yourself lucky you have an SSD. I'm still on spinning rust, and Steam takes the best part of a minute to start. I'll have to try that -noverifyfiles switch.