Valve put up a new Steam Client Beta yesterday and while small, it is a pretty damn useful update for Steam Play users.
Firstly, they claim to have solved the issue of having an invisible cursor when you bring up the Steam Overlay for Windows games played through Steam Play. It's a massive nuisance when it happens, so it's good to see some time spent fixing it. However, it's not yet fully solved. Some games it works fine, others it does not.
I tested out Deep Rock Galactic in Steam Play and when you bring up the Steam Overlay, there's no cursor. However, if I alt+tab and come back to the game it is now there. Once I click to give the actual game focus and try the Steam Overlay again, the mouse is once again invisible.
Speaking about it on Discord, Valve said "yeah it looks like it only partially fixed things" and "there's two more bugs that were hiding behind it" and so they're working to solve the other issues. With that in mind, hopefully it won't be long until it's fully solved. Update: Valve put out another beta, which solves more mouse issues.
Valve also said they've now solved the issue where the Steam Client wouldn't automatically update or download Proton, before launching a Steam Play title. Hopefully now, we won't have to keep installing it through the tools menu.
Also, if you noticed when connecting a controller in the previous beta it would now give you a pop up to let you know it's connected. They've now added an option to disable that if it bugs you.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I stopped playing games only because of broken overlay. I hope it will work in games i play.
1 Likes, Who?
What do people use that overlay for, when gaming? For Steam chat? I just simply never enter that mode other than if someone happen to message me during a session...?
5 Likes, Who?
when you bring up the Steam Overlay, there's no cursor. However, if I alt+tab and come back to the game it is now there.I'm pretty sure I noticed this behaviour in the past as well.
Now, if pressing the guide button on the steam controller would open the big picture overlay when launched in desktop mode, that'd be great (or just show an option to remap controller, I often need this, and have to restart the game in big picture...).
It looks like the steam overlay could use some love... Even the steam controller configuration page seems buggy as hell, not always displaying all the options (I had trouble making activators work, and also some other configs, like outer ring radius, etc.). Oh, and mouse detection for activating action sets seems to be buggy at times. Is it related, or just because I'm using wayland?
Last edited by MayeulC on 29 March 2019 at 10:12 am UTC
2 Likes, Who?
What do people use that overlay for, when gaming? For Steam chat? I just simply never enter that mode other than if someone happen to message me during a session...?Achievements, guides... or sometimes just checking time if you are on one monitor only :D
7 Likes, Who?
What do people use that overlay for, when gaming? For Steam chat? I just simply never enter that mode other than if someone happen to message me during a session...?
I use it mostly for one thing: clicking "never show this message again" for games displaying non-Steam game codes. The original Far Cry displays the code, and as the cursor is not visible in the overlay, every time I start the game I need to switch to the overlay and back to get rid of it. A small nuisance, but still a nuisance.
I thought that the reason was the custom cursor used by Far Cry.
1 Likes, Who?
chris.echoz Mar 29, 2019
What do people use that overlay for, when gaming? For Steam chat? I just simply never enter that mode other than if someone happen to message me during a session...?I use it sometimes to see what time it is, respond to messages or use the web browser. Most of the time it's more convenient to just hide the game and use the regular Steam chat and Firefox, though.
One annoying thing is if you try to play a game that has an activation key for a different service (uPlay, Rockstar Social Club, GFWL, etc.) you can't close the notification without going into the overlay and clicking it away, but this only affects a minority of games.
0 Likes
Mountain Man Mar 29, 2019
What do people use that overlay for, when gaming? For Steam chat? I just simply never enter that mode other than if someone happen to message me during a session...?The internet browser is handy for looking up tips if you're stuck, and it's generally safer than ALT+TAB.
5 Likes, Who?
What do people use that overlay for, when gaming? For Steam chat? I just simply never enter that mode other than if someone happen to message me during a session...?Invites, guides, achievement checking, chat and many other reasons. Some games literally rely on the Steam Overlay for inviting into games, making it quite annoying to alt+tab, bring up Steam friends outside the game and invite from there. Having this properly fixed when they sort the other issues currently breaking it, will make it a much more streamlined process.
Never underestimate the importance of small papercuts like this putting people off.
9 Likes, Who?
gradyvuckovic Mar 29, 2019
What do people use that overlay for, when gaming? For Steam chat? I just simply never enter that mode other than if someone happen to message me during a session...?
I've always used it for a lot of stuff. Screenshots, music, Web browser in fullscreen games that don't like to alt tab, chat messages and joining multiplayer messages, checking the time and how long I've been playing, checking an achievement I just won. It's pretty useful unlike some overlays, again Valve shows the way here, some overlays offer no benefit at all while Steam manages to offer anything you could want from an overlay in a fullscreen game.
1 Likes, Who?
I think my most used reason for going to the Steam overlay might be to just check the time.
0 Likes
Nice thing for the invisible cursor.
Though this remembers me how annoying is when you play games in big picture mode with controller and the cursor sits there in the middle of the screen. (more so if you steam link and pc is in another room). Ofc it's not a Steam issue, it's a game issue. But maybe is there was an option to launch game in big picture mode and "default" the cursor on bottom dx this could be worked around.
Though this remembers me how annoying is when you play games in big picture mode with controller and the cursor sits there in the middle of the screen. (more so if you steam link and pc is in another room). Ofc it's not a Steam issue, it's a game issue. But maybe is there was an option to launch game in big picture mode and "default" the cursor on bottom dx this could be worked around.
2 Likes, Who?
Still invisible in stalker clear sky. But now overlay renders correctly.
0 Likes
seanbutnotheard Mar 29, 2019
What do people use that overlay for, when gaming? For Steam chat? I just simply never enter that mode other than if someone happen to message me during a session...?
In SteamOS/Big Picture (yes I'm still a loyal SteamOS user), it's nice to be able to tweak your controller config on the fly. Though I suppose this bug doesn't necessarily affect that situation since the controller can do the work.
2 Likes, Who?
In SteamOS/Big Picture (yes I'm still a loyal SteamOS user), it's nice to be able to tweak your controller config on the fly. Though I suppose this bug doesn't necessarily affect that situation since the controller can do the work.It's really annoying you can't open the controller config tool from the desktop overlay. Especially since you can bring up the main Steam client settings window. It'd be nice if a controller always opened the BPM overlay regardless of what mode the actual client's in.
For a developer so obsessive with level design in its games, it's weird that Valve is so terrible at UIs.
3 Likes, Who?
I have found, using i3 as my window manager, that I have no problems switching to a different desktop even with a game running full screen. Just thought I'd mention it for those who have difficulties with alt+tab. Though it's a tiling window manager so there's that.
Last edited by Maath on 29 March 2019 at 9:56 pm UTC
Last edited by Maath on 29 March 2019 at 9:56 pm UTC
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Looks like the last beta update fixed the remaining issues for me, from ~10min ago.
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Philadelphus Mar 30, 2019
What do people use that overlay for, when gaming? For Steam chat? I just simply never enter that mode other than if someone happen to message me during a session...?I use it for checking achievements—either to see which ones I have and decide which one(s) I feel like going for in a particular play session, or sometimes I'll get one seemingly at random and I'll pull it up to check and see what I just got it for. :D I'll also use it for referencing guides, since there's a handy link right there. And as mentioned, some games rely on it for inviting friends to play with you. Actually I barely use Steam chat itself…
I encountered this issue in Seasons After Fall, and checking now…it looks like it's fixed, so yay! ^_^
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