After being in Beta since the end of July, Valve has now released a big update to the stable version of the Steam client for everyone which has the new Downloads Page & Storage Management.
The new Downloads Page is actually a big improvement overall. Allowing you to drag and drop games around in the list. It now also correctly shows the total progression based on the downloading and disk allocation. You will also see a new (i) icon you can hover over on some updates which shows different types of content included and plenty more tweaks as you can see in the below shot:
Another big one is the overhaul of the Steam library folder management with the new Storage Manager. Instead of a plain list it now gives you easy access to each folder you have set up. From there you can repair folders, make them default, see when you last played each game and how much space they take up and more. It's another big improvements for the Steam client overall.
For Linux specifically there's these changes:
- Fixed regression causing too many open file handles error during downloads of some games
- Library pinning process is significantly faster at startup after runtime updates
- Restore compatibility with NixOS (steam-runtime#431)
- Make /usr/share/nvidia available to the container if using the NVIDIA proprietary driver, so that app-specific profiles can be applied (steam-runtime-tools#73)
- Silence most LD_PRELOAD warnings
- SDL 2.0.16 now available in sdk and runtime
- Fix web views incompatibility with distro host freetype (steam-for-linux#7935)
There's plenty of other smaller bits like support for the current set of PowerA Xbox Series X controllers, bug fixes for Remote Play Together, Valve removed the Recent Friend Activity library shelf and more. See the release notes.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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They fixed freetype bug by introducing another bug affecting other people. I know these things happen, but you don't promote this fix to stable. It is quite irresponsive. In the effect Steam won't work for people who don't have cups installed.
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Still taking ages to start the client. Wish they would at least add a a banner or something to indicate the client is loading.
Still wonder why this is the case for some and for some others not...
Might be raw single core power. Whatever it does the first minute or so it only seems to utilize one core at a time.
I've got below 10 seconds I think. My processor (Ryzen 3700X is it) cannot be that stronger. :D
Last edited by Eike on 10 September 2021 at 5:48 pm UTC
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Schattenspiegel Sep 10, 2021
well, core2quad here with 2.66 GHz so, yes, it hopefully is otherwise I will never have a reason to upgrade ;-)Still wonder why this is the case for some and for some others not...
Might be raw single core power. Whatever it does the first minute or so it only seems to utilize one core at a time.
I've got below 10 seconds I think. My processor (Ryzen 3700X is it) cannot be that stronger. :D
We managed to solve the issue (see above) and I am now down to ~12 seconds.
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is it just me or does the download seem faster on this or is it just in my head
I had the downloads usually use my full 55 mbps, so I'm not expecting anything on this front. :)
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I like what they've done with the design, but the new storage manager seems to be confused about my folder structure.
I have two tabs for "Local drive" (the drive where my operating system is), one of which is empty and the other does a breakdown of my entire drive, not just the steam directory. I also have a tab for my additional drive, but it categorizes everything on it as "other" even though the only data on it is Steam games.
Either I've somehow done something wrong or they have a few bugs to fix...
I have two tabs for "Local drive" (the drive where my operating system is), one of which is empty and the other does a breakdown of my entire drive, not just the steam directory. I also have a tab for my additional drive, but it categorizes everything on it as "other" even though the only data on it is Steam games.
Either I've somehow done something wrong or they have a few bugs to fix...
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Really like that they now display the patch notes on the download page!
3 Likes, Who?
Interesting: with SSD + HDD(raid0) ~ 1 minute
with SSD only ~ 12 seconds
to load the client.
Edit:
And for reasons unknown the loading time stays at 12 second after remounting the HDDs even after rebooting
Thank you very much! I would never have tried that.
HDD went to sleep and motor powered down? When remounting, the drive would be woken up.
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Probably worth mentioning where the Storage Manager is located: Settings > Downloads > STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS
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Schattenspiegel Sep 11, 2021
Interesting: with SSD + HDD(raid0) ~ 1 minute
with SSD only ~ 12 seconds
to load the client.
Edit:
And for reasons unknown the loading time stays at 12 second after remounting the HDDs even after rebooting
Thank you very much! I would never have tried that.
HDD went to sleep and motor powered down? When remounting, the drive would be woken up.
nope: I had the slow start problem for quite a few months now (one of the Steam patches). Neither library repair, changing between beta and stable client nor removal/addition of the Steam-libraries was able to fix it. It seems starting Steam with HDD (containing one of the libraries) unmounted caused some configuration file to be rewritten which fixed the problem.
Last edited by Schattenspiegel on 11 September 2021 at 2:09 am UTC
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slaapliedje Sep 11, 2021
Like it needs to wake up Neo?Interesting: with SSD + HDD(raid0) ~ 1 minute
with SSD only ~ 12 seconds
to load the client.
Edit:
And for reasons unknown the loading time stays at 12 second after remounting the HDDs even after rebooting
Thank you very much! I would never have tried that.
HDD went to sleep and motor powered down? When remounting, the drive would be woken up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9XP96PW6us
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furaxhornyx Sep 11, 2021
Cast 'im out! Tar! Feathers! Wailing! Gnashing of Teeth!!!This storage manager thing looks like it was created with the Steam Deck in mind.I was thinking that too. But it's very fast and responsive, at least on Windows (don't judge me!).
For some reason I read this with an Ork voice in mind
1 Likes, Who?
Interesting: with SSD + HDD(raid0) ~ 1 minute
with SSD only ~ 12 seconds
to load the client.
Edit:
And for reasons unknown the loading time stays at 12 second after remounting the HDDs even after rebooting
Thank you very much! I would never have tried that.
HDD went to sleep and motor powered down? When remounting, the drive would be woken up.
Interesting idea, but shouldn't that be way faster than a minute?
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Privacy?Library: The Recent Friend Activity shelf has been removed.But why?
I actually would buy a lot more games if I could just filter out some of the statistics it publishes about me. I mean, talking for a friend, because I do not play nor have the games I talk about.
3 Likes, Who?
Since they seem to be using chromium as their UI engine, I wonder if it is because they never ever purged or reindexed the database. About all browsers use an sqlite3 database, and they mostly use it as inser and forget.Interesting: with SSD + HDD(raid0) ~ 1 minute
with SSD only ~ 12 seconds
to load the client.
Edit:
And for reasons unknown the loading time stays at 12 second after remounting the HDDs even after rebooting
Thank you very much! I would never have tried that.
HDD went to sleep and motor powered down? When remounting, the drive would be woken up.
nope: I had the slow start problem for quite a few months now (one of the Steam patches). Neither library repair, changing between beta and stable client nor removal/addition of the Steam-libraries was able to fix it. It seems starting Steam with HDD (containing one of the libraries) unmounted caused some configuration file to be rewritten which fixed the problem.
I used to have a shell script that traverses al sqlite3 databases, reindex/vacuumed them, filtered some urls from the history and so on. I mean, no should know your political preference by looking in your history.
These days however the history is uploaded to the google cloud for offline analysis.
But back to what I mean to say: maybe, just maybe they added a field and hence needed to rebuild the database ;-).
Last edited by Ardje on 13 September 2021 at 8:36 am UTC
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As long as I can not fix my steam controller settings from the desktop variant, I would not even bother to look.
I do hope that steam os 3 and accompanying client release will merge all in one client engine with just different themes.
Last edited by Ardje on 13 September 2021 at 8:38 am UTC
I do hope that steam os 3 and accompanying client release will merge all in one client engine with just different themes.
Last edited by Ardje on 13 September 2021 at 8:38 am UTC
0 Likes
Privacy?Library: The Recent Friend Activity shelf has been removed.But why?
I actually would buy a lot more games if I could just filter out some of the statistics it publishes about me. I mean, talking for a friend, because I do not play nor have the games I talk about.
I have a short friends list, but one of them is a former boss still working in my company. I do know these thoughts. If I would play such despicable games, that is, of course.
1 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje Sep 13, 2021
Ha, we probably all have some of those games in our libraries because of Humble Bundles or something. I generally just leave myself logged out of the Friends thing anyhow, especially when in VR, as having the pop ups mid-game saying so and so just logged in, or is playing whatever game, is rather annoying.Privacy?Library: The Recent Friend Activity shelf has been removed.But why?
I actually would buy a lot more games if I could just filter out some of the statistics it publishes about me. I mean, talking for a friend, because I do not play nor have the games I talk about.
I have a short friends list, but one of them is a former boss still working in my company. I do know these thoughts. If I would play such despicable games, that is, of course.
2 Likes, Who?
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