Steam gets a whole lot of improvements for the new Big Picture Mode

Still not quite ready yet it seems but Valve are pushing out lots of changes for the new Big Picture Mode, taken from the Steam Deck. Released in a new Steam Client Beta, there's quite a lot of improvements and fixes this time.

Here's what's new:

New Big Picture Mode

• Fixed some scaling issues that led to UI being offset slightly in various places
• Center the Big Picture Mode window when not running in fullscreen mode (i.e. when -windowed is passed as a command-line argument)
• Fixed issue where navigating to the Steam Store would sit at the loading screen (e.g. after exiting BPM to return to the desktop UI, and then back to BPM)
• Fixed some issues where the UI would not navigate properly within the Overlay
• Fixed issue where the controller configurator would not be displayed within the Overlay for some games that Steam calls to open it
• Fixed issue where the incorrect Patch Notes were displayed
• Fixed issue with the Virtual Keyboard also showing in the main window when it was invoked within the Overlay
• Fixed issue where the footer would update in the main window when the user was navigating the UI in the Overlay
• Removed Steam Deck specific dialog warning the user about running multiple games
• When installing a game always show the install location picker if there is more than one library folder, and automatically focus the default library folder when the dialog shows up
• Add a toggle to Settings->Display->Advanced to force GPU accelerated rendering for GPUs that are in the embedded browser's blocklist
• Fixed automatically switching audio devices on launch on Linux
• Fixed the old version of Big Picture Mode opening when hitting the Steam/Guide button on the Steam window
• Fixed issues where the main window would close and then be reloaded:
  • When selecting a friend in the previously or recently played
  • When selecting a guide in a game's Community Feed
  • When selecting the "Downloading" label on a game's detail page

General

• Center the popup controller configurator window when viewing controller layout
• Fixed issue where Steam would be unable to connect in some cases after suspend/resume
• Fixed recently played games not showing up in the MRU list on the notification area icon or the Recent Games shelf in library

The bug where opening the Steam menu (at least on Fedora KDE Plasma + NVIDIA) shows what's behind the Big Picture Mode window is still present, annoyingly. Hopefully Valve will solve that one soon as well. Trying to open the Quick Access Menu (Xbox button + A for example) sometimes brings up the main Steam menu first too, it's a little too quick to react at times. Still, even in the rough state it's still in right now, it's going to be a lot better than the original Big Picture Mode.