Valve has now released the latest big update to the Steam client, which brings with it various UI updates and the new in-game Steam Overlay. This is the update they announced back in April, with it being promoted from Beta to Stable.
While there's plenty of tweaks, Valve said the biggest changes aren't actually user-visible because they've changed "how we share code across the Steam Desktop Client, Big Picture mode, and Steam Deck" resulting in "quicker implementation and iteration of new features" and now much code is shared between them.
Some of what's new includes:
- Various tweaks to the Steam App UI.
- Richer notifications.
- A whole new in-game overlay that lets you make notes, and pin windows on top of games.
- Hardware acceleration for Linux and macOS.
Here's an example of the new in-game overlay:
Really great update actually, the new overlay is many times more useful than the one before. The notes system is a good idea, and having it sync to your Steam account so you have it anywhere is really quite useful.
Check out Valve's overview video:
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Direct Link
Direct Link
Full Steam desktop app changes can be seen in their blog post.
Over on the Steam Deck, we finally have a fresh Stable Steam Client update as well, bundling together a whole lot of the tweaks and changes Valve has been putting out in Beta. Naturally, a lot of this is the same as what's found on desktop, since they are sharing code now but there's various specific Steam Deck tweaks like fixing the notorious issue of the Steam Deck claiming it cannot reach Steam servers when resuming from sleep. Most of it is bug fixing but there's also these additions and changes:
- Added support for notification types shown in the Desktop Client and Mobile app: Wishlist, Trade Offer, Steam Turn, Help Request, Major Sale, and Comment.
- Added a bell icon to the header when there are new notifications, and a green indicator to new notifications in the notifications list.
- Apply text filtering preferences in Guides in the Overlay.
- Expand the hitbox of buttons in the footer to make them easier to click.
- Improved performance of dual trackpad typing in the Virtual Keyboard.
- Any button press will now cancel the Wake custom startup movie.
- Changed game invitations to show the launch option dialog instead of using the first option in the list. If the user has selected an option and asked to remember it, that option will be used instead of showing the dialog.
- Added support for Mouse4 (Back) as B button in the interface.
- Search will now return tags in addition to games. You can search for categories like "Free to Play" or individual tags like "survival" or "zombies".
- Enabled additional toast notifications that were previously only visible in Desktop mode.
- Restored display of Special Offers in the What's New section of the home screen.
The full details of the Steam Deck update are here.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
WOW great news and WOW cassete beasts! the godot game got an free ad xD 0:24
anyway, i like and dont like this feature of anotations...
i mean, yeah its neat and if they didnt developed it thenselves someone else probably would with an worse implementation exclusive for windows (if that dont exists already)
but at the same time, as an artist i dont like it for the same reason im not a big fan of mods... it destroy the artistic vision.
and as a gamer, the last thing i want is to be constantly remined that im in an full screen game on a window-based desktop operating system in the real world... instead of... i dont know... inside an game...
that is imersion breaking and that could influence the way games are designed in the future, i mean, if your game makes the player confused you probably need to tweak it so the players dont get confused anymore instead of relying on then using an note taking overlay to keep track of their progress, this is usefull for old games that wont get new updates but it might encourage bad pratices on developers, especially the ones without much experience.
anyway, i like and dont like this feature of anotations...
i mean, yeah its neat and if they didnt developed it thenselves someone else probably would with an worse implementation exclusive for windows (if that dont exists already)
but at the same time, as an artist i dont like it for the same reason im not a big fan of mods... it destroy the artistic vision.
and as a gamer, the last thing i want is to be constantly remined that im in an full screen game on a window-based desktop operating system in the real world... instead of... i dont know... inside an game...
that is imersion breaking and that could influence the way games are designed in the future, i mean, if your game makes the player confused you probably need to tweak it so the players dont get confused anymore instead of relying on then using an note taking overlay to keep track of their progress, this is usefull for old games that wont get new updates but it might encourage bad pratices on developers, especially the ones without much experience.
0 Likes
pleasereadthemanual Jun 15, 2023
The hardware acceleration is nice and all, but the client is now tiny on my 4K screen (GNOME), and it takes 5 minutes for the "Processing Vulkan Shaders" prompt to appear when launching Halo: MCC, and even after explicitly skipping it, it says "Processing Vulkan Shaders (0%)" next to the Cancel button 5 minutes later. I assume it launches...at some point? I didn't bother waiting around after the first 10 minutes.
0 Likes
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualThe hardware acceleration is nice and all, but the client is now tiny on my 4K screen (GNOME), and it takes 5 minutes for the "Processing Vulkan Shaders" prompt to appear when launching Halo: MCC, and even after explicitly skipping it, it says "Processing Vulkan Shaders (0%)" next to the Cancel button 5 minutes later. I assume it launches...at some point? I didn't bother waiting around after the first 10 minutes.
Here's a tip for scaling:
steam -forcedesktopscaling 2
6 Likes, Who?
Ah, I was hoping they'd have fixed the Store/Web view going black when switching windows, before labelling it as stable. Maybe next update.
0 Likes
pleasereadthemanual Jun 15, 2023
Quoting: EikeThanks so much! This worked flawlessly. I couldn't figure out how to do this in the beta client I tried a month or so back. For everyone else's future reference, copy the .desktop Steam file from /usr/share/applications/steam.desktop to ~/.local/share/applications/steam.desktop, and add -forcedesktopscaling 2 to the Exec line.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualThe hardware acceleration is nice and all, but the client is now tiny on my 4K screen (GNOME), and it takes 5 minutes for the "Processing Vulkan Shaders" prompt to appear when launching Halo: MCC, and even after explicitly skipping it, it says "Processing Vulkan Shaders (0%)" next to the Cancel button 5 minutes later. I assume it launches...at some point? I didn't bother waiting around after the first 10 minutes.
Here's a tip for scaling:
steam -forcedesktopscaling 2
About 10 minutes later, Steam started downloading a "shader pre-cache update" of 2GB for Halo: MCC, despite me explicitly skipping it. In total, it took about...25 minutes to launch? Rocket League did the same thing. What is the point of a Skip button if it doesn't work anymore?
Last edited by pleasereadthemanual on 15 June 2023 at 11:20 am UTC
2 Likes, Who?
pleasereadthemanual Jun 15, 2023
Quoting: EikeHere's a tip for scaling:Sorry, I have to take it "working flawlessly" back. The Steam Overlay is HUGE when in-game. More like 4x, rather than 2x. I also can't drag windows around by clicking the top part of the window and trying to move it OR with SUPER+Left-Click, so I can't see the entire window.
steam -forcedesktopscaling 2
Last edited by pleasereadthemanual on 15 June 2023 at 11:29 am UTC
3 Likes, Who?
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: EikeHere's a tip for scaling:Sorry, I have to take it "working flawlessly" back. The Steam Overlay is HUGE when in-game. More like 4x, rather than 2x. I also can't drag windows around by clicking the top part of the window and trying to move it OR with SUPER+Left-Click, so I can't see the entire window.
steam -forcedesktopscaling 2
Sounds like two options kicking in the in-game overlay? Maybe you can remove the old one?
0 Likes
I've been enjoying the new overlay since it was in beta.
One thing I like that seems a bit new is the achievement window now able to be pinned and organizing the order of achievements to put unfinished ones on top.
If you resize it to display only one or two achievements make it transparent and pin it, it makes a handy little reminder.
Do wish we could have a clock and timer widget too as I like to see a clock as I play my games so I don't play too long.
I'd say a widget workshop would be nice too but I think that's beyond the scope.
Though I suppose the browser could be pinned with a useful tool displayed on a page.
It's a big improvement so far and it's been a great bit of help in some games.
Looking forward to seeing how they implement these things on the Steam Deck as I'm getting a bit spoiled by them on PC now.
One thing I like that seems a bit new is the achievement window now able to be pinned and organizing the order of achievements to put unfinished ones on top.
If you resize it to display only one or two achievements make it transparent and pin it, it makes a handy little reminder.
Do wish we could have a clock and timer widget too as I like to see a clock as I play my games so I don't play too long.
I'd say a widget workshop would be nice too but I think that's beyond the scope.
Though I suppose the browser could be pinned with a useful tool displayed on a page.
It's a big improvement so far and it's been a great bit of help in some games.
Looking forward to seeing how they implement these things on the Steam Deck as I'm getting a bit spoiled by them on PC now.
5 Likes, Who?
pleasereadthemanual Jun 15, 2023
Quoting: EikeI tried toggling off "Scale text and icons to match monitor settings (requires restart)", but this didn't make a difference. I have no clue what might be affecting it. I've dug through all the likely settings, and all I can tell you is I have hardware acceleration/decoding/smooth scrolling on. Also, I have display scaling set to 200% on GNOME, but font scaling is 100%. There's nothing untoward in the .desktop file, and I can drag windows in normal Steam, just not the overlay. It's a mystery to me.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: EikeHere's a tip for scaling:Sorry, I have to take it "working flawlessly" back. The Steam Overlay is HUGE when in-game. More like 4x, rather than 2x. I also can't drag windows around by clicking the top part of the window and trying to move it OR with SUPER+Left-Click, so I can't see the entire window.
steam -forcedesktopscaling 2
Sounds like two options kicking in the in-game overlay? Maybe you can remove the old one?
0 Likes
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: EikeI tried toggling off "Scale text and icons to match monitor settings (requires restart)", but this didn't make a difference. I have no clue what might be affecting it. I've dug through all the likely settings, and all I can tell you is I have hardware acceleration/decoding/smooth scrolling on. Also, I have display scaling set to 200% on GNOME, but font scaling is 100%. There's nothing untoward in the .desktop file, and I can drag windows in normal Steam, just not the overlay. It's a mystery to me.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: EikeHere's a tip for scaling:Sorry, I have to take it "working flawlessly" back. The Steam Overlay is HUGE when in-game. More like 4x, rather than 2x. I also can't drag windows around by clicking the top part of the window and trying to move it OR with SUPER+Left-Click, so I can't see the entire window.
steam -forcedesktopscaling 2
Sounds like two options kicking in the in-game overlay? Maybe you can remove the old one?
I'm totally speculating here, but maybe GNOME scaling works in overlay - and forcedesktopscaling too, so they get multiplied. You could give it a test by disabling GNOME scaling for a moment (if you still find your buttons then, that is ;) ).
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