Steam's Hidden Object Fest is live, and as you can tell from the trailer we've hidden (in plain sight) above, it's packed with discounts on games that require your keen eye.
Search through buildings, castles, rooms, piles, you name it: The objective is to find the object.
The Steam Hidden Object Fest, on now through April 13th. Go check it out now!
We have just shipped an updated Steam Deck Client to the Preview/Beta channel.
Downloads
Added Remote Downloads Management. This allows you to manage downloads on Remote Steam Clients from the downloads page. You can select different clients by pressing Y on the downloads page.
The App Details page now has the same options and statuses for remote clients as the local client.
Both the local and remote clients must be updated to enable this feature.
Store Home Beta
Fixed "..." context menu in Discounts & Events section
Increased number of capsules per page in various carousels
Smoothed the Featured & Recommended carousel transitions
Updated the Recently Updated section's capsules to link to the corresponding announcement for the game
Steam Input
Fixed a case where radial menus would fail to dismiss after releasing the joystick on Steam Deck
We're giving the Steam store home a refresh, and you can try it out now by opting into the latest Steam beta within your desktop client.
The updated design is our latest work in making improvements across the Steam store, like the game page updates we made a few months ago. The new layout aims to make it even easier for you to find new games by displaying more content and information. We're now displaying higher resolution game art for better visual clarity. Those of you with higher resolution monitors will notice the new store home is wider and more responsive. If you're viewing the store home on Steam Deck or in Big Picture mode you'll also see these updates.
Updates
Overall Design Refresh: Over the years we've introduced new sections and added new ways for you to discover and learn about games, and this update aims to make the store home feel more cohesive. Each section has a distinct set of tools and information to give users many ways to explore the diverse catalog of games on Steam. A goal of this visual refresh is to strike a balance between providing more consistency in UI elements, while allowing the unique nature of each section to show through.
Featured & Recommended: There is now more detailed information highlighting the reason a game is being recommended to you; plus a user review round-up.Β When hovering over a game's cover art, the game's micro-trailer will play for a quick peak at the action. We also added a sneak-peek of the adjacent games in the carousel.
Option to disable: Micro-trailer hovers and animated marketing assets can be disabled in Store Settings for users with motion sensitivity.
Discounts & Events: Now useslarger game artwork.
Updated Discovery Queue: A quicker way to browse titles in your Discovery Queue without leaving the page.
Better Hover States: A short description is presented along with other relevant information. The UI is updated to provide better contrast and legibility.Β
Infinite Scroll: Refreshed design to bring this part of the store home in line visually and functionally with the rest of the sections.
New Sections
Your Wishlist: This section, as you might guess, features games on discount from your wishlist.Β
DLC for Your Games:Β This section will feature DLC that's on discount for games from your library.
About the beta
We're constantly looking to make Steam better, and we make decisions based on data and feedback we receive.Β The Steam Client Beta is a great way to test features that are in-progress and provide impactful feedback.
Welcome to your humble abode for the weekβSteam House & Home Festβfeaturing discounts and demos on games all about the home from now through April 6th at 10AM Pacific.
You'll be floored by all the ways you can make a home your own, whether interior decoration, cleaning, organizing, power-washing, renovating, or anything in between. Chores may be no fun in real life, but in these games, there's nothing quite so satisfying as having everything in its right place.
Note: This update is for the Steam Deck Preview channel, and includes new features that are still being tested. You can opt into this in Settings > System > System Update Channel.
These notes contain all changes since the current stable SteamOS 3.7 release, with the changes added since the previous preview noted in bold
General
New in 3.8.1 Fixed a case where WiFi performance could become degraded until the device was put to sleep or manually reconnected
New in 3.8.1 Fixed excessive trackpad sensitivity on certain early Steam Deck LCD models
Initial support for upcoming Steam Machine hardware
Updated Arch system base
Updated graphics driver with performance and stability fixes
Fixed a case where per-app performance settings would intermittently fail to apply when launching a game
Improved support for the screencasts in Game Mode (e.g. OBS/Discord)
Fixed dropdown menus not appearing in some games
Improved VRR frame pacing
Fixed FSR badge remaining off in the performance overlay, even if it was actually active
Improved support for games that attempt to open PDF files in external viewers
Fixed an issue affecting certain titles (such as "SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide") where the game window could have an incorrect position
Fixed closing certain titles (such as "STAR WARS Jedi: Survivorβ’") and Starfield resulting in a session crash
Improved support for certain USB racing wheels and USB devices that boot in a non-standard mode
Frequently these are devices that appear as USB storage devices with a driver installer, and must be switched to their normal mode by the OS
Steam Deck controller firmware updates now display update progress on the splash screen
Fixes issue on specific Steam Deck revisions where firmware updates could render the left controller inoperative for that session
Numerous stability and security updates
Bluetooth
Re-re-enable Bluetooth Wake for Steam Deck LCD
Fix for more spurious wake issues that were present in earlier attempts
Audio
Detect HDMI channel count and expose surround configuration if available
Add a setting to allow using Bluetooth headset mics (Bluetooth playback quality will be worse while capture is active)
Restore internal audio device on reboot if set to "Off" in desktop mode
Increase suspend timeout for HDMI devices so initial audio isn't cut off after a few seconds of inactivity
Fixed a bug with switching input devices when a wired headset is plugged in
Fixed an issue where audio underruns could be experienced after sleep/resume
Accessibility
Added an option to force mono audio output
Desktop Mode
KDE Plasma updated to version 6.4.3 from 6.2.5, and now uses wayland by default
Fixes several cases of reduced performance in Desktop Mode compared to Game Mode
Improved support for rotated displays
Better scale factor out of the box on TVs
Adds support for external HDR displays
Adds support for VRR displays
Adds support per-display scale factor
For more information, see Plasma release announcements
This release includes a variety of bug fixes and quality of life improvements for SteamVR.
We continue to focus on OpenXR as our preferred API for new games and applications. SteamVRβs official OpenXR subforum is here and weβd love to hear your feedback, as well as suggestions for new features.
SteamVR:
Overlays now render translucent grey backsides, unless docked to a controller.
Third-party overlay apps wonβt have translucent backsides until recompiled with the next OpenVR SDK.
Fix cases where loading drivers would fail for paths containing non-ASCII characters.
Fix motion smoothing not working with latest Nvidia drivers.
Fix for VRAM leak on some AMD systems.
Fixed an issue where the audio thread for Steam Link VR was using too much CPU.
Change how our Oculus driver handles initialization failure. This affects people who use Oculus headsets with the Oculus Desktop app, as well as people who stream to their HMDs (all types, not only Quest) with Virtual Desktop Streamer. The driver will no longer be unloaded on failure, which was causing crashes. Some failures which resulted in safe mode restarts will now display better diagnostic information.
Steam Link:
Fix Pico headsets under-reporting recommended render resolution (increased to 2160x2160 from 1832x1920).
Improvements to slider groupings in settings section.
Reduce stutters when adjusting encoded video size.
OpenXR:
Fix API layers UI not displaying layers if a path for one was not found.
Fix case where XR_META_recommended_layer_resolution would always return low resolutions.
Fix case where XR_META_performance_metrics could return errors for valid performance metric counter paths.
Pressing the system button will no longer instantly cause the session state to change to VISIBLE. The system now waits to decide if the user is doing a quick recenter, screenshot, or opening the dashboard.
Fixed a hang caused by invoking render model APIs and then destroying the instance before the initial API calls finished.
Fix for OpenXR quad layers updating at reduced frame rate under certain conditions.
Fix for OpenXR apps which create multiple sessions and submit quad layers being unable to submit quad layers after the first session (notably: Unreal Editor)
Steam VR Home:
Fixed multiplayer lobbies to accept connections again.
Developers:
SteamVR will no longer forcibly terminate the Unreal Editor process when exiting.
As always, if you are interested, we encourage enrolling into SteamVR Beta by right-clicking on SteamVR in your Steam library, clicking on "Properties" and selecting "Betas" from the list on the left hand side and then clicking "Beta" under Beta Participation. Additionally, if you use Steam Link for Meta Quest, you can opt into the beta here or in-headset by going to your library, clicking the "..." on Steam Link, selecting Settings and clicking the button to the right of "Installed Version Information."
Help & Information:
The Steam Link for Meta Quest FAQ page is available here.
If you encounter issues with this update, please post in the SteamVR Bug Report forum. If possible, please include a SteamVR System Report to aid in tracking down your issue. Replies to this post are not tracked for bug reporting purposes. Please use the forum linked above to report issues.
The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes:
Big Picture
Fixed an issue with the "use the gamepadui overlay when a controller is connected" mode where desktopUI chat windows could open and block the Big Picture overlay.
Game Recording
Fixed the instant clip shortcut not working for non-Steam games when using a gamepad.
Linux SteamRT3 Beta
Fixed games failing to start when when some custom launch options are specified.
Fixed client startup loop that could occur in rare circumstance when Steam config directory is in an unexpected state.
Remote Play
Fixed launching with surround sound audio when streaming a game from the library
The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes:
Remote Play
Added a workaround for an AMD driver bug causing stream corruption and lockups on Windows. This bug is also fixed in the latest AMD drivers, version 26.3.1.
The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes:
Big Picture Mode
Moved Steam chat into the quick access menu, making it easier to access while in-game.
Introduced new quick chat feature for Steam Deck and Big Picture Mode
When in a chat, press and hold the view button to bring up quick chat options.
Move thumbstick and release view button to send a quick chat.
Quick chats can be edited in Settings > Keyboard
Remote Play
Enabled streaming while Remote Desktop is active on Windows
Added more flexible options to the Advanced Host Options for selecting primary display, resolution, refresh rate, etc. while streaming from a Windows computer. This will also allow setting whether HDR is enabled while streaming.
Added support for the SudoVDA virtual display driver on Windows. If you have the SudoVDA driver installed and select this as your primary display in the Advanced Host Options, Steam will automatically create a virtual display to match the client display settings.
Linux SteamRT3 Beta
The Steam for Linux client can now be run inside a Steam Runtime container. This will help the Steam client provide a more consistent experience across multiple distributions. This is the same technology we use for Steam games.
The SteamRT3 beta client is distributed alongside the regular beta client. You can opt-in to the beta client via the 'Use experimental SteamRT3 Steam Client' toggle in Settings->Interface.
The SteamRT3 beta client has been updated to 64 bits.
Please report issues specific to the SteamRT3 beta in the Beta Forums or the steam-for-linux issue tracker.
Note: This update is for the Steam Deck Preview channel, and includes new features that are still being tested. You can opt into this in Settings > System > System Update Channel.
Known Issue: Users not currently opted into Preview channel updates may be automatically returned to the Beta channel when attempting to opt-in. This can be worked around by enabling "Advanced Update Channels" in developer settings, and will be fixed in an upcoming Steam Client update.
General
Initial support for upcoming Steam Machine hardware
Updated Arch system base
Updated graphics driver with performance and stability fixes
Fix a case where per-app performance settings would intermittently fail to apply when launching a game
Improved support for the screencasts in Game Mode (e.g. OBS/Discord)
Fixed dropdown menus not appearing in some games
Improved VRR frame pacing
Fixed FSR badge remaining off in the performance overlay, even if it was actually active
Improved support for games that attempt to open PDF files in external viewers
Fixed an issue affecting certain titles (such as "SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide") where the game window could have an incorrect position
Fixed closing certain titles (such as "STAR WARS Jedi: Survivorβ’") and Starfield resulting in a session crash
Improved support for certain USB racing wheels and USB devices that boot in a non-standard mode
Frequently these are devices that appear as USB storage devices with a driver installer, and must be switched to their normal mode by the OS
Steam Deck controller firmware updates now display update progress on the splash screen
Fixes issue on specific Steam Deck revisions where firmware updates could render the left controller inoperative for that session
Numerous stability and security updates
Bluetooth
Re-re-enable Bluetooth Wake for Steam Deck LCD
Fix for more spurious wake issues that were present in earlier attempts
Audio
Detect HDMI channel count and expose surround configuration if available
Add a setting to allow using Bluetooth headset mics (Bluetooth playback quality will be worse while capture is active)
Restore internal audio device on reboot if set to "Off" in desktop mode
Increase suspend timeout for HDMI devices so initial audio isn't cut off after a few seconds of inactivity
Fixed a bug with switching input devices when a wired headset is plugged in
Fixed an issue where audio underruns could be experienced after sleep/resume
Accessibility
Added an option to force mono audio output
Desktop Mode
KDE Plasma updated to version 6.4.3 from 6.2.5, and now uses wayland by default
Fixes several cases of reduced performance in Desktop Mode compared to Game Mode
Improved support for rotated displays
Better scale factor out of the box on TVs
Adds support for external HDR displays
Adds support for VRR displays
Adds support per-display scale factor
For more information, see Plasma release announcements
No matter what your favorite kind of game may be, this is a great time to shop for deals in the Steam Spring Sale. View the trailer above for a quick glance at the wide range of themes and genres youβll find; or just stop reading this blog post right now and head straight to the sale itself!
The Steam Spring Sale is our first store-wide seasonal sale of the year, and the discounts are, much like the pollen seeping into our noses this time of year, everywhere. But in a good way!
Join us for the Steam Spring Sale, on now through March 26th at 10 a.m. PT on Steam.
A new Steam client has been released and will be automatically downloaded.
General
Fix a rare crash when downloading games if regional content server ends HTTP/2 connection in an unexpected manner.
Fix intermittent error when opening Big Picture Mode overlay.
Big Picture
Fixed the Universal Facebutton Glyph setting not being applied in the footer.
Windows
Fixed the Xbox Game Bar opening the Steam Overlay unintentionally during gameplay.
Fixed games that enable and utilize WM_POINTER events for mouse input seeing mouse actions through the in-game overlay when it is up (latest Unity engine builds in particular).
Linux
Fixed a case where the client would get stuck in a loading spinner after restarting in Offline Mode.