PC players may simply make a joke that three issues in life by no means change: demise, taxes, and the basic look of Steam. A type of issues simply modified, although; Valve simply launched probably the most substantial overhaul to Steam in years, together with a visible makeover and a number of other new options.
Additional, the corporate has introduced the Mac and Linux variations of Steam nearer to parity with the traditionally superior Home windows model.
Valve says “probably the most impactful adjustments” are literally below the hood. The corporate’s builders put effort into reaching better consistency between how issues work in Steam for desktop, the TV-oriented Large Image mode, and Steam Deck. This codebase overhaul signifies that new options that come to the desktop model of Steam can concurrently ship on Steam Deck with minimal effort.
As for stuff that is seen to customers, although, your entire software’s look has been overhauled and modernized. Most often, issues are kind of the place they was once within the interface—they simply look a bit of totally different, with new fonts, colours, sizes, and so forth.
That stated, the in-game overlay has obtained a extra vital overhaul, as did notifications.
Steam customers have entry to extra customizations about how and when notifications are displayed, and the notifications panel shows solely new notifications, with a “view all” button for digging into older ones.
On the whole, the overlay has extra details about the sport you are enjoying, from achievement progress to enjoying time and past. Valve has made huge adjustments to the controller configurator from the Steam Deck, which is now a part of the overlay at any time when a sport is related.
The overlay can also be residence to arguably probably the most substantial user-facing characteristic: the power to take notes contained in the Steam overlay whereas enjoying a sport. The notes are related to that sport, you’ll be able to write a number of notes per sport, they usually help wealthy textual content formatting.
It does not cease there. Now you can pin particular person home windows from Steam’s overlay so they seem on high of your sport even when the overlay is closed, and you may regulate the transparency of those home windows to your desire. This works not only for notes but in addition for achievements, the net browser, guides, and discussions.
All of that applies to the Home windows, Mac, and Linux variations of Steam. On high of that, Steam now helps {hardware} acceleration on macOS and Linux. Meaning these variations have achieved parity with Home windows for the primary time.
In case you’ve ever used Steam on Mac or Linux earlier than, you realize it has lengthy felt each sluggish and sloppy. That is not the case anymore. It is a night-and-day enchancment on these platforms.
These adjustments rolled out this week and needs to be obtainable to all customers by now.
Itemizing picture by Valve