14 DAY TRIAL // After announcing the availability of a new Beta build for its SteamOS Linux operating system, which brought in a new Nvidia video driver with Vulkan support, Valve pushed just a few moments ago yet another Steam Beta Client.
The February 18 Beta build of the Steam Client adds, as expected, preliminary support for Vulkan games, which has been implemented in the Steam Overlay. Additionally, the Linux version of the Steam Client received support for the Vulkan ICD loader (a.k.a. libvulkan), implemented in the Steam Runtime.
Moreover, an issue that prevented Linux users from toggling the Steam Overlay in full-screen games without losing the connection to their mouse and keyboard peripherals has been addressed in the Steam Client Beta released on February 18, 2016. Also, users can now delete non-Steam apps without restarting the client.
Among other interesting changes, hidden non-Steam apps will remain like that until the Steam Client is restarted, the Big Picture got an increase for the drag scrolling friction, along with redesigned mouse scroll thumbs, which will now display if the content is available in a certain direction.
Steam Controller and SteamVR get more improvements
As expected, the Steam Controller got some much-needed attention in this release, and among the most interesting improvements, we can mention multiple improvements to the on-screen keyboard feature, and support for simultaneously using other controllers with Steam Controller.
Lastly, SteamVR got a few enhancements as well, such as the removal of the Big Picture startup sound when starting the SteamVR mode, drag scrolling sensitivity improvements, the ability to create shortcuts for non-Steam OpenRV apps inside Steam, and a few modifications to how the 'Play Game' button works.
Users who opted to use the Beta channel for the Steam Client can now update to this release and get all the goodies mentioned above. Don't forget to restart the client after the update has been downloaded. More details can be found in the official release notes.