14 DAY TRIAL // Today, December 12, 2016, Valve announced the availability of a new, major stable update for the Steam client across all supported platforms, including GNU/Linux, Windows, and macOS.
As one might expect, today's Steam client stable update includes all the goodies that those who are using the Beta channel were able to test drive for the past couple of months, but it looks like it also updates the Privacy Policy to comply with the Privacy Shield Framework as agreed by the US Department of Commerce and the European Commission.
General changes include the implementation of web links to the Steam Support pages in the "Change Password" wizard, higher bandwidth options for 4K streaming via the In-Home Streaming feature, better download and patching speeds for games installed on hard disk drives (HDD), and improved navigation for SteamVR for those who use the Steam dashboard with the Oculus Touch controller.
You can now access the music settings page from the Overlay
It also looks like the In-Home Streaming functionality was updated to support NvFBC with the latest Nvidia graphics driver, and there's now support for Steam Controller personalization during streaming. The Big Picture mode now displays game names in the Library page when the client is not able to load the artwork, and you can now access the music settings page in the Settings dialog when using the Steam Overlay.
For Linux users, today's Steam client update fixes various issues reported by users when attempting to install games on filesystems that report abnormally large sector sizes, such as ZFS. For Windows users, there's Overlay support for the Windows 10 Insider build when running 64-bit games. Finally, Steam Configurator support was implemented for the PlayStation 4 Dual-Shock controller.
"Enable in Big Picture settings Add/Test Controller settings. When enabled, PS4 controllers will have access to the same sort of customization/configuration support as Steam Controllers, including native API support. PS4 Controllers using this system can map the trackpad, gyro, buttons, etc. to keyboard, mouse, or x-input outputs and can make use of action sets, touch menus, radial menus, and so forth," said Valve.
Of course, there's also support for Steam Controller to work again with older udev rules on GNU/Linux distributions, as we reported last week, and Valve urges users to consider upgrading their udev rules to allow Steam access to /dev/hidraw*. SteamOS users are also recommended to update their systems to the SteamOS 2.98 stable release. There are numerous other controller changes, so check out the attached changelog for more details.