Many Steam Controller improvements landed in this version

Jan 19, 2017 22:00 GMT  ·  By

Today Valve announced the availability of a new stable update of the Steam Client for all supported platforms, including the company's SteamOS operating system for Steam Machines, as well as GNU/Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows.

Bringing all the new features during the Beta stages of development, the new Steam Client update improves the interaction between the Steam runtime and your GNU/Linux distribution's libraries. This is a huge and long-anticipated milestone for the Steam Client, which, unfortunately, did not work out of the box on all Linux-based operating systems.

"Improved interactions between the Steam runtime and host distribution libraries, which should let Steam work out of the box with open-source graphics drivers on modern distributions. If using an older distribution or running into problems, use STEAM_RUNTIME_PREFER_HOST_LIBRARIES=0 to revert to previous behavior," reads today's announcement.

It also brings the close-to-tray behavior on par with the Windows and macOS clients, and implements the new  STEAM_FRAME_FORCE_CLOSE=0 variable that lets users force the Steam Client to close to tray even if the respective GNU/Linux distro does not have proper compatible tray support. To fix some DRI3-related crashes with open-source graphics drivers, it updates the libxcb library in the runtime.

Other than that, it would appear that the Vulkan loader now supports Xlib in the Steam runtime, and there's better support for mouse cursor and keyboard input in the Steam Overlay when using Vulkan apps on Linux. Another interesting feature implemented in this version is called idle detection and allows automatic switch of friend status to Away/Snooze when you're not at your computer.

Web control now based on Chromium 56.0.2924.10

The above-listed changes are exclusive to Linux and SteamOS gamers, but the new Steam Client update brings many other general improvements, such as the ability to move the game install folders to other existing or new Steam Library folders, improvements to the usability and recovery of account email and passwords, and many bug fixes. The web control is now based on Chromium 56.0.2924.10.

While the Big Picture mode only received support for using the overlay keyboard for games with launchers, Steam Controller support has been greatly improved with numerous new features, including but not limited to XBox 360, Xbox One, and Generic X-Input controller configurator support, as well as support for third-party PlayStation 4 controllers like those from MadCatz, Armor, and HORI.

XBox controller rumble support is also implemented in the new version, along with the ability to turn off the PlayStation 4 bluetooth and wireless receiver, and a new action binding to allow gamers to open the Big Picture mode with a controller button. The new Steam Client update is available right now for all supported platforms and you can update by accessing the "Check for Steam Client Updates" Steam menu entry.