New Steam Client Update Adds Steam Controller Configuration Links, Many Changes

[CrAKeN]

 

Steam Client Update March 9

 

Valve pushed a new stable update of the Steam Client for Linux, Mac, and Windows users, as well as on its Debian-based SteamOS gaming operating system, adding, as expected, numerous improvements and some new exciting features.

 

The March 9 Steam Client Update is awaiting you next time you fire up your Steam desktop client, no matter the operating system you're currently using, and it will add a new option in the setting that lets you disable group announcement and event notifications, and removes the sing-on notifications for in-game/online friends.

 

Among other general improvements, Valve's engineers managed to improve the error handling for game files that are locked by other apps during an update, as well as the sort order of your gaming library to also detect games that start with Unicode characters or punctuation in their names.

 

Of course, lots of bugs were squashed in this stable update for all supported platforms, and a couple of issues have also been resolved for macOS users. Furthermore, the Big Picture mode gained a confirmation that should appear just before Restarting, Suspending, or Shutting Down the client from the system menu.

 

Lots of Steam Controller improvements

 

That's right, there are lots of Steam Controller improvements in this new stable Steam Client update, starting with better offline support for controller configurations and personalization, which can now be downloaded for offline use, support for previewing controller configs when importing them, and Steam Controller configuration links.

 

"When browsing configurations, a link can now be copied to the clipboard by pressing the Start button or Control+C. Following this Steam link will how the configuration and it can be optionally applied to the game it corresponds to. This link can be opened via a browser or at the command-line," reads the changelog.

 

It's also possible to vote controller configurations, as well as to sort them by votes instead of usage. Moreover, it looks like the default sorting of controller configurations now uses a rolling 30-day window showing the most popular ones of the last 30 days first, and Lock Gyro support was added to the Extents option for Joystick Move.

 

And that's not all, because there's also support for multiple additional PlayStation 4 and third-party PlayStation 4-style controllers, audio support for the official DS4 v2 Slim controllers, a brand-new mouse dampening option for the Mouse Region mode, and power-off timeout functionality for wireless PlayStation 4 controllers.

 

Some enhancements and bug fixes were also implemented for the In-Home Streaming and Steam VR features, and you should update your Steam Client as soon as possible. If you didn't get a notification, go to the Steam menu and click on the "Check for Steam Client Updates" entry. Make sure you restart your Steam Client to apply the update. Have fun and check out the full release notes below for more details.

 

Steam Client Update March 9

Spoiler

General

 

 Added a setting to disable group event and announcement notifications
 Removed sign-on notifications for friends who are already online/in-game when you first sign-in
 Fixed several reported crashes and hangs
 Fixed an issue where some workshop items would be downloaded repeatedly
 Fixed an issue with recently played games missing from the task-bar menu
 Fixed an issue with recently played games appearing in the wrong order
 Fixed scheduled future game updates being invisible on the Download page
 Fixed install dialog getting stuck while preallocating disk space
 Fixed Windows taskbar showing pending progress even when there are no updates available
 Fixed video player failing to start for Windows users with non-ASCII user names
 Improved error handling when game files are locked by other programs during updates
 Improved library sort order for games that start with punctuation or Unicode characters
 Updated Web control to CEF v56.0.2924.51

 

Big Picture

 

 Added confirmation before Restarting/Suspending/Shutting Down from the system menu
 Fixed an issue causing some controller navigation actions to be ignored
 Removed unintentional navigation input coming from racing wheels and flight sticks

 

macOS / OS X

 

 Fixed an issue which caused some games to crash immediately under OS X 10.9 or earlier
 Improved color fidelity in the Steam UI on newer 2015 iMac and 2016 Macbook Pro displays

 

Steam Controller

 

Added better offline controller support. Controller Configurations and Pesonalization will now download for offline use after the first online game launch. When offline, edits are local only and will not be uploaded to the cloud. When returning to online mode, the previous online configuration will be restored, but your saved local edits will be available for selection

 

Added Controller Config Preview. When importing a configuration, it will now be previewed first and then it can be accepted or backed out without applying the configuration. While previewing a configuration, all its settings can be viewed, but not changed

 

Added Steam Controller Configuration Links. When browsing configurations, a link can now be copied to the clipboard by pressing the Start button or Control+C. Following this Steam link will how the configuration and it can be optionally applied to the game it corresponds to. This link can be opened via a browser or at the commandline. From the command line, use "start [link]" in Windows, "open [link]" in OSX, and "xdg-open [link]" in SteamOS/Linux. Note that a controller must be active to apply a configuration. Links will be shown in the controller type they were created for, but will be converted to the controller type they are being applied to on application

 

 Changed configuration sorting to use a rolling 30-day window. The most popular configurations over the past 30 days are sorted to the top.
 Added voting to configurations, and added support to optionally sort configurations by votes instead of usage.
 Added Lock Gyro at Extents option for Joystick Move. When turned off, the controller will no long lock at the full extents, matching old behavior from October
 Fixed dead-zones on some controllers being too small when using joystick mouse, resulting in drift
 Fixed a bug where multiple non-Steam Controllers could control the same player
 Added support for multiple additional PS4 and third-party PS4-style controllers
 Added audio support for official DS4 v2 Slim controllers
 Added power-off timeout functionality for PS4 controllers connected over wireless
 Disabled controller power-off timeout while the configurator is open
 Added mouse dampening option for Mouse Region mode
 Fixed XInput controllers getting bad configuration settings if connected prior to Steam login
 Fixed a bug where configurations for guests could be saved under a generic guest account rather than under the signed-in local user.

 

In-Home Streaming

NOTE: recent NVIDIA drivers may cause issues with hardware encoding in Steam, please revert to driver version 376.33 for now if you are unable to stream properly.

 

 Increased desktop capture to 60 FPS on Windows 8 and newer
 Added an option to change desktop resolution to match the streaming client under advanced host settings
 Added a separate option to enable NVIDIA ShadowPlay capture under advanced host settings
 Added a recovery path if your graphics driver crashes or resets during streaming. Graphics driver resets may still crash your game anyway. If you experience frequent crashes, we recommend that you disable hardware encoding.

 

Steam VR

 

 Fixed green screen when capturing a multiple-monitor desktop with NVIDIA ShadowPlay capture in VR

 

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