The All New Gabriel Newell's Digital Wonder Emporium, aka, The Steam Update Thread

duckilama wrote:

The normal steam browser is IE customized. Is BP also using IE or did they jump to another UA?

They switched Steam to WebKit a long time ago. Had to prior to launching the Mac store.

EDIT: I don't seem to have Big Picture mode yet.

MannishBoy wrote:

EDIT: I don't seem to have Big Picture mode yet.

You have to opt-in via the Settings window.

How refreshing -- a UI change that's for my benefit, and which I have to actually go find and enable, rather than having it shoved down my throat.

Microsoft in particular could learn from these guys, And most of the free software desktop teams.

The intro of the Big Picture really wants me to have a 'home theater gaming pc'. Not a beefed up machine, but enough for games like 'Super Meat Boy' and 'Orcs Must Die (1&2), etc etc.

Sparhawk wrote:

The intro of the Big Picture really wants me to have a 'home theater gaming pc'. Not a beefed up machine, but enough for games like 'Super Meat Boy' and 'Orcs Must Die (1&2), etc etc.

This was my initial thought; two PCs, one for "hardcore" gaming, the second one for casual games. Which would mean either Valve allows for simultaneous login sessions or rebuying half my pile again...

Then again, rebuying half my pile would let me enjoy the Steam sales agai--NO! Bad Steam, don't you sink your stinky fangs in my wallet... for a second time.

I've had a computer hooked up to our TV for years. Only a dual-core 2.2GHz Athlon64 X2 4400+ with 2GB of RAM and some crappy passively cooled GPU, but I'm sure it will handle some of older games fine.

MannishBoy wrote:
Scratched wrote:

I would tell you what it's like on a pad, but it looks like my wireless dongle has bailed out.

They like to do that after awhile. There's a little fuse that blows on the MS dongles. I soldered mine off and bridged the connection over a year ago to fix mine.

And done. Not exactly with a lot of finesse, but it works.

Using it with the pad is actually kind of nice, including the text input. The only thing that's janky right now is web zooming with the right stick, and moving between different text input fields, or at least those are the ones that stand out to me.

Also coming soon:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/lWveu.jpg)

It's not ready yet, but you can poke around with it by running steam.exe -dev, and then in the console use the command install_folder_ui

That's neat.

Edit: I just saw this on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comme... - It really made a difference for me. Steam wasn't all that slow before, but it's certainly faster now.

Will have to try that proxy thing when I get home. Makes sense and we don't run a proxy in the apartment so there's no need for Windows to be checking for one.

Scratched wrote:

Also coming soon

As someone who is contemplating adding an SSD drive before end of the year that makes me incredibly happy.

EDIT: According to this RPS article, this only works for their new filesystem and while all new titles are already using it, they haven't switched over much of the back catalog in the service. So it's not a silver bullet if you want to move something like TF2, but it's definitely good to know they've got the feature ready to go at some point.

According to RPS you can now set locations for game installs in Steam!

Can someone out there with an uber gamer rig with an SSD give this a test? I want to know if I can buy an SSD as a secondary drive and install just a few games (not my whole library) to it to get a performance bump. Or do we have to install the whole Steam client to the SSD?

PaladinTom wrote:

According to RPS you can now set locations for game installs in Steam!

Can someone out there with an uber gamer rig with an SSD give this a test? I want to know if I can buy an SSD as a secondary drive and install just a few games (not my whole library) to it to get a performance bump. Or do we have to install the whole Steam client to the SSD?

You can totally do that even without steam via symbolic links. I have games spread throughout 2 SSDs, and 3 or 4 HDDs. I'll probably just keep doing it the normal way that I do, but it's nice that you can do it through Steam now.

Most games won't benefit noticeably from an SSD. There are a few games, though, where it'll reduce load times. Shogun 2, R.A.G.E., and Battlefield 3 (IIIRC) are a few.

Yeah, Steam Mover will use the symbolic link capability in Windows to do this for you. It'll put a game install dir wherever you want it, and then create a symlink in the old spot pointing to it. Steam and the game don't even know they're not in the regular spot.

I'd personally just prefer that Steam do it rather than having another piece of software to manage Steam.

Looks like the new beta also added the ability to add your own banners for non-steam games in the grid view. Right-click on the game and choose 'Set Custom Image'. Banner size is apparently 460x215, and there are already a bunch of banners available at http://steambanners.booru.org/index.php

I'd personally just prefer that Steam do it rather than having another piece of software to manage Steam.

Right, but apparently Steam doesn't do a good job with many games. Steam Mover works with every game.

billt721 wrote:

Looks like the new beta also added the ability to add your own banners for non-steam games in the grid view. Right-click on the game and choose 'Set Custom Image'. Banner size is apparently 460x215, and there are already a bunch of banners available at http://steambanners.booru.org/index.php

That's been in there for quite some time now.

Malor wrote:
I'd personally just prefer that Steam do it rather than having another piece of software to manage Steam.

Right, but apparently Steam doesn't do a good job with many games. Steam Mover works with every game.

O_o The feature isn't even live yet, but it "apparently ... doesn't do a good job"?

Well, they just said that it doesn't work with older games. Did I misunderstand?

PaladinTom wrote:

According to RPS you can now set locations for game installs in Steam!

Holy Hera mother of the gods, this makes me happier than it really should.

billt721 wrote:

Looks like the new beta also added the ability to add your own banners for non-steam games in the grid view. Right-click on the game and choose 'Set Custom Image'. Banner size is apparently 460x215, and there are already a bunch of banners available at http://steambanners.booru.org/index.php

Nice find, although that was added to the main client back in June. No beta required

shoptroll wrote:
billt721 wrote:

Looks like the new beta also added the ability to add your own banners for non-steam games in the grid view. Right-click on the game and choose 'Set Custom Image'. Banner size is apparently 460x215, and there are already a bunch of banners available at http://steambanners.booru.org/index.php

Nice find, although that was added to the main client back in June. No beta required :)

Huh. Who knew? I would look for something like this every few months and the top good search result was a thread on the Steam forums that always said 'sorry, not possible.' Grid view looks so much nicer with banners for the non-steam games.

billt721 wrote:
shoptroll wrote:
billt721 wrote:

Looks like the new beta also added the ability to add your own banners for non-steam games in the grid view. Right-click on the game and choose 'Set Custom Image'. Banner size is apparently 460x215, and there are already a bunch of banners available at http://steambanners.booru.org/index.php

Nice find, although that was added to the main client back in June. No beta required :)

Huh. Who knew? I would look for something like this every few months and the top good search result was a thread on the Steam forums that always said 'sorry, not possible.' Grid view looks so much nicer with banners for the non-steam games.

This may make me add my non-Steam games now to use as a launcher. Never knew about this feature.

Now then... this may be an old gripe, but when is Valve going to let us change our Steam account ids?! I've been stuck with an old email address now for about 5 years. Very frustrating.

Steam on the Mac is apparently pioneering a new EULA box that shows you all the details you care to read:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/Ku4bm.png)

Excellent! That's the most agreeable EULA I've ever read.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Steam on the Mac is apparently pioneering a new EULA box that shows you all the details you care to read:

I think it's a template for the Linux version! More proof it is about to happen!!

Sparhawk wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Steam on the Mac is apparently pioneering a new EULA box that shows you all the details you care to read:

I think it's a template for the Linux version! More proof it is about to happen!! ;)

I think the statement from Valve that said internal beta starts this week and external beta starts in October is proof enough. Valve has a blog about the Linux Steam development already.

SixteenBlue wrote:
Sparhawk wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

Steam on the Mac is apparently pioneering a new EULA box that shows you all the details you care to read:

I think it's a template for the Linux version! More proof it is about to happen!! ;)

I think the statement from Valve that said internal beta starts this week and external beta starts in October is proof enough. Valve has a blog about the Linux Steam development already.

I know all that. Just really can't wait and acting as a 'super wannabe believer'. Just for fun sakes

Software is now available on steam: http://store.steampowered.com/software/

So for big picture mode, would it be possible to use remote desktop log in? I have an HTPC that can't run games (I didn't even put a graphics card in it) but both it and my pc are networked together.

Would I even want to try this? Would lag be unbearable?