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Valve continue upgrading the experience for the new Steam Library with another Beta update available now.

I know plenty of people missed Small Mode, well the good news is that it has returned! If you go to View -> Small Mode in the top menu it will now correctly switch to it. It has been updated too, so you can view your Collections in it too. Don't know what Small Mode is? It makes your Steam client look like this:

Additionally, they added a setting to turn icons off in the left column game list/Small Mode. There's a few styling tweaks for content not fitting when Steam is in a smaller window, a few crashes were solved when uninstalling games and a few more crashes were fixed.

For the Linux client, Valve updated vaapi decoding to libva2 compatibility, they applied some fixes to free disk space checking due to issues with some NFS mounts and Steam Input's F12 binding was fixed as well. See the full changelog here.

Curiously, Steam Broadcasting settings now actually show up in the Linux client. Before this Beta update, the Broadcast settings page always said "Steam Broadcasting is not currently supported on this operating system" but that message is gone and replaced with the ability to turn it on. Not that it works, testing this morning didn't allow people to watch me or me to watch them. Will be interesting to see if they are working on getting it supported or if it the settings were enabled in the Linux client by mistake.

As for Steam Cloud Gaming (do read that if you missed it!), we're seeing a few more leaks now. SteamDB put out another Twitter post to mention the latest Beta added more references to it including support for multiple cloud providers on top of Valve. One of the third parties mentioned is NVIDIA's GeForce Now.

It's going to be incredibly interesting to see exactly how Valve will be handling this, especially if they will allow other services to integrate directly with it. That could be a pretty big selling point compared to the likes of Stadia.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Beta, Steam, Update
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shigutso Nov 8, 2019
Steam Broadcasting would be really cool... finally being able to show friends that gaming on Linux is easy and awesome!
Ardje Nov 8, 2019
Broadcasting would be nice... Now I don't have to invite friends to remote play together radiator 2 and dominatrix simulator.
rustybroomhandle Nov 8, 2019
I wonder if there is a server version of SteamOS that cloud providers will be using.
Ardje Nov 8, 2019
QuoteCuriously, Steam Broadcasting settings now actually show up in the Linux client. Before this Beta update, the Broadcast settings page always said "Steam Broadcasting is not currently supported on this operating system" but that message is gone and replaced with the ability to turn it on. Not that it works, testing this morning didn't allow people to watch me or me to watch them. Will be interesting to see if they are working on getting it supported or if it the settings were enabled in the Linux client by mistake.
It was there in 2015 already on steamos: Big picture always had the option to turn it on. It just doesn't do anything, and doesn't let you know it doesn't work until you actually try to watch it. The visitors would get the message that the player did not have a system that was capable to perform broadcasting.
The desktop mode just said you don't have a system capable to do it.
Schattenspiegel Nov 8, 2019
Just after I figured out how to remove some unwanted stuff myself ;-)
Good to see them restore some wanted functionality! There is still the a few hundred MB to much RAM usage in the standard library problem but hey at least we get a way to work around it now. Small steps but at least some movement.
danniello Nov 8, 2019
Wow... Steam Cloud Gaming will support other cloud services!? nVidia GeForce Now!? EA back?! Perhaps also worldwide accessibility on premiere? If yes - it sounds like "shoot it the head" (in fact - several shots in a row;) for Google Stadia...

Google Stadia:

* embarrassing small game database
* online only without download option
* game prices are the same, even that competition has offline option
* very poor availability (only in few countries)

If Google will not reconsider their stupid decision about not provide download/offline version of their games - I think that Stadia will be very good candidate for gcemetery.co in very short time frame...
14 Nov 8, 2019
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You know what would be incredible? Playing Steam games on my Switch.
Mohandevir Nov 8, 2019
Valve and Nividia partnership for GeForce now? That could be great!

GeForce now beta seems to be based on Windows instances... Always tought it could be a good matchup for both to be competitive in the cloud gaming market and it could permit Nvidia to get rid of it's foreseeable Windows licensing fee problems.

But I'm just an outside observer who's a GeForce now (Nvidia Shield) occasional user so... :)

I really hope that Nvidia will someday add Canadian servers though (Valve already has that)... being forced to connect to US servers is probably a reason why I have performance issues with GeForce Now.

P.S. I don't know what to think of this, but Nvidia is really proactive when it comes to DXVK and Vulkan debuging... Could it be related, somehow? Is there something brewing? :)


Last edited by Mohandevir on 8 November 2019 at 2:54 pm UTC
Ardje Nov 8, 2019
Broadcasting actually *works* \0/
Now I can let everybody enjoy my plays of radiator 2
Toric Nov 8, 2019
Quoting: ArdjeBroadcasting actually *works* \0/
Now I can let everybody enjoy my plays of radiator 2
How were you able to get it working? the article says it still doesn't work yet. Did you find a workaround?
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