Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Valve have released a new stable version of the Steam Client today to add new features, improve existing features and catch some pesky bugs flying around.

There's some better "client logic" to choose and connect to download servers, which should hopefully give better download speeds, better connection login in initializing the friends list, screenshots in SteamVR Home should be sorted, a fix for certain web page elements continuing to render in the Steam client when it is minimized or closed to the system tray, some "improved reliability of registry saving on Linux and macOS" and the SteamVR dashboard should no longer obscure transition overlays when launching a game.

Steam Input also saw a bunch of changes, including multiple improvements for the Switch Pro controller. One thing that caught my eye was an additional setting, to allow you to change the x-input slot for Steam Input, allowing controllers to be swapped across players slots which sounds sweet.

Steam Remote Play saw a few crash fixes, including two when playing non-Steam games. Say what you want about Valve, but fixing up issues relating to games not purchased on Steam is pretty great to see. Heck, even Big Picture Mode saw a couple improvements this time. It now properly hides password entry text in the in-game on-screen keyboard, they fixed non-Steam Controllers receiving a Steam Controller configuration on the login screen, the "hide device" option in Controller Settings was not being shown in some cases and the alignment of the Steam logo was off in several notifications.

For Linux users, they've improved the detection of some Linux versions "at steam update time", a crash was fixed caused by audio cards with no active port set, they now use the host's zenity program when available for basic dialogs during startup and they've also hooked up Steam Input's "action set change on cursor visibility feature", to allow games to have separate controls between a menu and in-game (with Dark Souls 3 being noted).

They've also improved the Shader Pre-Caching feature some more, to reduce the download size of Vulkan pipeline pre-caching data. Something I'm sure anyone with a bandwidth limit will appreciate.

See the full update here.

Hopefully they're getting close to the public release of the new Steam Library design. They said over a month ago that a public beta was "weeks away", although this extra time does allow more game developers to sort out the required assets to look good in the new design.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Apps, Steam, Update, Valve
31 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
24 comments
Page: «2/3»
  Go to:

Tiedemann Jul 17, 2019
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: TiedemannI'm still waiting for the day I can turn off those damn notifications though, both in-game and when starting the client.

But... you can!?

I'm talking about achievements and inventory popups, not friends stuff.
Eike Jul 17, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: Tiedemann
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: TiedemannI'm still waiting for the day I can turn off those damn notifications though, both in-game and when starting the client.

But... you can!?

I'm talking about achievements and inventory popups, not friends stuff.

So you want some and hide others?
Mal Jul 17, 2019
  • Supporter
Quoting: dude
Quoting: MalVery OT question. My 2 xbone s controllers stopped to work with steam link last week. They pair with BT just fine but then whatever key I press nothing happens. Forget and re pair doesn't help. I didn't have the time to troubleshot the issue seriously but it doesn't hurt to ask if anyone else had this issue too.

Try installing xpadneo.
It solved all my problems with wireless xbone pads.

My issue is between the controller and the steam link itself. I can't even navigate steam link menu.
Tiedemann Jul 17, 2019
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: Tiedemann
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: TiedemannI'm still waiting for the day I can turn off those damn notifications though, both in-game and when starting the client.

But... you can!?

I'm talking about achievements and inventory popups, not friends stuff.

So you want some and hide others?

I don't want any of it. It's distracting, looks out of place, sometimes cover UI elements, sometimes makes the game have a hickup on some machines etc.

All the games I've played have had progress, unlocks and all other stuff in-game. And for me that is where it should be.

I know I'm old, grumpy and weird but that's just how it is :P
Mal Jul 17, 2019
  • Supporter
Nevermind. I think MS patched the controllers. So the link moved to modern drivers by default. But I'm on the penguin and my controllers do not auto update. They still run the old driver. There was actually a new entry in system menu to switch the link back to classic drivers and that fixed it. :P


Last edited by Mal on 17 July 2019 at 8:37 pm UTC
x_wing Jul 17, 2019
Quoting: Tiedemann
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: Tiedemann
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: TiedemannI'm still waiting for the day I can turn off those damn notifications though, both in-game and when starting the client.

But... you can!?

I'm talking about achievements and inventory popups, not friends stuff.

So you want some and hide others?

I don't want any of it. It's distracting, looks out of place, sometimes cover UI elements, sometimes makes the game have a hickup on some machines etc.

All the games I've played have had progress, unlocks and all other stuff in-game. And for me that is where it should be.

I know I'm old, grumpy and weird but that's just how it is :P

Did you try disabling steam overlay?
Tiedemann Jul 17, 2019
Quoting: x_wing
Quoting: Tiedemann
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: Tiedemann
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: TiedemannI'm still waiting for the day I can turn off those damn notifications though, both in-game and when starting the client.

But... you can!?

I'm talking about achievements and inventory popups, not friends stuff.

So you want some and hide others?

I don't want any of it. It's distracting, looks out of place, sometimes cover UI elements, sometimes makes the game have a hickup on some machines etc.

All the games I've played have had progress, unlocks and all other stuff in-game. And for me that is where it should be.

I know I'm old, grumpy and weird but that's just how it is :P

Did you try disabling steam overlay?

Yeah but it is a separate thing.
MayeulC Jul 17, 2019
Nice to see fixes for the mouse detection feature. I tried to leverage it, but it wasn't working correctly. Now, I hope it will! The menu was also quite buggy (with advanced deadzones not working... I'll see if they fixed that too).

I also noticed some options I hadn't seen before, to force the Big Picture overlay per-game (IMO this should be the default when launched from a controller).
Tiedemann Jul 17, 2019
Quoting: GuestI hope this will fix my issues I have currently with Games running through Proton which causes the whole steam client to freeze and finally crash and also the game if it makes use of the Steam API. Dose anyone else have this issue or is it just me o.o? On native games everything is just fine.

Not had the issue but have you launched steam from terminal and looked at the output there?
Eike Jul 18, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: Tiedemann
QuoteDid you try disabling steam overlay?

Yeah but it is a separate thing.

Disabling stream overlay should get rid of all steam notifications.

I messed with the UI theme to get rid of notifications, but keep the screenshot functionality... Yes, I'm old and grumpy, too! ;-) (No, seriously: These notifications hurt immersion.)

PS: I'm not sure I know games with their own in-game notifications.


Last edited by Eike on 18 July 2019 at 7:19 am UTC
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.