Steam Deck Client Gets Massive New Update for Steam Families and Much More

If you haven't yet, follow us on X (Twitter) or Mastodon to know when we post new articles, and join our Reddit or Subscribe to us on YouTube to check out our content and interact with our awesome community. Thank you for supporting us!

A new Steam Deck Client update was released today, and there are some great new features and improvements here. The new Steam Families feature is finally here, which overhauls family sharing and gives you more control over who can play which games in your family. And with this update, you can now play family shared games while the main account is in-game, which isn't something you could do before!

We also have various improvements for the client boot and library collections, keyboard event tracking and audio latency, and we now can see who is playing games on a Steam Deck in our friends list! There are also new ways to share and send screenshots with a new screenshot manager, and Steam Input has reduced some CPU usage and bug fixes.

You can download the update yourself in the System Settings on the Steam Deck.

Steam Deck Client Update 9/11/24 Changelog:

General

• Steam Families is now available for all users. For more info about Steam Families, you can read our news post, check out our Support FAQ
• Added a dropdown to Settings->Display->Advanced to select the maximum resolution allowed to be used by games. This is the global version of the 'Game Resolution' dropdown already available under Game Settings->General.
• Added Sign Out to the power menu on Deck.
• The friends list will now show a Steam Deck icon, instead of a gamepad icon, if the other user is playing on a Steam Deck
• Replaced the friends list VR icon with a new graphic that also matches the in-game or online friend state color
• Improvements to keyboard event tracking and audio latency in updated SDL build
• Improved client startup performance
• Improved reliability of "games in common" collections in library
• Fixed controller input no longer going to game after resuming from sleep if a wake movie is set.
• Fixed broken thumbnail for screenshots from non-steam game shortcuts uploaded to steam, when viewed from another computer
• Fixed a case that game server / server browser lists would re-fetch when only re-ping on existing list was requested
• Fixed some games with achievements showing as "No Achievements" when sorting grids or shelves by achievement percentage.
• Fixed certain apps disappearing from Recent Games after a client restart
• Fixed formatting of links in news posts
• Fixed collection names being displayed in all uppercase in edit controls
• Fixed a few spots where tooltips were causing unexpected word wrap
• Fixed an issue with padding for friends in the game invite dialog

Screenshots

• Redesigned the screenshots manager
• Added easier ways to share screenshots directly from Steam, including:
  • Copy directly to your clipboard
  • Send to friend or chat group via Steam chat
  • Send to your phone via the Steam Mobile App
  • Export as a new file on your computer
• Improved the performance and reliability of the screenshots manager
• Added the ability to search within the app filter dropdown
• Pre-emptive work to provide future support for recordings and clips to integrate with the screenshots manager when Steam Game Recording releases out of beta

Desktop Mode

• Fixed Ctrl-F not focusing search box in library

Clock and Timer

• New Clock app in the Steam Overlay that can optionally be pinned on top of games.
• Improved Timer UI.

Remote Play

• Simplify encoding options to a hardware encoding enable checkbox

Steam Input

• Reduce CPU usage when using both Gyro and Joystick or Trackpad for mouse input
• Fixed for SIAPI GetMotionData not returning any information on every controller but the first one plugged in.
• Fix for Okami HD Brush and Fishing Rod game actions
• SIAPI: Fix for analog actions from other action sets incorrectly reporting as active. This affected some titles including Okami HD.
• Added "Rotate Output" slider to "Joystick" and "Joystick Mouse" mode settings. This can be useful for certain shmups, or simply to find a more natural "Up" direction on your joystick.
• Added Output Icons to all Mode/Behavior dropdown menus. These indicate if the mode (by default) generates OS Mouse output, XInput (controller) Output, Steam Input API Action Output, or is a remapping tool/Overlay Menu (Touch, Radial, Hotbar).
• Steam Input API Analog Actions that can have multiple modes i.e. "Camera | Camera as FlickStick" are now labelled as "... (via FlickStick)"
• Steam Input API Analog Actions can now optionally be used "... (via Gyro To Mouse)" (default is still "As Mouse" or "As Joystick Mouse" depending on source).
• Fix rare issue where Gyro Processing occurred before controller type is established.
• Fix for Track Pad as Button Behavior not displaying any glyphs.
• Fix "Gyro Calibration" Button appearing twice on Gyro config screen if there is a mode shift applied to the Gyro.
• Fixed regression: "Dots per 360" was having no effect on FlickStick or Gyro to Mouse modes
• Fixed a bug where PlayStation controllers connected over BT could be shown as connected over USB
• Fixed a case where exiting a non-Steam game could leave controllers w/o input until you hit the guide button or QAM button

If you enjoyed this article, check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that will help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got you covered!