Steam Deck Client Stable Update 11/17/22

A new Steam Deck Client update was just pushed out to the stable branch! This one brings over a wealth of improvements that were on the beta branch like reducing client startup times for large game libraries, setting scale for startup movies, QR code sign-in, and a bunch of Steam Input improvements!

General

• Reduced client startup times for users with large game libraries
• Fixed issue where launching a game would take longer to start if there was no network connection.
• Fixed VR flags not showing up in app details for some games
• Fixed downloads page crashing when starting in offline mode
• Downloads page now properly responds to online/offline status
• Collections view can now show more than two rows of collections and allow scrolling
• Reduced size of Steam client download
• Fixed bluetooth failing to turn on in gaming mode if it was disabled in desktop mode
• When installing a game always show the install location picker if there is more than one library folder, and automatically focus the default library folder when the dialog shows up
• Added error dialog for when the user clicks on a mailto link
• Fixed the 'Cancel' button in the wifi password dialogue for a new connection causing the current network to disconnect
• Re-worked "Gifts Pending" page to be gamepad navigable

Docked Mode

• Fixed incorrect size of Main Menu in docked mode with 4k displays
• Virtual Keyboard now has a maximum width, so that it doesn't stretch to an unusable size on large screens
• Set scale for startup movies so that the top and bottom of the movie are cropped for 16:9 aspect ratio

Desktop Mode

• Fixed issue preventing the Virtual Keyboard from accessing the clipboard and being unable to perform paste operations
• Center the popup controller configurator window when viewing controller layout
• Fixed circular download progress indicator being broken in game entry list

Sign In

• Added login flow that supports new QR code functionality
• Fix a case where if the sign-in UI had cached credentials which had become invalid, it could get stuck and not accept valid credentials thereafter
• Fixed an edge case in handling of invalid cached credentials affecting reauthentication

Steam Input

• Gyro Enabling: The "Touch" option is now available to controllers which do not have capacitive touch sensors - Moving joysticks out of their deadzone now counts as a "Touch".
• All controller types can each now optionally choose to use a Nintendo-style layout. This flips the A and B button and X and Y button universally in Steam and in games.
• The Xbox extended features driver has been updated for Windows 11
• Fixed hang when the Amazon Luna controller rumbles on macOS
• Fixed issue with the touch binding in As Mouse mode releasing before the end of a swipe
• Fixed doubled input for Nintendo Joy-Cons controllers
• Gyro Yaw & Roll Combined now allows negative contribution values from both sources.
• FlickStick output can now be Inverted, and can be sent to X or Y Mouse axis.
• Fix for FlickStick turning when exiting an overlay layer with the stick still thrown.
• Desktop Controller Layout Now defaults to a desktop friendly set of controls. Long-Pressing Menu Button will toggle back and forth to a Gamepad friendly layout.
• Updated Steam Controller LB and RB button images

Remote Play

• Fixed glyphs for third party Nintendo controllers while streaming

New Big Picture Mode

• Updated Big Picture is now available for testing. You can read more about it in this blog post. Modify your Steam client shortcut and add -gamepadui on the command-line to automatically start Steam in the new Big Picture Mode. Alternatively, pass -newbigpicture to start in Desktop mode and have access to the new Big Picture Mode at any time.

You can view the full changelog over on Steam.

As someone with a large game library, I am elated that this update for the stable branch is here! Now I am just looking forward to SteamOS 3.4 coming over to stable as well.