Steam’s New In-Game Overlay Is Now Available to Everyone: Write Notes, View Websites, and More without Alt-Tabbing

[Tsing]

Valve has announced that the major update it's been working on for the Steam Desktop client, with big improvements and new features, has finally left beta and should now be available to all users. According to the patch notes, this is a massive update that delivers tons of new features and optimizations, including bug fixes, but the headliner appears to be the rebuilt in-game overlay, which has been thoroughly enhanced with all-new options that include what is basically Valve's version of Notepad. All of the panels can be pinned in-game, meaning less alt-tabbing for those on single monitors. The Steam UI has also received a bit of a makeover, with nicer fonts and more.

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[MadMummy76]

I saw something was weird when steam updated yesterday. Solution to a non-problem. I mean what is the differrence between using ALT-TAB or another key combination to bring up the steam UI? To me in game overlays are just unnecessary clutter. I quickly turned it off in the AMD driver too on my newly acquired AMD GPU.

with nicer fonts and more.

I'd call it harsher instead, the UI has much higher contrast now, frankly it is hurting my eyes.

 

[DrezKill]

According to my brother, who has a Steam Deck, Valve is trying to make the PC and mobile versions of Steam more like the Steam Deck version of the UI. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know. I've barely used the Steam Deck. I have a few friends that own 'em, but all have been heavily customized. I also have not yet tried out this new version of Steam on PC. Valve does have a history of fixing what ain't broke, sometimes making sh1t worse in the process. I hope that didn't happen this time.

Honestly surprised that Steam on Linux did not already have hardware acceleration. I guess I never noticed that.

I mean what is the differrence between using ALT-TAB or another key combination to bring up the steam UI? To me in game overlays are just unnecessary clutter.

In-game overlays can cause issues with the game too. You're right, just f*cking Alt+Tab out of the game if you need to access Steam or a web browser. Made all the easier if you use borderless window mode for every game like I do (well, for the games that support it). I run multiple monitors, so using borderless window mode is practically a necessity for me.

Honestly I forget the Steam in-game overlay even exists. I disabled it years ago. The built-in web browser was trash too.

Who needs that note-taking function? Just Alt+Tab out of the game and open up Notepad or Wordpad or whatever. Although I did see that Valve's note-taking program/Steam widget/whatever saves your notes in the cloud, so you can access them from any system you're logged into. So uh like Evernote or something? Except of course way less fully-featured.

I just realized, maybe all this stuff above is a lot more helpful on Steam Deck, if you're playing in handheld mode, and you're in SteamOS mode and not in the normal PC mode where you have the KDE Plasma 5 desktop environment.

I quickly turned it off in the AMD driver too on my newly acquired AMD GPU.

Sheesh, even graphics card manufacturers have in-game overlays now?! I also forgot about the Win10 one, the "Game Bar" or whatever the f*ck it's called. I only used it once, to check DX12 Ultimate and DirectStorage status when I got a newer graphics card:

 

[Brian_B]

I mean what is the differrence between using ALT-TAB or another key combination to bring up the steam UI?

If you are in full screen mode or running HDR it makes the monitor reset, especially if you are gaming at a resolution different than your desktop.

I see it happen sometimes just mousing or alt-tabbing to something over on a second monitor with HDR enabled even in “borderless windowed” mode

First world problem, but kind of annoying - that said, I do agree, the fix was not to cram an overlay full of junk

 

[MadMummy76]

According to my brother, who has a Steam Deck, Valve is trying to make the PC and mobile versions of Steam more like the Steam Deck version of the UI. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know. I've barely used the Steam Deck. I have a few friends that own 'em, but all have been heavily customized. I also have not yet tried out this new version of Steam on PC. Valve does have a history of fixing what ain't broke, sometimes making sh1t worse in the process. I hope that didn't happen this time.

I have never even seen a steam deck in the wild, I'm not the target audience. 99.99% of the time I play on desktop, and for the remaining 0.01% I use my laptop in some hotel. There is no scenario where I'd want a handheld PC.

Who needs that note-taking function?

Reviewers, I guess, or shall we call them influencers? This is another thing I've been mad about: More often than ever these people get preferential treatment like early access to games before the plebs. This make me feel like a second class citizen, or gamer in this case. Nothing pisses me off more than seeing a clown with a million followers play a game 2 months early that he obviously has zero interest in playing. While I'm dying to get my hands on it. It is like eating a juicy meal with disgust in front of a starving person.

Now it seems even valve is developing steam specifically for them instead of the actual paying customer.

 

[DrezKill]

It is like eating a juicy meal with disgust in front of a starving person.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA interesting way to put it!

 

[Zarathustra]

Huh.

I noticed the client got somewhat reskinned the other day when it updated, but I didn't notice the changes to the overlay, largely because I never use any overlays while running games. Not Steam, not AMD, nothing. I don't alt-tab away either.

When I am playing a game, I am playing a game, and I am dedicated to it with 100% of my attention. If I cant dedicate 100% of my attention to my game, I don't play it.

The whole Windows environment I boot into is dedicated to games. Nothing else is installed. I never needed Microsofts "Game mode" that prioritizes the game over other processes, because I never run anything in the background, not even a browser. Back in the day I used to always disable the steam overlay because I didn't want it to mess with the games, but at some point it turned itself back on again (probably a reinstall) and I haven't bothered lately.

I guess it was a habit learned back in the single core days when we didn't have as much RAM as we have today. I remember methodically going through task manager and killing all non-essential tasks before running a game making sure as close to 100% of system resources were available to the game as possible. When the overlay first launched it was just another thing that would take away resources from my game.

Probably not necessary anymore on my 24C/48T Threadripper with 64GB of RAM, but I guess old habits die hard.

I have never even seen a steam deck in the wild, I'm not the target audience. 99.99% of the time I play on desktop, and for the remaining 0.01% I use my laptop in some hotel. There is no scenario where I'd want a handheld PC.

Same, except I haven't played a game on a laptop in a hotel room in over a decade.

For me games happen in one place and one place only. On my desktop in my office. If I am away, I'll just wait to play games until I get home.

I do not want games in my living room, or on my phone. Games to me are a solitary in my office at a proper desktop experience, and I don't want it any other way.

Reviewers, I guess, or shall we call them influencers? This is another thing I've been mad about: More often than ever these people get preferential treatment like early access to games before the plebs.

I was thinking this might be useful for running benchmarks. More people than just reviewers run benchmarks. I tend to do it every system upgrade when I am tweaking and setting up my machine to make the most out of it.

That said, if the overlay takes any performance away from the game, then it's going to be a no from me.

This make me feel like a second class citizen, or gamer in this case. Nothing pisses me off more than seeing a clown with a million followers play a game 2 months early that he obviously has zero interest in playing. While I'm dying to get my hands on it. It is like eating a juicy meal with disgust in front of a starving person.

They don't bother me in large part because I never watch them.

I tend to take the approach that if a game is good today, it will be good tomorrow, or in a few months, or a couple of years. No rush to get a new game. It will go on sale eventually.

No need to rush. I can wait for it to go on sale. Patience pays off. And since I don't watch any streamers/influencers, I don't have to worry about spoilers.

Only time I pay anywhere even remotely near full price for a game is if my backlog has dried up and I need something to play, but even then I usually just fall back on starting a Sid Meiers Civilization game on Marathon while I wait for the next big sale.

 

[MadMummy76]

They don't bother me in large part because I never watch them.

I don't have to watch them for the trend to annoy me. It bothers me on principle, that some gamers are more equal than others.

I tend to take the approach that if a game is good today, it will be good tomorrow, or in a few months, or a couple of years. No rush to get a new game. It will go on sale eventually.

I don't really care for waiting, if I'm interested in a game I'd rather have it sooner than later, before inevitably it gets spoiled. In some cases they get spoiled even before release. When so many are getting early access, one is bound to break NDA, and the more of them are out there, the harder to find who was the leaker. It's not like giving early access to influencers is a proven pro for sales anyway.

No need to rush. I can wait for it to go on sale. Patience pays off. And since I don't watch any streamers/influencers, I don't have to worry about spoilers.

I'm not interested in waiting for a sale, there are hardly any new games coming out, that I really want. Maybe one or two a year on average. We are playing on PCs worth thousands, I think we can afford to spend $120 on new games in a year. I'll wait for sales for games that I only have a mild interest in, but not must haves.

Only time I pay anywhere even remotely near full price for a game is if my backlog has dried up and I need something to play, but even then I usually just fall back on starting a Sid Meiers Civilization game on Marathon while I wait for the next big sale.

I came to the conclusion that my backlog exists because they were duds. I thought I'd want to play them, or did actually play them 1-2 hours but never cared to continue. Nothing in my backlog is a substitute for new games I actually want to play.

Old games that I sometimes return to are an entirely different category, not part of the backlog. While I do enjoy them in small doses, it is a wholly diffent experience than a brand new game where everything is new. Including the game mechanics, the story, the environment, even the character tree and character creator.

 

[DrezKill]

The whole Windows environment I boot into is dedicated to games. Nothing else is installed.

I sometimes joke that my Windows install is my game "console" since 99% of the time I boot into Windows just to play games. That said, I do actually have Win10 set up as my main OS, even though it's not, just in case I have to linger around Win10 for some reason or another. Only when I am absolutely sure that I'm not gonna be gaming anymore do I go back to Linux. It gets annoying jumping back and forth between OSes, even with today's fast SSD boot times. I also do have a scant few programs I only run in Windows cuz I don't wanna run them in Wine (or they don't work well/at all in Wine). The overwhelming majority of the time though I am in Linux, and days or even weeks can go by without me booting into Win10. I even run some lighter games in Linux, games where I don't need insane performance. The less often I have to boot into Windows, the better.

I never needed Microsofts "Game mode" that prioritizes the game over other processes

That sh1t never really worked well anyways. It was kinda wonky, and I recall some situations where it actually decreased performance, or caused other issues.

Back in the day I used to always disable the steam overlay because I didn't want it to mess with the games, but at some point it turned itself back on again (probably a reinstall) and I haven't bothered lately.

Yeah sometimes it will get reactivated after Steam updates, so you gotta go back into the settings and disable it again.

I tend to take the approach that if a game is good today, it will be good tomorrow, or in a few months, or a couple of years. No rush to get a new game. It will go on sale eventually. No need to rush. I can wait for it to go on sale. Patience pays off.

Same deal with me. I will wait as long as I need to. I'm in no rush to play ANY game. I would much rather wait for sales, and also for devs to fix their buggy broken-@ss games (or for the community to do it). It doesn't matter to me if I wait a few months to play a game, or a year, or 5 years, or 20 years.

And since I don't watch any streamers/influencers, I don't have to worry about spoilers.

When I was in college I did somewhat have to be concerned about spoilers from classmates, but overall it wasn't a big deal. Aside from that, I never ever run into situations where a game can get spoiled for me. On the other hand, I have a friend who often complains about his co-workers spoiling games for him.

I don't have to watch them for the trend to annoy me. It bothers me on principle, that some gamers are more equal than others.

What really bothered me was 2020-2022 when regular people couldn't get their hands on graphics cards, but of course "influencers"/YTers/streamers had no problem getting their hands on 'em. The only people who had an easier time getting graphics cards in those years were cryptocurrency miners.

 

[Grimlakin]

What really bothered me was 2020-2022 when regular people couldn't get their hands on graphics cards, but of course "influencers"/YTers/streamers had no problem getting their hands on 'em. The only people who had an easier time getting graphics cards in those years were cryptocurrency miners.

This right here has soured me to the graphics card industry more than anything else.

 

[Zarathustra]

What really bothered me was 2020-2022 when regular people couldn't get their hands on graphics cards, but of course "influencers"/YTers/streamers had no problem getting their hands on 'em. The only people who had an easier time getting graphics cards in those years were cryptocurrency miners.

Agreed.

I mean, no one should ever expect anything from a business other than it following the money, but if anyone ever doubted this, this should have put the dissent to rest once and for all.