Steam Update Announced - Public Beta Open Now


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New Features Advance Leading Game Platform

February 23, 2010 -- Valve announces a new version of Steam which is immediately available in public beta.

In the last 12 months, Steam has grown 200%. There are now 25 million users, 1000+ games, 12 billion player minutes per month, and 75 billion Steam client minutes per month. To accommodate this growth, a new Steam client has been created.

This opt-in beta is available immediately to all Steam users. If users already have Steam installed on their computer, they can take part in the beta by clicking this link and then selecting "UI Update" under Beta Participation. If they don't have Steam installed, they can download it here. To preview the new Steam client without taking part in the beta, a complete rundown of the new features is available here.

Increasingly, the most effective way of reaching new gamers is through the existing players of a game. With the new Steam release, gamers will now be able to see which games their friends have purchased directly within the Steam storefront. 25 million gamers create a highly effective and knowledgeable source of purchase suggestions.

News outlets now have the ability to reach the Steam community through the new client's News aggregator functionality. Those organizations interested can contact Doug Lombardi at lombardi@valvesoftware.com.

With users purchasing more and more games through Steam, new methods of library management were needed. The new client introduces library customization tools to help gamers sort, group, and find games in libraries which for some hardcore players contain hundreds of titles. In addition to having lots of games, gamers needed methods of tracking all of their achievements in a standardized cross-game fashion, which is now possible with the new release.

"We made hundreds of changes to the Steam client as a result of customer feedback on the interface, performance, and functionality," said John Cook, Director of Steam Development at Valve. "For example, we swapped out the Internet Explorer rendering engine with WebKit, which gives us a bunch of size, stability and performance benefits. This release of Steam leaves us well prepared for another year of strong growth."

About Steam

The leading online platform for PC games and digital entertainment, Steam delivers new releases and online services to over 25 million PC users around the world. For more information, please visit steamgames.com.

About Valve

Valve is an entertainment software and technology company founded in 1996 and based in Bellevue, Washington. For more information, please visit valvesoftware.com.

Screenshots and complete feature list: http://store.steampowered.com/uiupdate/

You can check it out by going to settings and opting into the beta, I have to say that I love it compared to the old UI

A Word of caution before you go hit the button:

Secondly, people will notice that a few of their games will start redownloading again. You need to back up your steamapps folder before you OPTin to the beta.. After you've done that, let Steam restart into the beta, copy back the Steamapps folder then check the games integrity. After Steam validates the files your games will be fine.

Thanks Tony.

Edit: Added Screenshot link thanks Pheee

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did the update, and i have to say its looking nice, also i notice on my machine at least that it runs much smoother and quicker than the old version did.

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Can you please add a screenshot :huh:?

I've added the link for screenshots in. Thanks Pheee

Also that link has a lot more information than the news bulletin I quoted.

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stupid update broke my steam, now I cant leave the beta or use it. Ive tried every method available so far. Even reinstalling steam and deletin all the registry entries which involve valve.

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stupid update broke my steam, now I cant leave the beta or use it. Ive tried every method available so far. Even reinstalling steam and deletin all the registry entries which involve valve.

Did you try add "-clearbeta" to your steam.exe shortcut?

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stupid update broke my steam, now I cant leave the beta or use it. Ive tried every method available so far. Even reinstalling steam and deletin all the registry entries which involve valve.

Hey, Try this:

Start - Run and write this:

C:\STEAM\steam.exe -clearbeta (change for the right filepath)

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Did you try add "-clearbeta" to your steam.exe shortcut?

yes tried every method that was posted on steam forums, still same problem. give me an error saying "Steam.exe (main exception): ERROR: deleted Steam.exe but the file is still there

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For those who say that Steam won't start up, your going to need to wait. I think the servers they use for the beta are being hammered as I left it for 30 minutes and tried again and it connected and downloaded the beta.

Secondly, people will notice that a few of their games will start redownloading again. You need to back up your steamapps folder before you OPTin to the beta.. After you've done that, let Steam restart into the beta, copy back the Steamapps folder then check the games integrity. After Steam validates the files your games will be fine.

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For those who say that Steam won't start up, your going to need to wait. I think the servers they use for the beta are being hammered as I left it for 30 minutes and tried again and it connected and downloaded the beta.

Secondly, people will notice that a few of their games will start redownloading again. You need to back up your steamapps folder before you OPTin to the beta.. After you've done that, let Steam restart into the beta, copy back the Steamapps folder then check the games integrity. After Steam validates the files your games will be fine.

ive been waiting all day but still dont work.

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Wow that looks nice! Now I don't feel so awkward when I look at Steam :p Though I have a little problem, the font in the Steam, View, Friends, Games and Help Menu is missing :blink:

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Wow that looks nice! Now I don't feel so awkward when I look at Steam :p Though I have a little problem, the font in the Steam, View, Friends, Games and Help Menu is missing :blink:

I had this problem too.

The font missing is Arial Bold. You don't have it on a x64 system or a non-English Windows (You would have Arial Gras in French for example).

Open this file with a notepad:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\resource\styles\steam.styles

Change "Arial Bold" to "Arial" at line 31.

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Looks nice, but Steam has always looked horrendous. I would prefer a more streamlined interface than a bulkier one!

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I had this problem too.

The font missing is Arial Bold. You don't have it on a x64 system or a non-English Windows (You would have Arial Gras in French for example).

Open this file with a notepad:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\resource\styles\steam.styles

Change "Arial Bold" to "Arial" at line 31.

Thanks, worked like a charm^^

EDIT: And it's now blazing fast unlike the old Steam :o Also, the new Overlay is sexy too just not aligned for widescreen :p

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Not a huge fan of this new interface, much preferred the simplicity of the older one, but I am sure it will grow on me as I use it.

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This is not what I expected. I want less, not more. Why can't they just run the authentication system as a Windows service and integrate into the Game Explorer? Windows 7 even has hooks for maintaining updates and for "More games from X service..." and a client could be maintained for older Windows versions.

No compact mode anymore really stinks, and changing the rendering engine was unnecessary.

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I like that they use webkit now its alot faster and they can maintain it themself, i hate the use of gradients though so much gradient, also the gradient used in the icon is horrible!

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Hm. WebKit instead of Trident as rendering engine.

Mac OS X-related resources coming with the UI update.

Steam for OS X, anyone? I think it's possible. If you ask 'What for? There are no games on OS X!' - two points:

  1. Valve might just have ported the Source engine to OS X.
  2. Alternatively they could license the Crossover technology and run Windows games via WINE.

I for one would welcome our new Steam overlords on the Mac OS X platform.

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