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Instant access to your favorite games on Steam, with thousands of games, exclusive offers, automatic game updates and other great benefits. Steam also lets you join the Steam community of PC gamers, join gaming groups, form clans, chat in-game, and more.

How do I install the Steam Beta?

By choosing the Steam Client Beta, you can use the latest features before they are released.

Follow the instructions below to participate in the Steam client beta:

• When Steam is running, click on “Steam” at the top left, then select the “Settings” menu. (Preferences on Mac)
• On the “Account” tab under “Beta Participation” click the “Change…” button.
• Select “Steam Beta Update” from the drop-down list and click “OK”.
• You will be prompted to restart Steam, select the “Restart Steam” button.

If you’re using large-screen mode:

• Select “Settings” and then “System”
• Check the “Participate in client beta” option
• Follow the prompts to restart Steam

If you are using a Steam deck:

• Press the “Steam” button
• Select “Settings” and then “System”
• Navigate to the “Beta Participation” section.
• Expand the System Update Channel drop-down menu and select “Beta”
• Follow the prompts to reboot your device

Why is Steam so popular?

Steam was originally created by Half-Life developer Valve as a platform to update their games and distribute them digitally. The service had a slow start, then faced competition from brick-and-mortar stores and physical copies, but it didn’t take long for it to become the largest digital distribution platform for PC games. Over the years, Valve has successfully created a platform that hosts games from most other publishers, studios, and game creators in general.

Does Steam have Fortnite?

Fortnite is developed by Epic Games, which has its own competitive platform, so Fortnite is not on Steam.

Is there a monthly fee for Steam?

Absolutely not. Steam is free and the platform makes money through the sale of games and other digital content.

What is new

The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes:

General

• Fixed bug when displaying certain collections for some users.
• Fixed misplaced background glow on game capsules in grid.
• Fixed “Soundtracks” and “All Games” shelves on the home page using the app type filter from the top of the games list. This will cause Soundtracks to show no items if Soundtracks was not selected at the top of the playlist, for example.

Large picture mode

• Fixed error when entering multiple words in the search box

Game recording

• Today we launched Steam Game Recording into Beta, a new built-in system for creating and sharing your game recordings that works across all games on Steam. Head over to the Game Recording website to learn all about it and how to try it out.

General

• New recording and screenshot processing
• Improved startup and library performance for users with large libraries.
• Fixed collections based on friends not updating correctly.

Library

• Fixed misplaced background glow when hovering in app grid.
• Fixed hover effect for trading cards

Steam overlay

• Improved response to overlays on Windows
• Fixed placement of Windows IME in windowed games
• Steam IME user interface improvements
• Fixed some file dialogs opening on desktop instead of overlay

Updates June 27:

Game recording

• Fixed incorrect formatting of the cut cancel button in some languages.
• Fixed fake game capture toggle and timeline marker hotkeys processing in some directinput8 games.
• Fixed microphone recording.
• Fixed NaN appearing in media manager confirmation dialog when deleting local screenshot.
• Fixed media manager delete button tooltip.
• Fixed Recording and screenshots context menu opening in its own window.
• Fixed default clip file name not being specified in the overlay file dialog.
• Improved user interface for screen recording when you are at smaller sizes.
• Fixed deleting screenshots sometimes not immediately updating the capture and screenshot grid.
• Fixed uploading multiple screenshots from the recording grid and screenshots sometimes showing an error after the upload is complete.
• Added support for non-Latin character file paths for the game capture folder and exported clip locations.
• (Steam Deck) If recording is disabled, show in the overlay a button explaining that it is disabled with a link to enable it, instead of a non-functional recording toggle button.
• (Linux) Fixed export clip dialog not allowing saving.

General

• Fixed Control-F no longer focusing the search box in the library.

Steam Client Final

Android

• New version updated to 3.9.0

General

• Fixed screenshot hotkey binding not working when clicked in settings.

Large picture mode

• Fixed browser for in-game purchases not loading properly.

Linux

• Fixed disk write error reported in logs when starting game with shader manager disabled.

SteamCMD

• Fixed output being redirected to stderr.txt.

Previous release notes

A new Steam client has been released and will automatically download.

General

• Fixed recent apps in systray menu being shifted when game icons are hidden.
• Fixed some issues with video playback not working in client browsers.
• Fixed support browser windows not closing when close button is clicked.
• Fixed the Steam client taking window focus when windows are reopened after a crash recovery.
• Fixed friends and chat buttons sometimes not working when starting in Family View.
• Fixed user persona not appearing in title bar when starting in Family View.
• Fixed PIN dialog not getting input focus when unlocking Family View.
• Made client settings visible but generally immutable when Family View is active.
• Fixed chat notification sounds sometimes playing even if friends and chat were disabled in Family View.

Overlay

• Significantly improved in-game overlay responsiveness and fixed cases where the UI could feel stuck or run at 1fps on Windows. This error used to occur mainly when running a fully GPU bound game (ie newer games + older GPU hardware). This error also mostly only occurred with the Windows Hardware Accelerated GPU scheduling setting enabled.

Library

• Fixed beta selection dropdown for games with very long beta names.
• Fixed app activity feed to update more reliably.
• Fixed comments sometimes getting lost on achievement unlock events in app activity feed.
• Demos and Playtests now display featured news at the top of their app activity feed.
• Consolidated some filters in the library filter widget.

Friends / Chat

• Reduced network traffic when connecting and reconnecting.
• Fixed friends list getting stuck on an empty invite list after acting on the last invite.
• Fixed the “Join Chat” button not working on Steam Community Groups when displayed in the Steam Client.

Steam input

• Update the Steam/Guide button configurations for non-deck game controls to match the on-deck behavior, eg: Steam+X button to open on-screen keyboard instead of Steam + Select, etc.
• Allow external gamepad controllers to load the same guide button configuration that they would normally load on desktop.
• Improved Gyro-to-mouse behavior when connected via bluetooth.
• Added -nojoy command line option to prevent Steam from enumerating controllers for users experiencing crashes.
• Added “Universal Face Button Glyphs” toggle in controller settings.
• Added exclusion of gyro activation buttons from controller configurations that do not have these buttons.
• Fixed issue with outdated bindings on Quick Settings menu when multiple controllers are connected.

Remote play

• Added a one-time pairing step when streaming from an external computer.
• The Remote Play Together UI is always available in the Steam overlay for supported games.
• Use ScreenCaptureKit for desktop recording on macOS 14 (Sonoma).
• Added support for hardware video encoding on macOS 14 (Sonoma).

Large picture mode

• Fixed browsers showing empty page entries when navigating back.
• Improve the readability of the Steam/Guide button chord summary across games.
• Fixed an issue where non-deck controllers could have the chord summary of the Steam/Guide button stuck showing until the next guide button press.
• Fixed some cases where the Guide button/Steam button would require two taps to open the Steam menu.

Mac us

• Fixed text not rendering in some dialog boxes and in-game FPS counter.

Linux

• Fixed game with filenames containing spaces not ending when forced
• Fixed a crash when opening the overlay in some games.

VR

• Fix blank Steam screen in SteamVR dashboard after starting a game.
• Improved the design of alerts.