Today, Valve released the March edition of the Client Update for its video game platform, Steam, which focuses on enhancing user reviews with hardware data and improving Steam Input functionality.
Players can now choose to attach hardware specs when writing or updating a Steam User Review to provide more context for performance-related feedback. A new option was also added that allows anonymized gameplay framerate data to be provided, and is currently in Beta (primarily for SteamOS).
One of the biggest improvements in the update is a bug fix that corrected VRAM reporting for certain graphics cards, which was previously incorrectly reported as -1. In multi-GPU setups, Steam now prioritizes reporting the card with the most VRAM.
General input and controller updates were another major focus of the update, adding new options such as Left Stick Touch and Right Stick Touch buttons to the Mode Shift selection menu, and replacing the Button Chord Activator’s drop-down with a multi-button selector, giving newer controllers access to previously unlisted extra grip buttons.
Gyro to Joystick Camera’s Minimum Joystick Output will now match the behavior of Gyro to Joystick Deflection to help players identify a game’s internal joystick deadzone, while also adding an option to apply range remapping and acceleration settings on a per-axis or Circular basis. Players will notice that the input latency for third-party controllers while rumble is active has improved considerably alongside the update as well.
The Steam Library options got a few tweaks, as “Installed” demos that are no longer playable now show an Uninstall button as the primary action instead of “Play.” Another small but noticeable change is that newly added demos and free-to-play games will now appear at the top of your Recent Games list.
For the full list of patch notes, head on over to the official post here. You can also check back for plenty of other Steam news, including all the great deals they’ve currently got on sale during the Tower Defense Fest this week.
