"Steam’s Big Picture mode on PC will now adopt the specially designed Steam Deck UI.

Valve has announced that its newest update to Big Picture mode will bring the Steam Deck’s UI to PC and is available now for testing.

“We are preparing to update Big Picture mode with the new interface we designed for Steam Deck, and today we’re making it available for testing,” they revealed. “This update has been a long time coming, and we’re very excited to start gathering community feedback.”

The controller-first interface was designed especially for the Steam Deck, but its integration into Steam makes sense – providing greater brand recognition between the Steam Deck and the Steam library on PC.

And it happens to be a pretty decent interface, too.

“This controller-first interface was designed for Steam Deck in handheld and docked mode, and is perfect for all the scenarios Big Picture mode currently handles,” they confirmed.

The new Big Picture mode includes:

New Home Screen that highlights recent games and what’s news in your library.
New Universal Search that lets you search through your Library, Store, and Friends list.
New Controller Configurator that’s designed to let you choose new configurations and layouts with ease.
Optimised Stead Store for controller navigation.
Updated in-game overlay giving access to achievements and guides.
New System menu for quick navigation to different parts of the new UI.
New Quick Access Menu that lets you access notifications. Friends list, quick settings, and more.
According to Valve, the team is “still polishing rough edges” so the new version of Big Picture is currently offered through Steam’s beta program.

Instructions for trying out the new Big Picture mode can be found here."

https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-updated-its-big-picture-mode-with-the-steam-deck-ui

2 years ago

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This could be nice, but I am waiting for people's opinions before taking the plunge. Yeah, I am that lazy.... :D

2 years ago
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My opinion is that it's alright. Looks good, performs well for starting games and performing most tasks. Compared to the previous BPM it's a big improvement. The one exception is the storefront though - there you just get rudimentary d-pad controls and a mouse pointer controlled by the thumbstick. Didn't feel as slick as the rest of the UI, but I guess that part is a work in progress.

You have to start it from a different shortcut than regular Steam though, it's just a beta thing... but makes it sort of annoying to use atm.

2 years ago
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Thanks for the input! Storefront does not bother me really, I never buy anything with my living room computer anyway. But I do worry a lot about using my Bluetooth+Dualshock with the Controller Configuration that Big Picture offers (to me, this is the most underrated feature of Big Picture!)... would that work just as nicely with this new UI?

I guess the only way to be sure would be for me to try it out, but... I barely use a keyboard with this computer, and would have to setup that shortcut and... as I said... laaaaaaaazy. :D :D

Cheers!

2 years ago
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I've tried it and works great. I am looking forward to figure out how I can switch from it to the regular UI, but it's a nice improvement visually. The old version definitely needed this.

2 years ago
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It got updated for me today. I am not sure what I think about it. Maybe I need some time to get used to it.

1 year ago
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Looking good, but I already have Playnite setup so nicely ...

1 year ago
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I had no clue people actually use Big Picture mode, I always thought everyone just reluctantly turned it on as a hail mary when they can't get their controller to work. Anyways, I've been using SteamDeck quite a bit lately and the UI is pretty good, definitely a solid improvement from the old big picture UI, at least from what I remember of it.

1 year ago
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Just tried it out. Seems very fast and responsive, for the most part. Layout is soso.

  • Missing the old personal category list though. Now they are only using the very laggy Collections view. Which always sucked for some reason. Though I do have over 80 categories, so maybe thats why it browses like mud.
1 year ago*
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Might be since it runs well for me and I have around 10 categories.

1 year ago
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