Steam Client Beta Available

[jasonr]

There's a new Steam Beta client available. To access the Beta, go to File -> Settings, and on the Account tab will be a drop down. Select Steam Client Candidate, and then allow Steam to restart itself. Here are the specific changes:

- Enabled ClearType fonts if they are enabled in Windows
- Improved in-game status and play time tracking for games with launcher apps
- Improved in-game overlay input handling in a variety of games that previously did not capture or block keyboard input correctly
- Added D3D10 support to the in-game overlay
- Made voice chat requests ignored if you've blocked communications from the caller
- Fixed the original Half-Life not getting to 100% complete downloading when it should
- Improved server selection logic for Friends and VAC server connections
- Improved Steam network connectivity in the face of dropped UDP packets

Update 5/20/2008

- Fixed Guest and Gift Passes not showing up in the games list if you do not activate from the instant message

Update 5/20/2008

- Fixed Steam getting stuck when trying to launch certain games

Update 5/22/2008

- Improved overlay DirectX10 compatibility (Gears of War)
- Fixed the overlay not recognizing the Tab key in some games (breaking the default hot-key)

Update 5/22/2008

- Fixed unable to load Authentication Library error with GoldSrc games
- Improved Friends duplicate name collision detection

Update 5/23/2008

- Fixed potential crash in hardware information dialog

Update 5/27/2008

- Fixed potential bug where the games list would not list all games

[Balls of Steel]

Cool new Steam beta

[dustbunny]

This fixed the many issues I was having with Steam Community. Thanks.

[stranded]

Thanks again for the ClearType!

[Epsilon]

Having Cleartype is kinda odd after so many years without. It'll take some getting used to!

Wish exams weren't on, I'd try out the DX10 overlay by playing through Bioshock again. Or play GTA4. I hate exams.

[Naurgul]

This looks great, especially on the in-game SC side of things. Let's see how everything with launchers and non-DX graphics works now.

[AngelGraves13]

Originally Posted by jasonr

There's a new Steam Beta client available. To access the Beta, go to File -> Settings, and on the Account tab will be a drop down. Select Steam Client Candidate, and then allow Steam to restart itself. Here are the specific changes:

- Enabled ClearType fonts if they are enabled in Windows
- Improved in-game status and play time tracking for games with launcher apps
- Improved in-game overlay input handling in a variety of games that previously did not capture or block keyboard input correctly
- Added D3D10 support to the in-game overlay
- Made voice chat requests ignored if you've blocked communications from the caller
- Fixed the original Half-Life not getting to 100% complete downloading when it should
- Improved server selection logic for Friends and VAC server connections
- Improved Steam network connectivity in the face of dropped UDP packets

Thanks! Good list of fixes there.

Any word on downloads stuck at 0% when an update is detected being fixed?

[WaLLy3K]

Originally Posted by jasonr

- Enabled ClearType fonts if they are enabled in Windows

Wooopoopoopoopoop!

Thanks for getting this one out nice and quick.

[stranded]

Brighter skins look SOOOOO much better now. Change your Steam to Flat - Ice. Looks great!

[Kapitein Iglo]

- Enabled ClearType fonts if they are enabled in Windows

This works wonderfull! Looks very good.

- Improved in-game status and play time tracking for games with launcher apps

Beyond Good and Evil is now properly tracking me playing the game and shows i'm playing the game.

- Improved in-game overlay input handling in a variety of games that previously did not capture or block keyboard input correctly

I can now open overlay in painkiller which didn't work previously.

All in all a good update and it seems to work as intended for me for now. I'll let you know when I come across any bugs.

[Zeke129]

Very nice work. The letters don't cut my eyes anymore.

[dailybacon]

No longer having the FFXI problem after I participated in the beta.

Cheerz.

[ZeBool]

Yay! Now I can use the Steam overlay in Gears.

[jmccaskey]

Originally Posted by ZeBool

Yay! Now I can use the Steam overlay in Gears.

I didn't have a copy of Gears to test with, let me know how it works!

[ZeBool]

It doesn't work as well as I'd hoped. Crash as soon as I hear the menu music. Here's the details:

Rendering thread exception:
General protection fault!
History: Address = 0x46b1eea (filename not found) [in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\GameOverlayRenderer.dll]
Address = 0x46b1eea (filename not found) [in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\GameOverlayRenderer.dll]

RaiseException() Address = 0x7679f35f (filename not found) [in C:\Windows\syswow64\kernel32.dll]
CxxThrowException() Address = 0x74e28e89 (filename not found) [in C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_microsoft.vc80.crt_1fc8b3b9a 1e18e3b_8.0.50727.1434_none_d08b6002442c891f\MSVCR 80.dll]
Address = 0xfb8a02 (filename not found) [in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Gears of War\Binaries\wargame-g4wlive.exe]
Address = 0xe874e84c (filename not found)
Address = 0xe874e84c (filename not found)

EDIT: If I had to guess, I'd say it's the double overlay thing going on (Live's own overlay, and then Steam). Kane and Lynch doesn't seem to have that issue, but it's also DX9 and an entirely different engine.

EDIT again: Hellgate: London will launch through Steam, but no overlay. I don't get the popup on start, and my hotkey doesn't work (tried rebinding it to a few other things, too). I don't have Bioshock and Lost Planet installed, but I'll download them tonight and post my results in DX10.

Yet another EDIT: Looks like Hellgate chose to only install x64 binaries, which is dumb at best. FRAPS had to have a separate DLL to hook to x64 applications. Is GameOverlayUI designed to hook to x64 apps?