Now that a new Steam Deck client update has reached the stable branch, it has incorporated all the changes from the beta branch since October 18th. This is almost a month’s worth of changes, including quicker startup times if you have a large library of games, reduced size of the Steam client, QR code functionality when logging into your Steam account, gyro enabling for gamepads that don’t support capacitive touch, Nintendo-style button layouts, updated Desktop controller layout, and tons of other features, fixes, and improvements. This update also contains the New Big Picture Mode – you’ll need to run Steam in the terminal with -gamepadui or -newbigpicture to be able to use it.

Check out the new Big Picture Mode video:

Full patch notes are as follows:

General

  • Reduced client startup times for users with large game libraries
  • Fixed issue where launching a game would take longer to start if there was no network connection.
  • Fixed VR flags not showing up in app details for some games
  • Fixed downloads page crashing when starting in offline mode
  • Downloads page now properly responds to online/offline status
  • Collections view can now show more than two rows of collections and allow scrolling
  • Reduced size of Steam client download
  • Fixed bluetooth failing to turn on in gaming mode if it was disabled in desktop mode
  • When installing a game always show the install location picker if there is more than one library folder, and automatically focus the default library folder when the dialog shows up
  • Added error dialog for when the user clicks on a mailto link
  • Fixed the ‘Cancel’ button in the wifi password dialogue for a new connection causing the current network to disconnect
  • Re-worked “Gifts Pending” page to be gamepad navigable

Docked Mode

  • Fixed incorrect size of Main Menu in docked mode with 4k displays
  • Virtual Keyboard now has a maximum width, so that it doesn’t stretch to an unusable size on large screens
  • Set scale for startup movies so that the top and bottom of the movie are cropped for 16:9 aspect ratio

Desktop Mode

  • Fixed issue preventing the Virtual Keyboard from accessing the clipboard and being unable to perform paste operations
  • Center the popup controller configurator window when viewing controller layout
  • Fixed circular download progress indicator being broken in game entry list

Sign In

  • Added login flow that supports new QR code functionality
  • Fix a case where if the sign-in UI had cached credentials which had become invalid, it could get stuck and not accept valid credentials thereafter
  • Fixed an edge case in handling of invalid cached credentials affecting reauthentication

Steam Input

  • Gyro Enabling: The “Touch” option is now available to controllers which do not have capacitive touch sensors - Moving joysticks out of their deadzone now counts as a “Touch”.
  • All controller types can each now optionally choose to use a Nintendo-style layout. This flips the A and B button and X and Y button universally in Steam and in games.
  • The Xbox extended features driver has been updated for Windows 11
  • Fixed hang when the Amazon Luna controller rumbles on macOS
  • Fixed issue with the touch binding in As Mouse mode releasing before the end of a swipe
  • Fixed doubled input for Nintendo Joy-Cons controllers
  • Gyro Yaw & Roll Combined now allows negative contribution values from both sources.
  • FlickStick output can now be Inverted, and can be sent to X or Y Mouse axis.
  • Fix for FlickStick turning when exiting an overlay layer with the stick still thrown.
  • Desktop Controller Layout Now defaults to a desktop friendly set of controls. Long-Pressing Menu Button will toggle back and forth to a Gamepad friendly layout.
  • Updated Steam Controller LB and RB button images

Remote Play

  • Fixed glyphs for third party Nintendo controllers while streaming

New Big Picture Mode

  • Updated Big Picture is now available for testing. You can read more about it in this blog post. Modify your Steam client shortcut and add -gamepadui on the command-line to automatically start Steam in the new Big Picture Mode. Alternatively, pass -newbigpicture to start in Desktop mode and have access to the new Big Picture Mode at any time.

Additionally, it was apparently updated again to fix a browser crash in Desktop Mode.

Patch notes can also be seen on Steam. On a side note, the SteamOS 3.4 beta also got updated to fix the OSK with two languages and add a workaround “for an underlying Steam/Proton issue causing some games…to fail to launch.”