Steam Pro Tips and Tricks: 10 Features You May Not Have Known About

Steam Pro Tips and Tricks: 10 Features You May Not Have Known About - Every pc gamer has sure had a run in with Valve’s digital distribution platform, Steam. It’s quite hard to avoid if you wish to require advantage of the vast collection of videogames that square measure available on computer. We’ve collated our favorite 10 steam tips and tricks for newbies - or just those in would like of a refresher - so you'll make the foremost out of what this broad app needs to offer.

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Steam Pro Tips and Tricks - There’s an entire ton of functionality within the Steam client; it’s not simply the place wherever you empty your bank account and launch your games. you'll batch install games, dodge the download tax on network, turn your laptop into a game server, and customise it to your heart’s content. And that’s not the boundaries of its capabilities either.

Lots of these options you'll probably already be familiar with, however there might also be a couple that you just had no plan about and will save you time and/or bandwidth. Things few of us have in nice abundance, or will afford to waste.

1. Moving games across drives

If you’ve just upgraded to the speediest flash drive you may get you mitts on, then you might wish to get your games onto its NAND Flash chips pronto. This used to be a bit tricky, thanks to Steam’s slightly awkward file checks, however Valve have added some new functionality to cure any potential client woes.

Head into settings from the Steam dropdown menu in the top left.
Click on Downloads.
Then Steam Library Folders.
Add Library Folder
Then select your preferred drive (your speedy new SSD) from the dropdown menu, and select Add Folder.

You only need to follow these steps the primary time you setup your new drive, and from currently on you'll be able to move games swiftly between the 2 libraries.

Moving your games is a simple task from here:

Right click on the game you’d like to move between drives.
Select Properties.
Navigate to Local Files.
Select Move Install Folder.
Select the new directory.
Click Move Folder.

Steam will take care of any and all redirections required in the backend from here.

2. Using another PC’s game install

Have another machine close to hand with the game you’d prefer to play already installed on it? Don’t worry, it’s easy enough to get that installation folder onto your computer and get gaming while not having to wait for one byte to download.

On the PC with the game installed:

Copy the game installation folder from with the Common folder - usually found within: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common, but it could be on a separate directory.
Paste the game directory onto your transport drive - a USB or portable HDD/SDD.

On the target game install PC:

Ensure Steam is shutdown in its entirety.
Plug in your transport drive.
Copy the game installation folder from within the transport drive.
Navigate to the Common folder within Steam or another Steam Library directory.
Paste the game installation folder within this directory.
Open Steam and select the game you wish to install (you will need to have purchased the game for it to appear in your library)
Click install, and select the directory that you pasted the game installation folder to.

Steam should recognise that the files needed for Steam to play the title you’ve selected are already present, and can swiftly finish the installation method. so long as no updates are required at this time, you should be able to play.

You can also create a backup file of your selected game then restore this file on a target pc, however we discover the above method to be much quicker.

3. Mass Install

Standing around and waiting for your games to install individually is for chumps. we have a tendency to don’t have time for that, and neither likely do you. Luckily, Steam have a mass install feature thus you'll be able to leave your games installing overnight in one massive download speed crushing blob.

Hold CTRL and select all the games you wish to install
Right click on one of the selected titles and click install
Steam’s multiple game install popup should, er… popup, and you can select the preferred directory for these titles.

4. Download Speed

Steam tends to be a little bit of a bandwidth hog occasionally. By a little bit, I mean it'll typically break your wifi for each different user just to download a visual novel. Well, there are some checks and balances in situ to stay Steam under control.

These checks lie inside the aptly-named downloads settings menu. From here you may find options to limit your bandwidth, downloading during gameplay settings, and also change your region if you're plagued by tedious download speeds unnecessarily.

5. In-game FPS

There are tons of performance metric and monitoring apps for PCs. MSI’s afterburner is nice for in-depth analysis and overclocking, however Fraps and similar apps are nice for recording set benchmarks, too. Of course, if you actually need one thing light-weight and nominal minimal minimal your rig is running as expected, you may use Steam’s integral fps overlay.

Just head over settings, in-game, and switch the counter on in whichever corner of the screen most closely fits you.

6. Library categories

This one may be a great tool for neat freaks and serial organisers. With library classes you'll be able to group your games and software package but you wish. Be it by age, favourites, rating, genre, developer… whatever you wish.

All you have got to try and do is true click on the titles you want to categorise (games will be sorted en masse with CTRL click), and click on set categories.

While you're sorting your library, you'll be able to also set Steam to incorporate all of your games, despite whether or not they were purchased within the Steam Store itself. just click + Add Game at all-time low left of the library screen, wait for the list to proliferate together with your installed apps, and choose the apps you’d wish to raise your library. Some games still need you to travel through the relevant launcher, however it will tidy things up a bit and switch Steam into a one-stop gaming search.

7. Steam in-home streaming

If you’re already familiar with the Steam Link, then you seemingly will be familiar with Steam’s in-home streaming, too. However, the Steam Link isn't actually needed to stream games throughout your house, so long as you have got Steam-compatible devices, like a low-power laptop computer, littered round the house already.

On a secondary PC:

Navigate to settings.
Click on in-home streaming.
Enable the checkbox for streaming.

Now you’ll be ready to see which games ar available for streaming once both devices ar on-line at the same time. you'll be able to additionally adjust speed vs. quality settings within this page also. It’s suggested that all your streaming devices are on wired connections to have the best experience, as wifi are often a little lacking for such a network tight feature unless everything’s connected to a robust 5GHz signal.

8. Family game sharing

Streaming is one factor, however you'll be able to additionally share nearly your entire library with selected friends and family, too. With this feature enabled, any user logged in on a authorised machine will access your games to play at no cost. the biggest limitation, however, is that the owner of aforesaid library must be offline to share their library. Don’t worry, Steam can always provide the owner priority to their library, and can inform anyone after you come back on-line and ar on the brink of boot them out of their game session.

To turn on Family Sharing:

Head over to settings.
Click on Family.
Enable the checkbox for Library sharing on this computer.
Tick the username of the users that are allowed access to your library across authorised computers.

You can allow up to 5 users to access your library, across 10 devices. you'll be able to check who has access and also the computers that are authorised through the manage your computers link among this settings page, additionally - also just in case you wish to revoke access all of a unexpected.

9. Steam command line

Command line options ar little a lot of advanced than some of the opposite tips outlined during this list, however they'll be unbelievably useful must you ever need to troubleshoot a non-starting game, or setup some settings that the devs felt extraneous.

To access game launch options:

Right click on your selected game.
Open Properties.
Select Set Launch options.
Enter your commands and press OK

You’ll need to understand the specific command line options for your specific games, however here are some for every of the foremost popular Steam titles around:

Defence of the Ancients (DOTA) 2

Enable Console: -console OR con_enable 1

Turn off intro videos: -novid

High CPU priority: -high

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

Force the refresh rate: -refresh [0 - 260 and above]

example: -refresh [144]

Utilise all CPU cores available: -USEALLAVAILABLECORES

Maximise memory usage: -maxMem=[0 - 64000(bytes)]

example: -maxMen=[11000]

Counter Strike: Global Offensive

Enable console: -console

Turn off intro videos: -novid

Set refresh rate: -refresh <0 - 260 and above>

example: -refresh <144>

Grand Theft Auto V

Startup in safe mode: -safemode

Start benchmark: -benchmark

Launch into multiplayer freemode: -StraightIntoFreemode

10. Steam Skins

You aren’t stuck looking at constant skin Steam has been rocking for an age. There are multitudes of third-party Steam skins available on-line giving new and improved styles. railway line and Air are just 2 of the foremost popular, however they're a good place to start.

To install a theme:

Ensure Steam is shutdown.
Find your Steam Skins folder - this is usually located at: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\skins
Download the file of your preferred skin.
Unzip this folder and copy the contents.
Paste the main skin directory into the Steam Skins folder.
Start Steam and head over to settings, and interface.
Select the dropdown list of skins and locate your chosen skin.
You’ll now be prompted to restart Steam

Steam Pro Tips and Tricks - Once Steam has been restarted, you’ll be greeted by Steam’s new look. Sit in awe at its new beauty.