Steam Deck Update Allows Users To Transfer Installed Games From PC To Deck

Valve has unveiled the lat­est update for its hand­held gam­ing device, Steam Deck, which will include the abil­i­ty to trans­fer installed games and game files between PCs and Steam Deck via a local network.

Steam Local Game Net­work Trans­fers–Valve offi­cial­ly named them–will allow users to copy both instal­la­tion and update files from one PC to anoth­er. Or from a PC to a Steam Deck, as long as both devices are con­nect­ed to the same local net­work. This fea­ture will also let each user decide with whom they pre­fer to trans­fer with: no one, devices owned by friends of the active account, only devices logged in to the same account, or even any Steam user.

The offi­cial blog post for the fea­ture does list a num­ber of require­ments in order for the local game trans­fers to work, including:

• Both devices must be con­nect­ed to Steam and be able to find each oth­er on the local network.
• Both Steam accounts must allow file transfers.
• The account trans­fer­ring files out must be idle, mean­ing no active down­loads or games running.
• The game being trans­ferred needs to released to the pub­lic and playable by both Steam users.
• The game being trans­ferred must have the lat­est update installed on the device trans­fer­ring files out.

This new update will also address mul­ti­ple bugs and improve­ments, a list of addi­tion­al stream­able games to the “Ready To Play” fil­ter, sup­port for the Sony DualSense Edge Controller–including sup­port for remap­ping the rear buttons–as well as the back­ground flash­ing being reduced when scrolling through the home screen.

You can check out the full update notes below:

Steam Deck Client Update — March 2023

Local Net­work Game Transfers

• Added new fea­ture that allows Steam users to copy exist­ing Steam game instal­la­tion and update files from one PC to anoth­er over a local area net­work, with­out hav­ing to down­load and install from a Steam con­tent serv­er on the inter­net. This helps you stay below your ISP month­ly trans­fer lim­its and can speed up installs or updates.
• Steam users have con­trol over who files can be sent to: self only, friends only, or every­one. The default set­ting is self only.

Gen­er­al

• Move advanced HDR options to Devel­op­er Settings
• Stream­able games are now includ­ed in the “Ready to play” game fil­ter, though the default action is still to install them locally.
• Fixed a bug pre­vent­ing some Demo apps that store files under the full-game App ID from upload­ing to Steam Cloud from Steam Deck devices
• Stop prompt­ing users to reg­is­ter for Steam Deck rewards if they have cho­sen the “Ignore For­ev­er” option
• Fixed some trans­paren­cy issues with the back­ground in the in-game overlay.
• Fixed issue where user could not re-enter a con­text sub­menu after back­ing out of it
• Fixed issue where incom­ing chat mes­sages would not be deliv­ered prop­er­ly while in-game
• Reduced flash­ing in back­ground when scrolling through games on home screen
• Game invites in the Quick Access Menu will now default to open­ing a con­text menu to accept the invite rather than nav­i­gat­ing to the chat tab and hav­ing to hit “Accept” there.
• Added abil­i­ty to retrieve Steam Run­time Sys­tem Infor­ma­tion for Lin­ux devices
• Improved UI respon­sive­ness when recon­nect­ing to Steam
• Fixed the appear­ance of jum­bled UI that could hap­pen for a sec­ond or two when start­ing Steam
• Fixed crash when in a voice chat
• Fixed crash when autho­riz­ing a micro­trans­ac­tion purchase
• Fixed the Play but­ton steal­ing focus when a game is launching
• Con­strain the width of set­tings, chat, and oth­er non-grid based views when con­nect­ed to larg­er monitors
• Fixed mis­align­ment of load­ing throb­ber after log­ging in.
• Fixed uni­ver­sal search not apply­ing mature con­tent fil­ter­ing preferences

Steam Input

• Added sup­port for the Sony DualSense Edge con­troller includ­ing sup­port for remap­ping of the rear buttons.
• Added a load­ing throb­ber when wait­ing on Steam Cloud to update
• Improved the laten­cy of query­ing the work­shop in the Con­fig­u­ra­tion Brows­er and fix issues with con­fig­u­ra­tions pop­ping-in or open­ing the wrong tab because results weren’t ful­ly received
• Added a load­ing throb­ber that shows while the Con­fig­u­ra­tion Brows­er work­shop query is running
• Fixed PS5 edge set­tings leak­ing into PS5 controller
• Fixed Steam Link app mobile touch gyro not working
• Fixed crash exit­ing dead­zone visualization
• Fixed the phys­i­cal input visu­al­iza­tion only look­ing at the first con­nect­ed controller
• Fixed rum­ble for Nin­ten­do Joy-Con controllers
• Added sup­port for the Raz­er Wolver­ine V2 controllers
• Added the abil­i­ty to reset the device input map­ping in new Big Picture
• Added the abil­i­ty to install and unin­stall the Win­dows Xbox Enhanced Fea­tures dri­ver to the new Big Pic­ture con­troller settings
• Updat­ed the Win­dows Xbox Enhanced Fea­tures dri­ver with the fol­low­ing changes: 
  • Added sup­port for Xbox Series X con­trollers con­nect­ed via the Xbox Wire­less Adapter
  • Fixed delay detect­ing hot­plugged USB con­trollers, occa­sion­al­ly caus­ing dupli­cate con­trollers in Steam
  • Fixed inter­fer­ence with the Vic­trix Con­trol Hub after the dri­ver has been uninstalled
• Fixed Log­itech F310 con­troller input on macOS and Linux
• Added map­ping for DualSense Edge Wire­less Con­troller on Lin­ux (note that advanced fea­ture sup­port require Steam to be able to access the /dev/hidraw* devices)
• Fixed unin­tend­ed inver­sion of Gyro­scope Roll Axis on Steam Deck
• Added some opti­miza­tion around DualSense adap­tive trig­ger effects inter­ac­tion with the Blue­tooth stack

Desk­top Mode

• Added UI that tem­porar­i­ly replaces the “What’s New” sec­tion of the Library when pre-pur­chased games are avail­able to pre-load or install and play
• Added UI at start­up for account selection
• Added a “sign out” option to the main menu that removes cre­den­tials for the signed in account from the machine
• Fixed a crash when the OS is noti­fy­ing Steam that it should shutdown
• Improved per­for­mance of games when using Steam Work­shop APIs
• Refreshed the pro­file games page with a new style and improved performance
• Fixed crash for some uses of %com­mand% in short­cut launch options
• Fixed quotes sur­round­ing short­cut exe and paths
• Fixed “Steam Library Fold­er” dia­log show­ing in Down­loads settings
• Fixed sound­track cov­er art, artist, and track infor­ma­tion not appear­ing in Addi­tion­al Con­tent sec­tion of app details
• Fixed some actions that should have opened exter­nal appli­ca­tions, such as a URL in your default brows­er, that were instead doing nothing
• Fixed a crash load­ing the stand­alone con­troller configurator
• Fixed anoth­er issue block­ing down­load of pre­cached shaders