What could Steam do better?

Rathorial · Apr 15, 2019

Parsnip said:
Don't know about news feeds, but if you follow devs/pubs, for example Square Enix, Steam will surface their new release to you at least in the landing topslot along with other recommendations. Right now I'm seeing Dissidia from Square and some One Piece game from Bamco on mine, because I follow those two.
They also send emails when followed pub releases a new game, similar to wishlist emails.

Hmm, well that's good to know. I guess I'd just like it in the activity feed, or some kind of section or filter to know vs. them just happening to exist at the top of the store. I also don't default steam to open to the store, but my activity feed.

Sotha_Sil said:
I do like all of these ideas. Your other ones were good too, but these caught my attention the most. The desired pricing one would be fantastic.

Overall, I really haven't had any issues with Steam though. Anything I could think of would be minor QoL upgrades. I find it easy enough to find games and sales.

I would assume maybe the desiring pricing might put off devs that would think it would further devalue their games, but at least I wouldn't use it that way. It's hard for me to find too many flaws with Steam, especially given they're already improving the interface, and I actually like that Steam sells most everything that's legal vs. other stores that more heavily curate. I also think it's inevitable for a digital game store to over time accumulate so many games, especially given PC doesn't have generations...that you need automated ways to learn about consumer taste so you can recommend older titles to them vs. just new stuff.

BeI · Apr 15, 2019

One other thing I'd like Steam to improve: fps control. Rather than just being able to toggle an fps counter, it'd be great to be able to set and toggle fps caps in the overlay, Rivatuner style. So like controller configs, you could set per-game fps caps to help stabilize performance to 30/60/120 fps, etc, and maybe it could even include advanced fractional fps capping (a tiny amount below refresh rate) to cut down on input lag when using V-sync.

It would be great for standardizing the ability to play PC games at 30 fps if your hardware isn't great, potentially make V-sync seem like a less undesirable option when going for a smooth 60 fps, and just generally allow fps capping options you would have to go find another program for.

Pargon · Apr 15, 2019

BeImonkey said:
One other thing I'd like Steam to improve: fps control. Rather than just being able to toggle an fps counter, it'd be great to be able to set and toggle fps caps in the overlay, Rivatuner style. So like controller configs, you could set per-game fps caps to help stabilize performance to 30/60/120 fps, etc, and maybe it could even include advanced fractional fps capping (a tiny amount below refresh rate) to cut down on input lag when using V-sync.

It would be great for standardizing the ability to play PC games at 30 fps if your hardware isn't great, potentially make V-sync seem like a less undesirable option when going for a smooth 60 fps, and just generally allow fps capping options you would have to go find another program for.

If you want to cap games to 30 FPS for smoothness, you need to use V-Sync for it if you're using a standard fixed-refresh display.
Frame rate limiters work differently and are far more prone to introducing frame-pacing issues.

Essentially, 30 FPS at 60Hz means there are 60 time-slots available for those 30 frames, so it's easy for them to be badly distributed.
A good frame rate limiter like RTSS will do its best to try and pace them evenly, but there's no guarantee of it.
Half-refresh V-Sync essentially forces the game to act like it's connected to a 30Hz display rather than 60Hz. This means there are only 30 possible time-slots available for those 30 frames, so it's extremely difficult for there to be any frame-pacing issues.

OrangeNova · Apr 15, 2019

dock said:
Verify Integrity of Game Files.

Why does this exist? None of my other installers have or need this. There's no logic to this being user facing.

I've used it several times to fix game issues, either from modified files or the game getting a little strange (Xcom 2 at launch)

Giever · Apr 15, 2019

Revert back to DRM issues being a valid reason for negative reviews, because they fucking are.

BeI · Apr 15, 2019

Pargon said:
If you want to cap games to 30 FPS for smoothness, you need to use V-Sync for it if you're using a standard fixed-refresh display.
Frame rate limiters work differently and are far more prone to introducing frame-pacing issues.

Essentially, 30 FPS at 60Hz means there are 60 time-slots available for those 30 frames, so it's easy for them to be badly distributed.
A good frame rate limiter like RTSS will do its best to try and pace them evenly, but there's no guarantee of it.
Half-refresh V-Sync essentially forces the game to act like it's connected to a 30Hz display rather than 60Hz. This means there are only 30 possible time-slots available for those 30 frames, so it's extremely difficult for there to be any frame-pacing issues.

Well the goal would just be more capping options easily accessible to millions of players by default, but it'd be great if Rivatuner's "low lag V-sync" trick with a cap at refresh rate -.01 could be implemented to lower input lag when using V-sync, making V-sync not an option to automatically turn off as often.

I don't think Valve could do anything for half-rate V-sync (doesn't that add even more input lag?), but ideally both AMD / Nvidia could both have options for it, potentially even in the overlay, like how AMD can turn Enhanced Sync on and off in-game.

Also, do consoles use half-rate V-sync to make 30 fps seem smoother (at least smoother than a typical 30 fps cap applied to a pc game)?

PrimeBeef · Apr 15, 2019

Their similar games algorithm could use some improvement.

Pargon · Apr 15, 2019

BeImonkey said:
Well the goal would just be more capping options easily accessible to millions of players by default, but it'd be great if Rivatuner's "low lag V-sync" trick with a cap at refresh rate -.01 could be implemented to lower input lag when using V-sync, making V-sync not an option to automatically turn off as often.

I don't think Valve could do anything for half-rate V-sync (doesn't that add even more input lag?), but ideally both AMD / Nvidia could both have options for it, potentially even in the overlay, like how AMD can turn Enhanced Sync on and off in-game.

Also, do consoles use half-rate V-sync to make 30 fps seem smoother (at least smoother than a typical 30 fps cap applied to a pc game)?

There is always going to be a trade-off between latency and smoothness if you are using a fixed refresh-rate display, rather than a variable refresh-rate display.
Maximum smoothness is achieved via 1/2 rate V-Sync, but that also has the highest latency.
Adding frame rate limiters to the mix, or only using frame rate limiters, can reduce latency but at a cost of smoothness.
I expect that 1/2 rate V-Sync is how most console games with good frame-pacing at 30 FPS achieve it.