- For something we use every day,
it is shocking how little we know about Steam.
Did you know
that you can install games that have been de-listed
from the store, share games with your family and friends
and even play your PC games remotely
as if you had your own personal cloud gaming service?
Well, believe it or not,
that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Welcome to 10 Steam features you didn't know about.
First up is remote downloads.
We've all been in this situation.
You're at Trent Judy's sixth wedding,
miles away from your gaming PC and you realize, oh crap,
I forgot to download that new game.
Even if I start it the second I get home,
I'll be in bed before it finishes.
Whoa, that is a really skimpy wedding dress.
You probably... (host chuckling)
You probably already knew
that you can buy games through the Steam app on your phone
but did you know that you can also use the app
to tell your PC at home
to start downloading right away?
Just open your library in the Steam app,
aelect the game in question, and as long as your PC is awake
and signed into the same Steam account,
you should see Remote Download
at the bottom of the accordion menu.
Speaking of downloads, did you know that you can download
and play some games that have been removed
from Steam for one reason or another?
Here's a cool example.
Before there was Half-Life 2, there was Half-Life 2D,
otherwise known as Codename: Gordon,
which was a little side scrolling,
puzzle/action game developed in Flash by a third party,
then published on Steam by Valve
but if you type it into the store, you get nothing.
That's because the developer hard coded a web URL
into the game that expired when the original owner failed
to renew it
after which it turned into a sketchy advertising website.
So Valve removed the game from Steam.
Well, kind of.
With the Steam client signed in,
open up either the Windows Run dialog or a browser window
and just type in steam://install/92.
Hit enter and Steam should open up
and start installing the game.
There's actually a handful of other games
in similar situations, some of which are still playable.
We're gonna have links in the description.
We'll also have a link down there to our sponsor.
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Now that you have a list of new things to install,
did you know that Steam can save you time and bandwidth
if you're installing a game that's already
on another device on your network?
Just go to the Steam menu, click on Settings,
and then Downloads.
At the bottom of the window,
you'll see some new options that allow transfers
between your own devices, devices owned by friends
or devices owned by anyone on the same network.
This is not only faster if you have slow internet
but if you have a bandwidth cap on your connection,
it won't count against it.
Truthfully, it's not that different from the old trick
of manually copying the game folder to another PC
but it's way more user friendly.
While we still have the download settings open, by the way,
let's click on Steam Library folders.
If you've used a Steam deck,
then the Storage Manager window that pops up
might look familiar to you.
This shows you where on your computer Steam
has games installed,
lets you uninstall things in bulk
and lets you move your games between your various drives.
But you might be surprised to learn
that this also works on external drives, like this one.
Ran out of space on your system drive?
No problem.
Create a library on a USB drive
or even an SD card and plug it in.
Unlike in the past where you had to scan the files,
Steam should recognize all of the games automatically,
allowing you to instantly play them right off the drive.
And while you might think performance would be an issue,
Valve has assured Steam Deck users
that they can expect similar performance off
of the internal drive or the micro SD card slot.
And this is the same idea.
With that said,
if you want your portable library to run at top speed,
we would recommend a portable NVMe enclosure hooked up
to the fastest USB port you can muster.
We're gonna have a couple good options linked down below.
Installing games at all is so 2015.
How about just streaming your games
to devices where they're not installed or even to devices
where they can't be installed like your phone or your TV?
Remote Play Anywhere was first introduced
as in-home streaming back in 2014
and was heavily promoted when Valve launched the Steam Link
and the Steam Controller, which was a killer thin client
and game controller combo that allowed you to cast games
from the PC in your mom's basement
to the TV in your mom's living room.
But while the hardware products
were ultimately discontinued,
Steam Link lives on just in software form.
Remote Play Anywhere works pretty much the same
as it did before, allowing you to enjoy the performance
of your powerful gaming PC while streaming the gameplay
and the controls to any device with the Steam Link app,
which is available for Android and iOS, many smart TVs
and even for the Raspberry Pi, oh, it's not in the script
but obviously for SteamOS as well.
Remote Play Anywhere and Steam Link work best
with both devices on the same wired network.
But five gigahertz Wi-Fi is also fine in many cases
and with a good enough connection on both sides,
you can even use it over the internet.
Though you might wanna stick
with less latency-sensitive titles
if you're gaming on the beach
in your stylish LTT swim trunks available
in black or water block blue on lttstore.com.
Now, this next one got a decent amount
of attention when it first came out,
so it's probably less of a thing you didn't know
and more of a thing you didn't remember.
But Steam family sharing lets you share your game library
with up to five other accounts on up to 10 total devices.
Just go to Steam, settings, family
and look for family library sharing to set it up.
Family sharing is particularly great
for sharing single player games because why should you
and your SO both pay $70 for a game
that you can't even play together.
Now, obviously, there are some limitations.
Not every game is shareable.
Only one person can play a game at a time
and you'll need to log into your Steam account
on any device that you intend to share with at some point.
So you can't just spontaneously share libraries
with that random cool dude you met
in that Epic counterstrike match.
On that note, by the way,
if your match was particularly epic,
I'm sure you don't want compression artifacts
messing up your screenshots.
Thankfully, Steam lets you brag artifact free
by going to Steam, settings, in game.
Just check the Save and Uncompressed Copy option
and make sure that you specify a screenshot folder.
That's all there is to it.
Uncompressed versions of any screenshot you take
will show up in the folder you've specified.
And while we're in here, let's do a bonus tip.
Right next to that screenshot setting,
you can enable a simple FPS counter that works
in any game.
Just pick which corner you want it to appear in.
- [Narrator] Forward.
(screen whooshing) (bell dinging)
- Now, depending on the game you're playing
a good server can be hard to find
and when you find one you like,
you probably wanna remember it.
Most online games have their own way to favorite a server
within the game, but did you know
that Steam has its own server browser built in?
Go to View, Servers and you'll get a filterable list
of active servers for all the games in your library,
along with tabs to view your server history,
favorite servers and more,
all without actually launching a game,
though you will have to do that eventually, and when you do,
here's a fun new way.
You've almost certainly heard of Big Picture Mode,
the Steam UI scheme that's made for large screen devices
but have you heard of Small Mode?
It's hiding in plain sight
in the view menu right above big picture mode.
Small mode turns the normal Steam interface
into a compact simple library viewer.
It's perfect for sticking on your second screen
along with your friends list and your chats,
and if you click on anything that needs a bigger window,
it'll bring you right back to the standard interface,
which it calls large mode in the View menu,
which is not to be confused with big picture mode.
On that note, Valve has spent
over 10 years working to make keyboard
and mouse games playable from the couch with a controller
and all of their progress has become a key feature
of the Steam Deck where Steam Input
lets you completely customize the input for any game,
regardless of what the game itself
actually allows you to do.
And guess what?
Steam Input can be enabled
on the desktop Steam client as well.
Just right click on a game in your library
and open up Properties where you can enable Steam Input.
Once that's done, you can right click on the game again.
Then click Manage, Controller Config
to customize the Steam Input settings for the game.
This also works with non-Steam games that you've added
to Steam, though it's still a little buggy,
particularly if you try to use community-defined configs
for your non-team game.
We're gonna have a link down below with some more info.
What's wild is that Steam is so full of hidden gems
like this that we could easily do a follow-up video
with 10 new tips.
So help us out by posting your favorite Steam feature
in the comments down below.
I know I'm gonna get a lot of you sort of remote download
now that I know about it.
The one feature that Steam is still missing though
is the segue-way to our sponsor.
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That looks like 11, actually 10.
- If you liked this video, why not check
out this recent one where we tear apart one
of valve's prototype Steam consoles?
You could kind of think of it
as the great granddaddy of the Steam Deck.