Welcome to your humble abode for the week—Steam House & Home Fest—featuring discounts and demos on games all about the home from now through April 6th at 10AM Pacific.
You'll be floored by all the ways you can make a home your own, whether interior decoration, cleaning, organizing, power-washing, renovating, or anything in between. Chores may be no fun in real life, but in these games, there's nothing quite so satisfying as having everything in its right place.
Note: This update is for the Steam Deck Preview channel, and includes new features that are still being tested. You can opt into this in Settings > System > System Update Channel.
These notes contain all changes since the current stable SteamOS 3.7 release, with the changes added since the previous preview noted in bold
General
New in 3.8.1 Fixed a case where WiFi performance could become degraded until the device was put to sleep or manually reconnected
New in 3.8.1 Fixed excessive trackpad sensitivity on certain early Steam Deck LCD models
Initial support for upcoming Steam Machine hardware
Updated Arch system base
Updated graphics driver with performance and stability fixes
Fixed a case where per-app performance settings would intermittently fail to apply when launching a game
Improved support for the screencasts in Game Mode (e.g. OBS/Discord)
Fixed dropdown menus not appearing in some games
Improved VRR frame pacing
Fixed FSR badge remaining off in the performance overlay, even if it was actually active
Improved support for games that attempt to open PDF files in external viewers
Fixed an issue affecting certain titles (such as "SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide") where the game window could have an incorrect position
Fixed closing certain titles (such as "STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor™") and Starfield resulting in a session crash
Improved support for certain USB racing wheels and USB devices that boot in a non-standard mode
Frequently these are devices that appear as USB storage devices with a driver installer, and must be switched to their normal mode by the OS
Steam Deck controller firmware updates now display update progress on the splash screen
Fixes issue on specific Steam Deck revisions where firmware updates could render the left controller inoperative for that session
Numerous stability and security updates
Bluetooth
Re-re-enable Bluetooth Wake for Steam Deck LCD
Fix for more spurious wake issues that were present in earlier attempts
Audio
Detect HDMI channel count and expose surround configuration if available
Add a setting to allow using Bluetooth headset mics (Bluetooth playback quality will be worse while capture is active)
Restore internal audio device on reboot if set to "Off" in desktop mode
Increase suspend timeout for HDMI devices so initial audio isn't cut off after a few seconds of inactivity
Fixed a bug with switching input devices when a wired headset is plugged in
Fixed an issue where audio underruns could be experienced after sleep/resume
Accessibility
Added an option to force mono audio output
Desktop Mode
KDE Plasma updated to version 6.4.3 from 6.2.5, and now uses wayland by default
Fixes several cases of reduced performance in Desktop Mode compared to Game Mode
Improved support for rotated displays
Better scale factor out of the box on TVs
Adds support for external HDR displays
Adds support for VRR displays
Adds support per-display scale factor
For more information, see Plasma release announcements
This release includes a variety of bug fixes and quality of life improvements for SteamVR.
We continue to focus on OpenXR as our preferred API for new games and applications. SteamVR’s official OpenXR subforum is here and we’d love to hear your feedback, as well as suggestions for new features.
SteamVR:
Overlays now render translucent grey backsides, unless docked to a controller.
Third-party overlay apps won’t have translucent backsides until recompiled with the next OpenVR SDK.
Fix cases where loading drivers would fail for paths containing non-ASCII characters.
Fix motion smoothing not working with latest Nvidia drivers.
Fix for VRAM leak on some AMD systems.
Fixed an issue where the audio thread for Steam Link VR was using too much CPU.
Change how our Oculus driver handles initialization failure. This affects people who use Oculus headsets with the Oculus Desktop app, as well as people who stream to their HMDs (all types, not only Quest) with Virtual Desktop Streamer. The driver will no longer be unloaded on failure, which was causing crashes. Some failures which resulted in safe mode restarts will now display better diagnostic information.
Steam Link:
Fix Pico headsets under-reporting recommended render resolution (increased to 2160x2160 from 1832x1920).
Improvements to slider groupings in settings section.
Reduce stutters when adjusting encoded video size.
OpenXR:
Fix API layers UI not displaying layers if a path for one was not found.
Fix case where XR_META_recommended_layer_resolution would always return low resolutions.
Fix case where XR_META_performance_metrics could return errors for valid performance metric counter paths.
Pressing the system button will no longer instantly cause the session state to change to VISIBLE. The system now waits to decide if the user is doing a quick recenter, screenshot, or opening the dashboard.
Fixed a hang caused by invoking render model APIs and then destroying the instance before the initial API calls finished.
Fix for OpenXR quad layers updating at reduced frame rate under certain conditions.
Fix for OpenXR apps which create multiple sessions and submit quad layers being unable to submit quad layers after the first session (notably: Unreal Editor)
Steam VR Home:
Fixed multiplayer lobbies to accept connections again.
Developers:
SteamVR will no longer forcibly terminate the Unreal Editor process when exiting.
As always, if you are interested, we encourage enrolling into SteamVR Beta by right-clicking on SteamVR in your Steam library, clicking on "Properties" and selecting "Betas" from the list on the left hand side and then clicking "Beta" under Beta Participation. Additionally, if you use Steam Link for Meta Quest, you can opt into the beta here or in-headset by going to your library, clicking the "..." on Steam Link, selecting Settings and clicking the button to the right of "Installed Version Information."
Help & Information:
The Steam Link for Meta Quest FAQ page is available here.
If you encounter issues with this update, please post in the SteamVR Bug Report forum. If possible, please include a SteamVR System Report to aid in tracking down your issue. Replies to this post are not tracked for bug reporting purposes. Please use the forum linked above to report issues.
The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes:
Big Picture
Fixed an issue with the "use the gamepadui overlay when a controller is connected" mode where desktopUI chat windows could open and block the Big Picture overlay.
Game Recording
Fixed the instant clip shortcut not working for non-Steam games when using a gamepad.
Linux SteamRT3 Beta
Fixed games failing to start when when some custom launch options are specified.
Fixed client startup loop that could occur in rare circumstance when Steam config directory is in an unexpected state.
Remote Play
Fixed launching with surround sound audio when streaming a game from the library
26.1, the release of Tiny Takeover, is a game drop for Java Edition released on March 24, 2026, which adds new textures and models for every baby mob that did not already have a unique model, adds the golden dandelion, makes name tags craftable, makes technical changes, and fixes bugs.
Full changelog: https://minecraft.wiki/Java_Edition_26.1
The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes:
Remote Play
Added a workaround for an AMD driver bug causing stream corruption and lockups on Windows. This bug is also fixed in the latest AMD drivers, version 26.3.1.
26.1 Release Candidate 3 (known as 26.1-rc-3 in the launcher) is the third and final release candidate for Java Edition 26.1, released on March 23, 2026, which fixes bugs.
Full changelog: https://minecraft.wiki/Java_Edition_26.1-rc-3
26.1 Release Candidate 2 (known as 26.1-rc-2 in the launcher) is the second release candidate for Java Edition 26.1, released on March 20, 2026, which fixes a bug.
Full changelog: https://minecraft.wiki/Java_Edition_26.1-rc-2
The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes:
Big Picture Mode
Moved Steam chat into the quick access menu, making it easier to access while in-game.
Introduced new quick chat feature for Steam Deck and Big Picture Mode
When in a chat, press and hold the view button to bring up quick chat options.
Move thumbstick and release view button to send a quick chat.
Quick chats can be edited in Settings > Keyboard
Remote Play
Enabled streaming while Remote Desktop is active on Windows
Added more flexible options to the Advanced Host Options for selecting primary display, resolution, refresh rate, etc. while streaming from a Windows computer. This will also allow setting whether HDR is enabled while streaming.
Added support for the SudoVDA virtual display driver on Windows. If you have the SudoVDA driver installed and select this as your primary display in the Advanced Host Options, Steam will automatically create a virtual display to match the client display settings.
Linux SteamRT3 Beta
The Steam for Linux client can now be run inside a Steam Runtime container. This will help the Steam client provide a more consistent experience across multiple distributions. This is the same technology we use for Steam games.
The SteamRT3 beta client is distributed alongside the regular beta client. You can opt-in to the beta client via the 'Use experimental SteamRT3 Steam Client' toggle in Settings->Interface.
The SteamRT3 beta client has been updated to 64 bits.
Please report issues specific to the SteamRT3 beta in the Beta Forums or the steam-for-linux issue tracker.
Note: This update is for the Steam Deck Preview channel, and includes new features that are still being tested. You can opt into this in Settings > System > System Update Channel.
Known Issue: Users not currently opted into Preview channel updates may be automatically returned to the Beta channel when attempting to opt-in. This can be worked around by enabling "Advanced Update Channels" in developer settings, and will be fixed in an upcoming Steam Client update.
General
Initial support for upcoming Steam Machine hardware
Updated Arch system base
Updated graphics driver with performance and stability fixes
Fix a case where per-app performance settings would intermittently fail to apply when launching a game
Improved support for the screencasts in Game Mode (e.g. OBS/Discord)
Fixed dropdown menus not appearing in some games
Improved VRR frame pacing
Fixed FSR badge remaining off in the performance overlay, even if it was actually active
Improved support for games that attempt to open PDF files in external viewers
Fixed an issue affecting certain titles (such as "SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide") where the game window could have an incorrect position
Fixed closing certain titles (such as "STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor™") and Starfield resulting in a session crash
Improved support for certain USB racing wheels and USB devices that boot in a non-standard mode
Frequently these are devices that appear as USB storage devices with a driver installer, and must be switched to their normal mode by the OS
Steam Deck controller firmware updates now display update progress on the splash screen
Fixes issue on specific Steam Deck revisions where firmware updates could render the left controller inoperative for that session
Numerous stability and security updates
Bluetooth
Re-re-enable Bluetooth Wake for Steam Deck LCD
Fix for more spurious wake issues that were present in earlier attempts
Audio
Detect HDMI channel count and expose surround configuration if available
Add a setting to allow using Bluetooth headset mics (Bluetooth playback quality will be worse while capture is active)
Restore internal audio device on reboot if set to "Off" in desktop mode
Increase suspend timeout for HDMI devices so initial audio isn't cut off after a few seconds of inactivity
Fixed a bug with switching input devices when a wired headset is plugged in
Fixed an issue where audio underruns could be experienced after sleep/resume
Accessibility
Added an option to force mono audio output
Desktop Mode
KDE Plasma updated to version 6.4.3 from 6.2.5, and now uses wayland by default
Fixes several cases of reduced performance in Desktop Mode compared to Game Mode
Improved support for rotated displays
Better scale factor out of the box on TVs
Adds support for external HDR displays
Adds support for VRR displays
Adds support per-display scale factor
For more information, see Plasma release announcements
26.1 Release Candidate 1 (known as 26.1-rc-1 in the launcher) is the first release candidate for Java Edition 26.1, released on March 19, 2026. This is the first release candidate released in 2026 and the first release candidate to be released with only an unobfuscated build.
Full changelog: https://minecraft.wiki/Java_Edition_26.1-rc-1
No matter what your favorite kind of game may be, this is a great time to shop for deals in the Steam Spring Sale. View the trailer above for a quick glance at the wide range of themes and genres you’ll find; or just stop reading this blog post right now and head straight to the sale itself!
The Steam Spring Sale is our first store-wide seasonal sale of the year, and the discounts are, much like the pollen seeping into our noses this time of year, everywhere. But in a good way!
Join us for the Steam Spring Sale, on now through March 26th at 10 a.m. PT on Steam.
Reloading has been refactored to encourage more careful consideration of the use of ammo. When you reload a magazine-fed weapon, all remaining ammo in the magazine is discarded and a new, full magazine is taken from the reserves.
Reserve ammunition is now represented either as number of magazines, shells, or bullets, depending on the weapon.
The fill-level of the current weapon is now displayed below the ammo count.
Tuned reserve magazine counts per-weapon.
[ MAP GUIDES ]
Limited map guides are now available in Competitive and Retakes (first 5 rounds of the half, 30 node max).
sv_allow_annotations_access_level supports 3 values: 0 – disabled. 1 – limited view. 2 – full and editable.
sv_annotation_limits_max_rounds_per_half (default 5) determines how many rounds into the half guides are allowed. -1 for unlimited.
Minimal starter map guides have been added for all Active Duty maps.
[ WORKSHOP MAPS ]
Friends playing a Practice or Workshop map can be joined through the friends menu if they have Open Party set.
26.1 Pre-Release 3 (known as 26.1-pre-3 in the launcher) is the third and final pre-release for Java Edition 26.1, released on March 17, 2026.
Full changelog: https://minecraft.wiki/Java_Edition_26.1-pre-3
[p]Players in Germany and Netherlands will have an X-Ray Scanner tab in their Inventory. For those players, containers can only be opened via X-ray Scanner. The X-Ray Scanner will come preloaded with a one-time exclusive non-tradable "Genuine P250 | X-ray", which must be claimed before using the X-Ray Scanner to reveal items in other containers.[/p][/*]
[p]Keyless Containers, like Souvenir Packages, can be opened without the X-Ray Scanner.[/p][/*]
A new Steam client has been released and will be automatically downloaded.
General
Fix a rare crash when downloading games if regional content server ends HTTP/2 connection in an unexpected manner.
Fix intermittent error when opening Big Picture Mode overlay.
Big Picture
Fixed the Universal Facebutton Glyph setting not being applied in the footer.
Windows
Fixed the Xbox Game Bar opening the Steam Overlay unintentionally during gameplay.
Fixed games that enable and utilize WM_POINTER events for mouse input seeing mouse actions through the in-game overlay when it is up (latest Unity engine builds in particular).
Linux
Fixed a case where the client would get stuck in a loading spinner after restarting in Offline Mode.
26.1 Pre-Release 2 (known as 26.1-pre-2 in the launcher) is the second pre-release for Java Edition 26.1, released on March 13, 2026.
Full changelog: https://minecraft.wiki/Java_Edition_26.1-pre-2
[p]The Dead Hand Collection is now available, featuring 17 finishes from community contributors, and including 22 all-new gloves as rare special items.[/p][/*]
[p]Access items in the Dead Hand Collection via the Dead Hand Terminal, available as a weekly drop.[/p][/*]
[p][/p][p]\[ MAPS ][/p][p]Dust II[/p]
[p]Fixed a pixel gap in a door Outside Long. [/p][/*]
[p]Alpine[/p]
[p]Updated to the latest version from the Community Workshop (Update Notes)[/p][/*]
The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes:
Windows
Fixed games that enable and utilize WM_POINTER events for mouse input seeing mouse actions through the in-game overlay when it is up (latest Unity engine builds in particular)
Big Picture
Fixed the Universal Facebutton Glyph setting not being applied in the footer
26.1 Pre-Release 1 (known as 26.1-pre-1 in the launcher) is the first pre-release for Java Edition 26.1, released on March 10, 2026, which updates the panorama and makes technical changes. This is the first pre-release released in 2026, and the first pre-release to be released with only an unobfuscated build.
Full changelog: https://minecraft.wiki/Java_Edition_26.1-pre-1
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