Steam client BETA update for 10/16/26 (10/17/26 UTC)

[u/wickedplayer494]

Via the Steam Community:

General

• Second round of Steam startup performance improvements following shipping of prior improvements in public client
• Fixed some cases the Steam Service Error dialog was showing incorrectly if you quit/restarted Steam quickly
• Fixed another error displaying dates for our friends in British Columbia.
• Fixed Steam Frame native-only content showing as installable on Windows.
• Fixed the layout of the volume slider in the voice chat context menu
• Output volume settings for friends in voice chat will now persist between Steam sessions rather than resetting on restart

Linux

• Fixed Vulkan games hanging after alt-tab.
• Fixed a bug that caused some native non-steam games to fail to launch.

Steam Input

• Fixed NCAA Football 27 not getting the game configuration applied at game startup

[u/MetricGuard]

Second round of Steam startup performance improvements

Huh, that was quick. And uhh...wow. Steam now takes like 3 seconds to boot, which is almost twice as fast as the Epic Games Launcher's advertised startup time.

Someone at Valve must've reeeeeally wanted to dunk on Epic.

[u/AsheBnarginDalmasca → u/MetricGuard]

Imagine if we actually had a viable competitor. All we got is this corporate embodiment of a vibecoding nerd with a punchable face.

[u/t40xd → u/MetricGuard]

That one Valve employee:

[u/MarianScheul]

"Second round of Steam startup performance improvements following shipping of prior improvements in public client"

[u/wickedplayer494]

General

• Second round of Steam startup performance improvements following shipping of prior improvements in public client

"If they want war, then WE SHALL GIVE IT TO THEM!"

• Legion Commander, c. late 2026 in the Great GenAI War

[u/nighttimemobileuser → u/wickedplayer494]

“NEVER TRUST A … EPIC STORE DEV!” - Legion Commander, probably.

[u/boozerm]

humiliation from Gaben