If you’re a PC gamer then there’s no denying the fact that you must be using Steam. Steam is the global leader in digital distribution of games and game related services. Steam even has its own app for easy and efficient game management.
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You may be a longtime Steam user, but there are tons of tools hidden in the menu of the Steam application as well as a web portal that you may not be aware of. The following article will share some tips on using Steam to help you enhance your gaming experience.
Steam tips to enhance the gaming experience
1. Add non-Steam games to the library
Certainly not every game you buy comes through Steam. You can buy them from EA’s Origin or other ports with a discount while Steam doesn’t. Either way, it can be a hassle to connect and socialize with your friends on games without Steam. Fortunately, Steam has a built-in feature that allows you to add non-Steam games to the Steam app. To do that, just follow these simple steps:
- Open the Steam app and go to options Games on the menu bar, select All a Non-Steam Game to My Library.
- Then a list of programs and applications installed on your system is displayed. You just need to select the desired games and click Add Selected Programs in the lower right corner to add them to the list of Steam.
2. Batch install / uninstall games
Sure the Windows app available for installing and uninstalling apps might have been enough for all your needs, but it still lacks the ability to actually remove everything from the system, including residual data and registry entries. Furthermore, the Windows service cannot selectively uninstall applications. Back in 2014, Steam added a new functionality to their app, allowing you to install or uninstall multiple games at once. You do the following:
- Open Steam Library and move on List View by clicking list icon in the upper right corner.
- You can then select multiple games in the library by pressing simultaneously Ctrl and left click. Once you have made your selection, just right click and select Install or Uninstall at will.
3. Backup saved games
So you think Steam Cloud backs up entire games automatically, right? In essence, Steam only backs up game data saved to Valve’s servers and only for games that support this feature. But if you are in the situation where the system crashes or something happens and you have to reinstall the game again. Sure, the games you have purchased are still in the library, but you’ll have to download the game data again. Fortunately, Steam helps you back up all your game data to an external storage space, for easy future recovery, if you want to back up your game data, here are the steps:
- Go Thư viện and right click on the game and select Backup Game Files. A dialog box will display with a list of installed games, allowing you to choose to back up the game at will.
- Next, you select the desired backup storage location by clicking on Browse. Once done, click next. Steam will now backup all data to the selected location.
To restore these backups, simply log into your Steam account, then open the backup folder and run the steambackup.exe file and follow the onscreen instructions to restore everything.
4. Share the game with your family
Steam is a leading portal for game distribution. But not everyone can afford all the games they want. Valve provided a simple and neat solution, that is Family Sharing. This feature allows a family member to share purchased games with another member through Steam.
5. Display FPS in game
You just bought a new GPU for your system and it works and displays great. But how to brag to friends when they can’t see it? We all know that numbers don’t lie, of course in some cases. For any gamer the FPS meter is an important tool of understanding, helping them decide which settings are best suited for the system for the game session. If your FPS is between 30-60 then the game is considered playable. But how do you view a divine FPS clock in a game?
While some games offer the ability to enable FPS clocks within them, it is not a uniform feature. So Valve has fixed this by providing a feature to display FPS clocks in every game that is added to Steam. You do the following:
- Go to options Steam menu bar and select Settings.
- Here, you click on the tab In-Game and choose Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game. Once done, you just need to scroll to the option In-game FPS counter below and select the location for the FPS clock of your choice.
- That’s it, you open the game and you will see the FPS clock in the position you have set.
6. Change the installation location
Did you store the game on your sluggish hard drive and want to convert that game to a faster SSD, or did you just buy a new HDD that’s faster than the one you already have and you want to move the entire game over there? Steam provides you with a simple way to navigate installed games with just a few mouse clicks:
- Open Thư viện Click your mouse and right click on the game you want to transfer, then select Properties.
- Below the tab Local Files Below you will see a button Move Install Folder. Simply click on it and follow the onscreen instructions.
7. Change the look of Steam
While the original Steam interface is pretty cool, there’s no reason to keep it from changing to your liking. Valve understands that and has provided an option to change the Steam app skin. You can change the Steam interface by following these steps:
Note that while Valve allows you to change skins, it also doesn’t provide any skins in its app. You need to download the skin online or create it yourself.
- Once you have your favorite skin, copy and paste it into the Steam installation directory. The default location is C: Program Files (x86) Steam skins.
- After pasting the skin file, open the Steam app and click on the option Steam menu bar and select Settings.
- Here, you go to the tab Interface and choose the skin you just downloaded. Then press OK. Now you will be asked to restart the Steam application.
That’s it, the Steam application will launch and your new skin will load.
8. Power up Steam
Valve’s Steam service is the best digital game distribution service out there, but the Steam app is not. It lacks a few features that can really “enhance” the entire Steam experience. The community took this into consideration and continues to develop Enhanced Steam, a web browser extension that modifies the way you access Steam from the browser.
Enhanced Steam provides its users with a host of new features such as game prices from other web portals, listing game packages, showing users time to complete stories, clearing reminders Constantly and annoying about age confirmations and more.
9. Steam Inventory Helper
If you use the Steam application then you may have encountered problems with managing your Steam Inventory. But with Steam Inventory Helper (extensions available for Google Chrome) will make buying and selling on Steam easier and more seamless.
This add-on offers tons of new additions to Steam Inventory, like buying and selling items faster with no need for constant confirmations, price adjustments based on market fluctuations, and more.
10. See time spent using Steam
If you’re a veteran gamer, you’ve probably spent a lot of time on Steam. If you want to change this habit without having to delete the game, go to Steam Time to see how much time you’ve “wasted” playing games on Steam. Here’s how to do it: Open Steam > import Steam ID in the text field and select “show me“. This number will help you balance your time for work and play.
11. Fair Steam
Do you believe that the video in the game description on Steam says it all about its content and quality? In fact, almost 90% of the video does not accurately reflect the real performance of the game. Therefore, you should install Fair Steam.
Fair Steam is a small utility that adds actual gameplay videos from YouTube to the Steam repository. It helps you evaluate better games in real time to make wise decisions about whether or not to buy certain games.
12. Increase loading speed on Steam
If you ever find that the game loading on Steam is too long, you can refer to how to speed up the download of Steam games on Windows 10 on Download.vn. Instructions are easy to follow for everyone.
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