Steam Deck's Big September Update Fixes Dozens Of Issues & Adds Key Features
For the Steam Client as a whole, including when used in Desktop Mode on Steam Deck, the most obvious changes are some new "Accessibility" settings available under the standard Steam settings. These include a UI scale slider, a High-Contrast Mode, and the option to reduce motion in Steam Client animations.
In addition to the UI Scale slider, DPI scaling support for high-resolution displays has also seen general improvements, giving users a more reasonable Steam Client viewing experience even without diving into the accessibility settings, which allow tweaking to their exact preference. The UI scale slider corresponds to icons, graphics, and text sizing across the entirety of Steam, so desktop users now have far more granular control over how Steam appears on their displays.
Another major feature coming to both platforms is Steam's Performance Monitor now supporting CPU readings and improved GPU readings. This update is not only implementing a once-pulled Beta update from August, but now expanding Performance Monitor to be more accurate, matching task manager less but matching "some other tools' measurements more closely."
Interestingly, monitoring CPU temperature on Windows also requires a kernel mode driver, which can be disabled if users have security concerns with the Steam client utilizing those features. Considering how many modern anti-cheats and hardware monitors already require kernel access, we don't anticipate this will be particularly controversial, especially since it can be disabled, but we know some users will be leery of it. Over on Linux and by extension SteamOS/Steam Deck, a kernel mode driver thankfully isn't needed for CPU temperature readings.
Aside from these cross-platform features and an end-of-life notice for macOS 11 being added, the rest of the patch notes for Deck and Desktop are pretty much exclusively in the range of bug fixes, slight performance improvements, and minor UI additions. Steam Store web pages are now also wider, scaling better when displayed on large monitors, corresponding to the UI improvements we've seen across Steam Deck and Steam Client.
Source: Valve
