New Steam Client Beta Takes Your Screenshots to the Cloud

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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New Steam Client Beta Takes Your Screenshots to the Cloud


A new Steam client beta [http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1740023] is now available that lets gamers take screenshots in any game and then automatically upload them to the Steam cloud.

Gaming may be a solitary pursuit in many ways but showing off has always had its place in the experience. Back in the day we entered our initials into coin-ops, ensuring immortality until the owner turned the machines off at night, while the modern era is all about cheevos and Gamerscore. But a picture is worth a thousand words, as they say, so Valve [http://www.valvesoftware.com] is doing its part to ramp up the braggadocio by incorporating an easy-to-use screenshot system in the new Steam beta.

It's a simple process. Press F12 in any game to capture a screenshot, which can be uploaded to the Steam cloud manually through the in-game overlay or automatically when the game ends. Screens can be managed through the Steam community site and shared with friends through Steam profiles. Currently the system is limited to games that use DirectX 9 or higher, although support for earlier versions of DirectX is apparently on the way.

The latest Steam beta client also improves the audio quality of voice communication, changes how game invites from friends outside the chat stream are handled, adds a password strength meter and fixes a few miscellaneous bugs.

To access the new beta client, select "Steam" and then "Settings" in the Steam client. On the "Account" tab, press the "Change..." button, then select "Beta Update" and restart the Steam client. Discussion about the new Steam Screenshot feature is underway now on the Steam forums [http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=837].

via: Blue's [http://www.bluesnews.com/s/118219/steam-screenshots-beta]


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DazZ.

Elite Member
Jun 4, 2009
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This is good, although Xfire has had this for years.

It has come in handy a few times so I'm glad it'll be on Steam as well now.
 

Samwise137

J. Jonah Jameson
Aug 3, 2010
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already remoted into my desktop at home to update. Sounds like a worthwhile addition.
 

MurderousToaster

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Aug 9, 2008
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I bet around 90% of the screenshots will be just sex poses from Garry's mod with sort of "herp derp" expressions on their faces.
 

PotatoHunter

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Nov 10, 2009
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Ahah, I use the Xfire Screenshot feature extensively, after beating a game, or many games, or a game you play all the time, it's nice to suck in the sweet memories from a funny event in CoD or a winning score in L4D or Company of Heroes or a breathtaking ingame view from Oblivion or DA:O. I probably have the best screenshot collection on xfire right now haha.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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MurderousToaster said:
I bet around 90% of the screenshots will be just sex poses from Garry's mod with sort of "herp derp" expressions on their faces.
And the other 10% will be of various phallic images.
 

Freemon

New member
Nov 18, 2009
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I totally had this idea months ago and emailed it to Robin Walker. Coincidence? I THINK NOT! but maybe it is, yeah totally. It is. ;)

I think everyone had this idea a long time ago
 

Rad Party God

Party like it's 2010!
Feb 23, 2010
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That's just great!, I'm already tired of using Xfire to capture screenshots, I've been using Fraps a lot recently, uploading my screens to my Picasa profile. I still have a bit of trouble encoding my videos to HD resolutions for YouTube.
 

Ghengis John

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Dec 16, 2007
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But what if I don't like the cloud?

It's just another layer of control and another gate for oversight. Most of my screen shots are taken to capture people's funny/witty text chat jokes anyhow.
 

JediMB

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Oct 25, 2008
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Ghengis John said:
But what if I don't like the cloud?

It's just another layer of control and another gate for oversight. Most of my screen shots are taken to capture people's funny/witty text chat jokes anyhow.
Then you make sure the two boxes at the bottom of the "Downloads + Cloud" settings tab aren't ticked.
 

Wolfram23

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Mar 23, 2004
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Irridium said:
MurderousToaster said:
I bet around 90% of the screenshots will be just sex poses from Garry's mod with sort of "herp derp" expressions on their faces.
And the other 10% will be of various phallic images.
Let's go with 80% sex poses, 10% phallic images, 9% random shit nobody cares to see (like a blank wall), and 1% explosions/cool stuff.
 

Ghengis John

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Dec 16, 2007
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JediMB said:
Ghengis John said:
But what if I don't like the cloud?

It's just another layer of control and another gate for oversight. Most of my screen shots are taken to capture people's funny/witty text chat jokes anyhow.
Then you make sure the two boxes at the bottom of the "Downloads + Cloud" settings tab aren't ticked.
Well thank you, but what I meant was, I don't like seeing the advancement of the cloud as a concept. Pardon my unfashionable tinfoil hat.
 

JediMB

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Oct 25, 2008
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Ghengis John said:
JediMB said:
Ghengis John said:
But what if I don't like the cloud?

It's just another layer of control and another gate for oversight. Most of my screen shots are taken to capture people's funny/witty text chat jokes anyhow.
Then you make sure the two boxes at the bottom of the "Downloads + Cloud" settings tab aren't ticked.
Well thank you, but what I meant was, I don't like seeing the advancement of the cloud as a concept. Pardon my unfashionable tinfoil hat.
How come? All it does is give you the option of storing save files and other data on your online account, so you can access them regardless of where you are.
 

Ghengis John

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Dec 16, 2007
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JediMB said:
How come? All it does is give you the option of storing save files and other data on your online account, so you can access them regardless of where you are.
Yeah but I can kind of foresee the day when cloud computing takes over the home and people have cheap, underpowered access only computers, applications I enjoy are overly simplified for the average user and we store all our data with someone else. I can imagine buying games I never own but only purchase the right to play on some one else's server over a video feed. I can imagine paying for a program like photo shop only to open it and be told I don't have administrator access (and by the way would I like to try new blu cheese cheetos? Am I aware of local art supply stores?) or to have my file trees hidden from me ala steam. I don't know what will happen to our ability to modify programs at that stage or what the costs will be to privacy. I don't know what will happen to say, the mapper hobbyist when we have to wait in queues to use a compiling server because our home pc's are essentially only streaming video boxes (But why wait in the queue, pay 49.95 for gold access today!). Can I even get that map onto the EA server where my game is kept? Let alone how disproportionately powerful ISP's would become. When we the users are stripped of our power in the name of convenience. I mean can you hack a save file on an official server? What if I want to do something harmless like give my character hair that was meant for NPC's only but my save is on the Bioware servers where I can only save, reload or delete? Anything that advances the concept and acceptability of cloud computing brings us closer to that day. I know, please don't be too rough on me. I sound crazy even to me. Hence the tinfoil hat. I honestly dread though that this is where we are heading. Because it is cost effective, profitable and places more power in the hands of software developers to control their products. It is win-win for corporations and an easy sell to 90% of consumers who only well, consume.
 

JediMB

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Oct 25, 2008
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Ghengis John said:
JediMB said:
How come? All it does is give you the option of storing save files and other data on your online account, so you can access them regardless of where you are.
~snip~
While I understand and share your stance on cloud computing, that doesn't really have much of anything to do with the so-called "Steam Cloud". Really, I think the name of Valve's service is misleading, since it's more an online backup service than anything else.

An important feature of Steam has since its inception been the ability to download and install your purchased games on whatever PC it is you're using at the moment. The Steam Cloud is simply an extension of that, as it allows you to also download your progress and configuration files.
 

FlashHero

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Apr 3, 2010
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I don't touch Steam Betas ever...not after the last one. I lost access to my games for a whole day and had to do some kind of steam admin thingy to remove the beta and fix it.