Steam Client Beta update brings better AMD support to in-home streaming

Another week, another Steam Client Beta update. The biggest addition comes in the form of in-home streaming support for AMD. VCE hardware encoding of Direct 3D Games is now possible, so long as you have one of the following cards with the latest drivers: Radeon HD 79xx, Radeon HD 78xx, Radeon HD 77xx, R9 295x, R9 290x/290, R9 280x/280, R9 270x/270, R7 265, R7 260x/260, R7 250x.

Meanwhile, you can stream from Linux host PCs now, while support for NVIDIA ShadowPlay is now implemented. There's also a list of more general updates, most of them bug fixes, including the ability to share screenshots of non-Steam games, a bunch of user interface fixes and “reduced energy usage when running in the background”.

Finally, a handful of tweaks have been made to Steam music. You can now scan for music inside Steam directories, the Music Queue won't reset every time you exit Steam, as well as UI improvements and crash fixes. The full update notes can be found over here .

In-home streaming is a great tool, but if you're a bit uncertain about the finer details we've got a thorough walkthrough over here .

Shaun Prescott

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.