Steam Broadcasting and FPS counter are out of beta—Here’s how to use them
Valve Corporation has officially released new Steam Client features that add native support for livestreaming, as well as an easy to use framerate counter for the game performance geeks.
Valve first began testing out Steam Broadcasting in the Steam beta client back in December, and now the feature has been officially rolled out to everyone. Steam Broadcasting allows users to easily share livestream gameplay with any sized audience, from small invite-only groups of friends up to Steam’s millions of public users.
Steam is not the first game service to support livestreaming. Both the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 support streaming via already popular third-party services like Twitch.tv and Ustream.
Livestreaming and gaming videos have grown in popularity over the last few years thanks in part to popular streamers like Sean “Day[9]” Plott, a well known Starcraft commentator, and Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg, who currently has the most subscribed channel on YouTube with some 33.9 million subscribers.
Using Steam Broadcasting
The options for Steam Broadcasting can be found in the Steam Client under View>Settings>Broadcasting.
The settings include options for video resolution, bandwidth limits and privacy. The privacy options allow broadcasts to be shown to only invited friends, to friends who have requested an invitation, to all Steam friends, or to all public Steam users.
There are also settings that support desktop recording and in-game chat.
Frames-per-second: The other FPS
The new Steam update also adds a built-in framerate counter, which shows the current frames-per-second (FPS) at which a game is running. Higher framerates equate to smoother movements and better reaction times in a game, while lower framerates can make graphics appear choppy. Extremely low framerates result can makes games unplayable, a phenomenon gamers jokingly refer to as a “slideshow.”
In modern gaming, 30 FPS is acceptable for many players and is sometimes the top end of the spectrum for console games, but 60 FPS and higher is preferred, especially for games requiring twitch reflexes like first-person shooters.
Using the In-Game FPS Counter
The option for the framerate counter can be found in the Steam CLient under View>Settings>In-Game.
The feature can be enabled from the drop-down menu under “In-Game FPS Counter,” which allows the user to choose the placement of the counter on the game screen.
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