10 Hacks Every Steam Gamer Should Know

If Steam is one of your gaming apps of choice, then you might not typically spend too much time interacting with the program—you probably want to get straight to the gaming. Take a few minutes to dive into the settings and features on offer though, and there's a lot to explore. From remapping gamepad controls to launching games with custom restrictions applied, here's what's possible. (Note: The tips below are based on the current Steam client for the Windows desktop, but you should find comparable options on the other Steam apps too.)

Run a privacy audit to prevent strangers from learning about your gaming habits

You need to pay attention to your privacy on Steam as well as on every other app and platform you use. Specifically, you have a Steam profile that may or may not be revealing information about you to the world at large.

Click Steam > Settings > Account and then Privacy Settings to run an audit and make any necessary changes. For example, your profile can include details of games you've bought and wishlisted, and the people you're friends with on the platform. Most details can be set to Public, Private, or Friends Only. There's also a setting for controlling who's allowed to leave comments on your profile.

Create a "Steam Family" to share games with others

Steam comes with family sharing built in, so the games you've bought can be shared with up to five other people "in the same household" (which basically means using the same IP address, most of the time).

To get started, open Steam > Settings > Family and then Create or Join a Steam Family. If you're the head of the family group, you'll need to give it a name and send out the invites, and from there you can manage who's allowed in the group. Multiple games from your library can be played at the same time, but two family members can't play the same game simultaneously.

As well as giving your loved ones access to your games without having to pay for them, this is also an effective way of adding parental controls for your kids: You can set which games are available to which family members, and set up gameplay time limits too.

Run commands to customize your games

If you right-click on a game in your Steam library and choose Properties > General, you'll come across a Launch options box that lets you add command line-style operators to the executable for your selected game. For those of you who've never come across a command line, we're talking about specific, additional instructions that tell the game to behave in a certain way or keep certain features enabled or disabled. They can help troubleshoot issues with a game as well as customize it to suit your requirements.

The available options cover everything from forcing a windowed launch and skipping intros, to keeping voice chat logs and disabling GPU features. Compatibility varies by game, but you can find a comprehensive list here.

Add a drive to strategically move your games somewhere else

You don't have to settle for keeping all of your games in the same place on your system. Maybe you have a faster SSD installed, for example, but space is limited on it: You can move a selection of games where speed is most important to this drive, and leave the rest where they are.

First you need to create an alternative location on your system. Choose Steam > Settings > Storage, click on the drop-down menu at the top, then select Add Drive. With another location created, you can move a game in your library by right-clicking on it and selecting Properties > Installed Files. Choose Move install folder and you'll be able to pick another location.

Limit download speeds to keep your internet running smoothly

You don't necessarily want Steam downloading games and updates at the maximum rate every time, especially if you're trying to enjoy some high-quality 4K video streaming entertainment in the next room.

Select Steam > Settings > Downloads and you get to a whole host of options for controlling how the program handles file transfers. Turn on the Limit download speed toggle switch, and you can set a ceiling in Kbps—handy for those times when you don't need your game updates as quickly as possible, and need your internet for other things.

Switch to other servers when yours is acting up

Speaking of downloads and download speeds, by default Steam will connect you to the server closest to your location for your data transfers. Most of the time, this will give you the fastest upload and download speeds.

That's not always guaranteed though: When your default region is particularly busy, you might find a connection further away gives you a faster speed. Head to Steam > Settings > Downloads and you'll find the Download region picker at the top.

Use "Big Picture Mode" to navigate Steam with a gamepad

Any Steam game that's gamepad-compatible will work without any fuss once you plug a controller in, but what about the Steam interface itself? Switching back and forth between gamepad and keyboard as you jump in and out of games isn't particularly convenient. The answer is to launch Steam in the Big Picture Mode designed for using Steam on a TV. Not only does this make the interface more straightforward and more suitable for larger screens, it also makes it very gamepad-friendly.

From Steam > Settings, pick "Interface," then enable Start Steam in Big Picture Mode to use this interface by default. You can also switch in and out of Big Picture Mode via Alt+Enter, the menu button on your controller, or the Big Picture Mode icon in the top-right corner of the client interface (just to the left of the minimize button).

Remap your gamepad controls

On the topic of gamepads, if you right-click on any game in your library and choose Properties > Controller > Controller Configuration, you can override the default settings for how buttons and joysticks are used—or even get a gamepad working with a game that doesn't natively support one.

That's not all: If you select Browse configs on the remap screen, you can use any of the configurations submitted by the Steam community for the game you've selected. A custom config might just give you the edge in your next gameplay session.

Use "SteamDB" for insights into future Steam sales

When it comes to external Steam resources you should absolutely check out, I'd like to point you to SteamDB—which, as its name suggests, is a database of every game currently available on Steam.

Not only can you see new, popular, and trending games in the Steam catalog, you can also get updates on upcoming releases and the latest patches, and even do a quick calculation to figure out how much you've spent on Steam over the years. Perhaps most importantly of all, you can get predictions for when the next Steam sale will be (based on historical data), and dig into the details of current sales—in terms of discount amount, release date, genre, and so on.

Use the FPS counter to monitor your PC's performance

Seeing frames–per-second performance in real time can help you make sure your gaming hardware is running as it should, and is also useful for diagnosing problems—if you think frames are being dropped, this will prove it.

Steam comes with its own basic FPS display option: Pick Steam then Settings, then head to In Game. There's a Show performance monitor option here which lets you choose where your overlay goes on screen. The options further down on the same screen let you choose what else gets shown besides FPS: It's possible to have CPU, GPU, and RAM usage stats displayed as well.