Steam too small in Ubuntu 22.10 - SOLVED

[mausmalone]

I saw a similar thread for a different distro but none of the fixes there (like editing the menu or the desktop shortcut) worked in out-of-the-box Ubuntu 22.10. I found a solution so I wanted to get it into a thread with "Ubuntu 22.10" so hopefully other people will be able to google it in the future.

Here's what I saw:

1) with fractional scaling, everything works fine. No need to do anything.
2) without fractional scaling and the display set to 200%, Steam is teeny-tiny. This is the default in Ubuntu 22.10 with a High DPI display.

The fix for me was to set GDK_SCALE in my user profile. Ubuntu is a noob-friendly distro so here are the most noob-friendly steps I could come up with to share:

1) Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T)
2) Type the following command: gnome-text-editor .profile
This will open the file ".profile" in a text editor.
3) Go to the very bottom of the file and add this line:
export GDK_SCALE=2
4) Save & close
5) Log out and log back in to reload your profile

That should be it!

[Marlock]

you can also launch steam with the environment variable GDK_SCALE=2 specifically:

GDK_SCALE=2 steam

this works fine via terminal, by custom shortcuts, etc, without affecting other apps , if that's in any way important to you

[Aoi Blue]

Originally posted by Marlock:

you can also launch steam with the environment variable GDK_SCALE=2 specifically:

GDK_SCALE=2 steam

this works fine via terminal, by custom shortcuts, etc, without affecting other apps , if that's in any way important to you

However, typically you want other GDK apps to accept the scaling too.

However, most use the newer version which reads off of DPI variables instead.

[Marlock]

Isn't this in fact a bug on Ubuntu 22.10?

I mean if someone sets the UI scale via GUI settings, shouldn't it set the GDK_SCALE value accordingly?

like, even if there is some other variable and this is just legacy, if there are still apps that use it, what's the harm in keeping those apps happy?

or is steam not getting the memo for steam-specific issues?

[Catticus, Coveter of Snack]

oh my, why people still installing ubuntu? it is a bad distro, install something user friendly instead, and with KDE

[MrSHEN]

.

[mausmalone]

Originally posted by Marlock:

Isn't this in fact a bug on Ubuntu 22.10?

I mean if someone sets the UI scale via GUI settings, shouldn't it set the GDK_SCALE value accordingly?

like, even if there is some other variable and this is just legacy, if there are still apps that use it, what's the harm in keeping those apps happy?

or is steam not getting the memo for steam-specific issues?

You're right that this is probably an Ubuntu bug, not a Steam bug. However, I figured it would be helpful to put some info here for Steam users who are affected by it.

I didn't mean to imply that Steam was doing something wrong here - but I wanted to get the workaround up where someone who needs it might be able to find it.

[ZoidbergForPresident]

Doesn't help me... :/

[ZoidbergForPresident]

Originally posted by ZoidbergForPresident:

Doesn't help me... :/

I actually had to reload the system profile, but all other windows were affected which isn't good.

I reversed the change but nothing has changed, arg.

edit: and a restart fixed it, phew.

[ZoidbergForPresident]

Originally posted by Marlock:

you can also launch steam with the environment variable GDK_SCALE=2 specifically:

GDK_SCALE=2 steam

this works fine via terminal, by custom shortcuts, etc, without affecting other apps , if that's in any way important to you

How do you do that?

[Falken]

Works for me too on the Framework 13 AMD's hidpi screen - 1.25 seems about right. Just right click and edit the short cut in KDE's menu

[RPINerd]

Originally posted by Xenophobe:

In the desktop steam shortcut (or better a renamed copy of it) you need to add the following to the 1st 'Exec' line: -forcedesktopscaling 2

This is definitely the way to go for me on an arch-based distro using KDE

I used 1.25 on a Framework 16 (2560x1600 screen) and it's perfect