[GUIDE] How to add custom screenshots to a non-Steam game without the Steam overlay

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Sopwith Mar 8, 2014 @ 6:50pm

[GUIDE] How to add custom screenshots to a non-Steam game without the Steam overlay

If you're like me, you want every game in your Steam list to have a neat screenshot background, giving a preview of whatever game you click on. For non-Steam games where no overlay is supported (eg. older games, DOS games, etc.), this has been an impossibility for me - until I figured it out. Now every game on my list - be it an old title from the '90's, to a download from GoG.com, to DOS games of yore - they all have a nice selection of screenshot backsplashes.

The main problem here is that Steam only loads backsplash screenshots when the particular non-Steam game has a screenshot folder that corresponds to its "Steam number name" I'm going to call it. The problem here is that non-Steam games that don't enable the overlay don't allow you to take screenshots, and thus, Steam never generates the folder that you need in order to display custom screenshot backsplashes. The "Steam number name" folder of a particular game is generated only when the overlay is active, and each folder that is generated is specific to a particular file name and path. Some previous guides I found told me to redirect to a different .exe or folder, but this never worked for me - the screenshots I would generate with Steam would not reappear once I corrected the path and executable and restarted Steam. If you generate screenshots for a particular game, you cannot change its launch command line - if you do, the game's "Steam number name" also changes, requiring you to generate a new folder for screenshots.

Anyways, here's how I did it. Those of you who are savvy can probably figure out a better way, but this is what worked for me for those who wish to replicate it.

YOU WILL NEED

- A stand-alone .EXE game that, when run through Steam, enables the overlay. My game of choice was the "4-Hours-to-glory RPG". ( goo<dot>gl/vtlTBI )
- PhotoFiltre 7 (freeware download) - and really, you don't even need this - I just use it to automate the renaming of screenshots I want to use, as you'll see in the instructions. You can do this yourself if you don't want to install PhotoFiltre.
- Patience

INSTRUCTIONS

To start with, make sure you've added the non-steam game's main executable to your Library (bottom-left > Add a game... > Add a non-steam game...).

1. Ensure the non-Steam game you're interested in has the correct and final "Target" and "Start in" paths in the properties for that game.

2. Navigate to the game's main executable file referenced in the "Target" property field and change its name, just for now. For example: I changed "Lords2.exe" to "Lords2@.exe"

3. Copy your special stand-alone .EXE game to the folder, and rename it to the non-Steam game's target .exe. Example: I renamed "4h_rpg.exe" to "Lords2.exe"

4. Open Steam and launch the non-Steam game. It should launch your stand-alone .EXE game (in my case, the RPG). When the window loads, take a screenshot (in my example, the window is too small to see the overlay, but I hear the sound when I press F12, so it works). You need only one.

5. Quit the game.

6. Once out of the game, the Steam Screenshot Uploader / Manager window should appear. Click "Show on disk", and bam: you now have generated your non-Steam game's custom screenshot folder that corresponds to its "steam number name". Good job.

7. Delete or remove the stand-alone .EXE game from the non-Steam game's directory, and re-name the original game executable back to its correct name. Example: I deleted the stand-alone .EXE game (named "Lords2.exe") and renamed "Lords2@.exe" back to "Lords2.exe".

8. Now it's time to locate the screenshots you want. If you don't have your own sitting in waiting, just go on Google and image-search for your game. Pick the ones you want, and put them in a folder you can remember. I chose a New Folder on the desktop, for simplicity's sake.

9. Once you have your desired screenshot files in a place you understand, go to that place and make a new folder.

10. Now we 're going to make sure these screenshots have the correct names. All Steam screenshots are required to follow a strict naming convention: a date and a 5-digit identifier. For example: 2014-03-08_00001, 2012-12-25_12345. For this, I'm going to use PhotoFiltre, but you can use anything you want that gives you the same outcome, even do it manually. Now, back to the steps, open PhotoFiltre, and click the "Automate / Batch" button. (icon is a horizontal orange gear)

11. Select the "Source Folder" as the one where your screenshots are.

12. Select the "Destination folder" as one where you want your screenshots to go. In my case, I just put them in a new folder within the source folder.

13. Near the bottom of the batch window, there should appear a checkbox called "Sequence". Check it and put in something like this (today's date if you want): 2014-03-02_0 ->Notice that once you do that, the example looks like the kind of numbering you'll see in other screenshot files. For example: 2014-03-02_00001.

14. Click the "Action" tab and hit "OK". It will do its work, renaming each file in the directory correctly in sequence so that Steam will recognize them as screenshots. Once it's done, you can hit "Cancel" (the OK button doesn't work for some reason).

15. Copy the properly-named files to the new ("Steam Number Name") screenshot directory you generated for your non-Steam game, overwriting any files that exist.

16. IMPORTANT: also copy the exact same correctly-named images to the "thumbnails" directory inside the screenshot directory.

17. Close Steam completely

18. Start Steam

19. Go to your non-Steam game, click on the "View Screenshot Library" button and watch all your new screens take their appropriate places.

20. You're done!

Again, if you don't want to use PhotoFiltre, you can just generate the custom screenshot folder and then manually rename any images you want to be screenshots to names Steam will understand. For example: 2014-03-08_00001, 2012-12-25_12345... Just make sure there's a copy of each with the exact same names in the screenshots folder and the thumbnails folder.

I hope this helps someone. I'm sure pleased now that I can have backsplashes for games that deserve the same love as other games on my list (Lords of the Realm II, Age of Wonders, DOS games, etc.)

For making custom icons, see my guide here:
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/558749825180761483/

Last edited by Sopwith; Nov 15, 2015 @ 4:34pm

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Showing 1-11 of 11 comments

Quazimortal Mar 8, 2014 @ 6:55pm

This is all really cool but I'd hate to see your post deleted because you have a link to a zip file. It might be a perfectly fine link but you might consider removing the link to prevent yourself from getting in trouble.