New Big Picture does not have assigned screen setting.

[Sumea]

Though I may be done using Steam Big Picture that way as on windows because of other stores like Microsoft's being more popular with gamepass, one key thing I liked about Steam Big Picture mode was assigning a screen for it. This is tremendous on cases like mine where my PC desk is physically and literally next to the TV, making me able to have my desktop as a desktop but with "Just a few clicks" swap my main screen to television and surround amplifier sound output.

Older version of big picture let me temporarily swap the main screen by just launching big picture and it had a lot of convenience, it made my television my main screen for the duration of big picture being on, even when minimized making sure most games also launch on my television for the duration of big picture use. The downside was that I had to swap my sound output device manually though that is actually two clicks in windows 10 unlike navigating to screen settings and assigning new main screen.

I feel that this feature could be implemented with the new UI, and if possible also pair up sound device switching. Old Big Picture was almost there with one button to go sofa gaming mode and one button to close that mode and be back with main monitor desktop usage mode, albeit it was not fully there even before but lack of good UI in windows makes switching main screens slightly more hassle than my best big picture setup was.

Thank you for at least the current beta of the feature, I thought for long that big picture was getting too outdated for it's own good especially in chat UI department, and I hope this ends up being worthy successor for all platforms.

[Sumea]

Update:
The situation is actually worse in this new beta than I thought. I am dealing with same thing as many buggy games that do not follow windows "main screen" setting and I cannot actually use this new Big Picture mode in my big screen. Even after changing my main screen in windows screen settings manually new big picture launches only in my monitor, the screen I do not need the UI in I need it to go to my big screen which I cannot do manually nor does the new big picture beta do it correctly automatically.

[Potajito]

+1, this is really important for big picture users. Any workaround?

[MonJamp]

+1, I like the new UI but not being able to set the primary monitor means it's unusable for me

[pertzel]

+1 million. NEED to be able to set the default monitor for Big Picture mode

[austinp_valve]

Next week

[NV]

Looking forward to this fix

[Sumea]

So to be very specific: New UI launches to main monitor and detects it on steam client launch only, unlike old big picture it cannot detect it afterwards. Even closing gamepad UI, changing your main monitor, and launching gamepad UI in one Steam run would make it launch on the same monitor detected as main on launch.

Thank you for looking into this, and good vibes to devs.

[InTheFlesH?]

+1 Absolutely agree with everything here. Checking and opening big picture, with a 2 monitor set up, and it auto opens on my secondary monitor, with no option to change back to my main monitor. Needs option to choose monitor it opens or defaults to.

[Magicrafter13]

I actually enabled the beta after someone told me that using it would automatically set the primary monitor for games when launching them, then return to original when they closed, this does not appear to be the case however.

Either way I do hope something like this is implemented, and not with an auto-detection method, but a simple drop-down list like the current BPM has (although using monitor index might be more useful than monitor names which aren't always communicated it seems).

[Sebaastian]

A workaround I found is, after setting steam to appear on the preferred monitor, toggle the windowed option on and it should appear on the monitor you want and then you can maximize steam again and it should stay on that monitor.

[Sumea]

For me, the current beta has a monitor choice in new UI menu that works more or less like old big picture did. So, sound is still manual but I have had results I had with old one with current updates. The only problem is that usually the list will be just three "GENERIC PNP MONITOR" in list, so adding the numbers windows assigns in windows could help, but usually after you guess your preferred monitor/TV right, it will stay as so.

[austinp_valve]

The current implementation is appending the display index to the string.

[Inquisitor956]

Good! Now, an option to switch the sound output when toggling in and out of BPM would be stupendous! Now, I do use SoundSwitch, but it would be nice to have an official way to do it in Steam. Keep up the great work!

[Bird Observer]

Good update, but launching Steam directly to big picture mode with "-bigpicture" added to the shortcut still doesn't respect the "preferred monitor" option. I need to open Steam normally first, then select Big Picture mode for it to work properly. Otherwise it just opens on my main monitor.

using "-bigpicture -oldbigpicture" still works as intended.

[ArapELCAPON]

a