New Big Picture: Overlay does not display correctly if Windows display scaling is active

[whosnick]

*Background*
Windows suggests 300% display scaling for 4k TVs

*Problem*
When using the New Big Picture mode of the Steam Beta, the game overlay does not display correctly when display scaling is active. It is much too small and unusable. A small window in the upper left corner. See screenshot in post below.

[whosnick]

November 11 Patch seems to have fixed this

Edit: Nope, seems to happen with same games only. Can confirm that it does not work with Kena: Bridge of Spirits at 4k Fullscreen with Win 11 300% scaling. Will provide screenshot.

[Drex]

Yeah I wonder what's causing that, could be the games themselves having scaling set. Also I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't because of full screen exclusive, borderless probably is cleaner I imagine

[whosnick]

I made a screenshot:

https://imgur.com/a/aILF2Rm

Curious thing is that it seems to display correctly somtimes, but I cannot reproduce it.

Other games I tried work without problems (Elden Ring, Subnautica)

Edit: In Cyberpunk it is the other way around. The overlay fills the screen as it is supposed to, but the fonts are way too big. I run Cyberpunk at 1440p not native 4k. Seems like the overlay tries to apply the 300% scaling to 1440p resolution. No problem in old Big Picture.

[76561199431307887]

For Kena: Bridge of Spirits, how are you launching the game and Steam? Is there any special command-line or shortcut?

[whosnick]

I did not change any launch parameters or any other game settings from within Steam. I just launch it via the New Big Picture Mode.

Win11 22H2
Geforce RTX 3080 with newest Game Ready Driver
Ryzen 5 5600x
Xbox Series Controller with Xbox Wireless Adapter
4k Samsung TV connected via HDMI
Windows set to 300% scaling, 4k resolution
Kena set to 4k resolution, fullscreen
In the Big Picture Mode settings, under Display I left the default "automatic scaling" setting

Opening the overlay by pressing the "guide" button on Xbox Controller

Also, I have a short cut to steam with "-gamepadui" parameter in my Windows startup folder, so it will boot into that automatically.

That is all I can think of.
Can you not reproduce?

[76561199431307887]

Is this still happening for you with the latest beta released yesterday?

[whosnick]

Originally posted by Dan:

Is this still happening for you with the latest beta released yesterday?

The newest beta build made the steam overlay tiny for me in every game:

So, for example, Kena now looks like this:

https://imgur.com/a/1gj5JJA

So it is full-screen now, but It is like no scaling happens at all. Fonts and UI elements are way too small.

[Artagah]

Same thing is happening to me as well, everything is so tiny, and when an achievement pops it's so small it's absolutely unreadable.

[Graham]

I am experiencing this on the latest beta (Jan 23, though it was a problem for the Jan 3 beta as well). It seems that the first time I open a game, the overlay scale makes the text TEENY TINY on my 4K TV. If I close the game and reopen it, it becomes properly scaled (as in, the same scale as big picture mode is, normally).

Happy to provide logs if I can.

[whosnick]

Yeah, still an issue with the newest beta. Just played Cyberpunk and the overlay was tiny.

[DanielGayJewish]

How do I change it back to the old bpm

[Swifty Magee]

Originally posted by DanielGayJewish:

How do I change it back to the old bpm

Close out of Steam. Right-click your Steam shortcut, select "Properties", go to the "Shortcut" tab and inside the target box, type " -oldbigpicture" (with the space at the front and without the quotes). Relaunch Steam and you should then be reverted back to the old Big Picture Mode. Which, thankfully, still works fine!

[orbatos]

This will be highly dependent on the actual game/application run through Steam. As Swift Magee says there is a workaround, but that's likely all you will ever get.

The best policy might be to exempt Steam from scaling (might not work) or toggle it off when running Big Picture. Native scale may solve other problems in some games too, like mouse offset.

[whosnick]

Well it was not that much of an issue with old BPM, so I figure it can get better.

[maddox]

The latest stable update specifically mentions solving this. But I'm still seeing it in non-steam games and emulators.

It also mentions handling focus better, but I still see a problem with that too.