Big Picture

[Sky]

Steam was unusable for me on the TV before because it ignored the Windows DPI setting, so the entire interface and text were far too small to be readable at normal TV viewing distances.

How do you manage to read any of the text on Steam on your TV? Do you have amazing eyesight or are you running at a low resolution or sitting really close? At 1920x1080 and about 2m away I couldn't read anything!

Dunno, never bugged me. Not as easy as my old 720p tv (the 61"), and some GAMES are not very playable (like Dawn of Discovery, unfortunately, and CK2). But steam text is perfectly legible. 1080p, 65", about 10' away.

[Merusk]

Note that Sky has a 61" TV. 61". That's a viewing distance of ~10' for "full visual coverage" and a max distance of ~23' for normal mortals.  It's huuuuuuge.

[apocrypha]

Yeah, I reckon that'll give you more legible text than I get 

I do also have crappy eyesight though, plus I'm very overdue for new glasses, which is an expense I can do without frankly :/

[Sky]

Note that Sky has a 61" TV. 61". That's a viewing distance of ~10' for "full visual coverage" and a max distance of ~23' for normal mortals.  It's huuuuuuge.

65"

And it's not really that big, you don't even notice it after a while and everything else looks puny. Not sure I'd want anything much bigger in my small house, though.

[Merusk]

Sky's TV is as big as an average woman.  He has a woman hanging on his wall.

Let's just go with that.

[caladein]

Diagonally too. Sky is a monster.

[Mrbloodworth]

I Plan on setting up a machine just for the TV in the front room. I will likely play X-com that way. So, this all works for me.

[Kail]

Not really related to Big Picture, but in general Steam news, I noticed they're putting software titles on Steam.  I guess I didn't realize how deep this rabbit hole goes, though...

[apocrypha]

Update on this.

I've been using it on & off for a while now and it's improved a lot since the initial launch. It's very usable on a TV screen from sofa distances and works well with either mouse & keyboard or a controller. I've been using an XBox360 controller and it's great, although hampered by limited support for controllers in Steam games (Torchlight 2 having no controller support at all made me grr a bit).

They even implemented volume options for the UI sounds. 

[KallDrexx]

Not really related to Big Picture, but in general Steam news, I noticed they're putting software titles on Steam.  I guess I didn't realize how deep this rabbit hole goes, though...

Visual studio has had achievements for a good while now. 

[Fabricated]

I need to buy a new TV for my bedroom. The shitty one I had in there died so it has just been the computer for like 3 years. I have a nice TV out in the family room but if I moved that into my bedroom the living room would pretty much just be a couch and some bare walls.

I've messed around with Big Picture with my 360 PC controller I just got and it's pretty not-bad.

[Quinton]

(resurrecting this thread rather than starting a new one for a minor post)

I've been annoyed by tearing in Big Picture mode -- in Steam itself, not in games.  Today I learned that if you use an Aero desktop theme the tearing goes away.  Apparently choosing Windows Classic (which I do when I install Win7 because it's smaller/tidier/less-full-of-translucent-goop) windows disables desktop composition, which Steam Big Picture mode relies on to draw without tearing.