What's new in Desktop+ 3.4?
Desktop+ 3.4 features a new Performance Monitor style, overlay origin smoothing, new community keyboard layouts and various other fixes and improvements.
Performance Monitor Enhancements
The Performance Monitor remained largely untouched since its introduction 5 years ago.
This version adds more options to customize the look of it.
One of those options is a new style: Minimal
Sometimes less is less and just what you want.
This style allows for a one-line set of performance metrics and might be preferred when attached somewhere to your view in seated games instead of the typical use of docking the Performance Monitor to your tracked controller.
The other new options allow hiding window decoration & background of the Performance Monitor, as well as enabling an outline around Performance Monitor text.
The item list in the Performance Monitor properties window has been revamped to be less verbose, while the "Disable GPU Performance Counters" setting has been removed.
"Disable GPU Performance Counters" was originally introduced to combat a regression in GPU drivers from 2020/2021. It's not really relevant anymore.
It does remain as a hidden setting in case the issue resurfaces later.
Overlay Bar Drag-Reordering is now Smooth
There is no functional change in this. It just looks and feels nicer.
Overlay Origin Smoothing
Origin Smoothing is available for the HMD and HMD Floor origins.
This smoothing uses the same underlying algorithm as the mouse input smoothing (Radial Follow Smoothing). It is a mixture of pure smoothing and stabilization at higher levels.
Overlay Backsides
All UI windows now feature a visible backside. For new overlays, the backside defaults to being enabled, but can be toggled off in the Overlay Properties.
Already existing overlays and overlays loaded from profiles remain unchanged, but can of course have backsides toggled on as well if desired.
This requires SteamVR 2.15.3 or later (currently the SteamVR Beta branch).
Community Additions
This version of Desktop+ yet again comes with more contributions from the community in the form of additional keyboard layouts.
Shimotuki Rieru provided the QWERTY (Japanese JIS-set) keyboard layout.
TangMo provided the QWERTY (Thai Kedmanee) keyboard layout and fixed Thai characters not displaying in the UI.
Both layouts are designed to be used with an active Windows keyboard layout that matches them.
QWERTY (Japanese JIS-set) in particular expects a Japanese system with an active IME. Please note that IME support in Desktop+ is limited to desktop/window overlays.
As always, I wish to thank everyone for their contributions.
Other Changes
New:
- Added default input bindings for Steam Frame controllers
- Added "Alternative Cursor Rendering" Desktop Duplication setting This setting is meant to help some users experiencing issues with the hardware cursor capture using Desktop Duplication, ending up with no cursor being displayed. This rendering method is slightly slower than the regular one and doesn't support cursor animation. But hopefully it resolves the issue for anyone affected. If other means to retrieve the current cursor fail, it may fall back to using the default cursor image or just a built-in alternative.
- Added hidden settings to allow specifying the GPUs used by Desktop+ Under normal circumstances there is no need to use these. But they can be useful in the rare case in which using the primary desktop GPU and the VR GPU returned by SteamVR does not give the desired results.
- Lists for selecting a key code now include the key's name in the current keyboard layout for certain layout-specific key codes
- Improved logging around output enumeration
Changed:
- The default profile's dashboard overlay now defaults to a locked transform
Fixed:
- Fixed middle click not working with default bindings for Index & Touch controllers
- Fixed drag hints displayed on top of controllers getting stuck after controller disconnects
- Fixed showing windows with WS_EX_NOACTIVATE style in the window list (they're not capturable)
- Fixed Performance Monitor not reverting left controller battery level to N/A after turning the controller off
- Fixed "Focus Game when Laser Pointer Leaves Overlay" setting triggering while Laser Pointer Override is active
- Fixed "Load Overlay Profile" action command not respecting "Remove Existing Overlays" option
- Fixed "Switch Task" Action sometimes crashing Desktop+ when an application with exclusive fullscreen was active
- Fixed continuous stutter in the Desktop+ dashboard tab under certain conditions in SteamVR 2.15.3
- Worked around SteamVR 2.15.1 dashboard changes breaking dashboard-relative overlay positioning While Desktop+ also remains mostly usable with the legacy dashboard (active when Steam isn't running), it should be noted that support for it is limited.
- Various other minor UI fixes and adjustments
Theater Screen origin overlays are known to not work with SteamVR 2.15.1 or newer (current SteamVR Beta branch). Still awaiting response on whether this is something that has to be dealt with on Desktop+' end.
A new stable update was long overdue. Quite a few smaller things piled up over time.
Not much else to say this time around.