Steam Big Picture Screensaver: How to Turn It Off, Change It or Add Your Own
Where Steam's new Big Picture screensaver settings live, how to stop it during games, swap the bouncing logo and add a custom one, plus Big Art Mode.
Leave Steam's Big Picture mode alone for a while and it now starts a screensaver: either a slideshow of art from your games or a retro Steam logo bouncing around the screen. Valve added it in the Steam client update of 13 October, after a month in beta, and it applies wherever Big Picture runs, on Windows PCs as well as SteamOS devices such as Steam Deck and Steam Machine. Here's where every setting lives, according to Valve's update notes and the screenshots it published with them.
Where are the Steam screensaver settings?
In Big Picture mode, open Settings, then Customization. Valve's notes put the feature there, and its screenshot shows a Screensaver section with four controls:
- Current Screensaver: the drop-down where you pick Game Slideshow or Bouncing Logo.
- Include artwork from recently played games: a switch for the slideshow.
- Include my recent screenshots: a drop-down set to None by default.
- Test your screensaver selection: a Preview button, so you don't have to sit and wait.
A fifth row, Configure screensaver timeouts, has a View Power Settings button. That is where you set how long Steam waits before the screensaver starts.
How do I turn off the Steam screensaver?
Change the timer rather than the screensaver. The Customization page doesn't list an off choice among the screensavers, but its timeout button opens the power settings, where the current client has a "Start screensaver after" option alongside "Dim display after" and "Sleep after", and its idle timers include a Disabled choice. Valve's update notes don't spell this out, so if your client looks different, the timeout row on the Customization page is the place to start.
If the problem is the Steam Machine or Deck going to sleep or waking up on its own rather than the screensaver, that's a separate set of power settings: see our guide to a Steam Machine that keeps waking up from sleep.
How do I stop the screensaver during games?
There's a dedicated switch. The 13 October notes added "a setting to disable the screensaver when in game", which appears in Customization as "Show screensavers when playing a game". Turn it off and a game left paused or idle won't be covered by the slideshow.
Video is handled too. Steam now delays dimming the screen or starting the screensaver when the Steam Store, a web browser or another app asks to keep the display awake while a video plays.
How do I get rid of the bouncing logo?
Pick Game Slideshow in the Current Screensaver drop-down. Valve says the slideshow is the default, and it can draw on art from your recently played games, your recent in-game screenshots, or both. The bouncing logo, which Valve calls "retro inspired", only runs if someone chose it.
Can I add a custom Steam screensaver?
Yes. Valve says Big Picture loads custom screensavers the same way it loads custom startup movies: put them in the `config\uioverrides\screensavers` folder inside your Steam install folder, such as `C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam` on Windows or `~/.steam/root` on Linux and SteamOS. The bouncing logo, in the `steamui\screensavers` folder, is Valve's suggested starting point, and it is a small web page made of an HTML, a CSS and a JavaScript file. Once installed, your own screensaver appears in the drop-down marked "(User Created)".
What is Big Art Mode?
It's the other Big Picture change in the same update. Under Settings, Home, Big Art Mode "turns on an alternate layout for the home screen that highlights background art for the selected title in Recent Games", as Valve's settings screen describes it. It sits next to the option to show personalised store content on the home screen. The same update added Steam's Personal Calendar to the Recommended tab on the Big Picture home screen.
