SteamGridDB FAQ

Please do not upload it as a logo, or use a conventional upscaling method (e.g. bicubic, bilinear) to bring it to full resolution. Both of these cases will be deleted.

Instead, consider recreating the asset in a higher resolution or using an AI upscaler like waifu2x or bigjpg. If they too produce undesirable results, the asset might be too low quality to include on the site.

In addition to the report reason and description, we receive your profile name and the ID of the asset being reported.

If you are reporting a duplicate, please include a link to or ID of the duplicate asset. Likewise, if you are reporting incorrect metadata, include whatever fixes have to be made.

A description that is simply "dupe" is unhelpful, because we will then have to find the duplicate asset ourselves. However, a description that is simply "blurred" is enough to indicate that the asset's style needs to be changed to Blurred.

We receive your SteamGridDB profile when you report an asset.

Consider yourself anonymous when making a report; while action will be taken against report abuse, your name will never be made visible to the uploader of the reported asset or anyone else outside of the moderation team.

When you submit an asset, after adding an image, a link will appear in the window titled: "Game you want not listed? Click here to request it!" This will take you to the page where you can request a game. All requests are manually approved.

This link will take you directly to that page: /request-game

• Method 1

  Launch the game so it's visible as the most recent in Home > Recent Games, then right-click to change the artwork in the same way you would change a vertical grid.

• Method 2

  Browse to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\[your id]\config\grid and place the grid in that directory as [AppID].png or [AppID].jpg

A Steam game's AppID is the number in its Store URL, i.e. https://store.steampowered.com/app/[AppID]

For a non-Steam game, you can find its AppID either by visiting its screenshots folder, which will be [...]\760\remote\[AppID]\screenshots, or by creating a desktop shortcut, which will point to the URL steam://rungameid/[AppID]

Rename the asset to the appid of the game (see above). Then place it in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\[your id]\config\grid. Override the existing asset if it already exists in that folder.

SteamGridDB formerly supported the APNG format for animated assets, but has deprecated it due to its impracticality. Its usage in the Steam client is an exploit; the library will display any image as long as its filename has the .jpg or .png extension. WebP assets operate upon the same principle, but as a modern format, it has improved compression and better tools. For more information, including quick help with FFmpeg, see here.

Icons are used by Windows and Steam as the thumbnail of executable programs and games. You see them on your taskbar, your desktop, and if you have the option enabled, alongside game titles in your Steam library. They usually consist of a single graphic, clearly visible even at low resolutions, so the icon can be easily recognised even as small as 16x16. Icons are always square, and usually use the alpha channel to have even a recognisable silhouette. SteamGridDB allows both the PNG and ICO format for icons. A PNG is a single graphic, while ICO is a container for many different graphics of variable size and bit-depth, ensuring that the icon will scale properly no matter what size it is displayed.

Square grids, by contrast, are intended for display only at larger sizes, more like the Steam library's grids. They are always in PNG or JPEG format, as scaling to very small sizes is not necessary, and they generally do not contain an alpha channel. Instead, they often contain intricate details such as text logos or faces that are easily discernible at larger sizes. While the Steam and GOG libraries do not properly support square grids, Playnite can be configured for a library of square grids. In the console world, they are more common; the PS4 and XBox One main menus both primarily use square grids.

The majority of people use square grids with Playnite. But as with all of the assets on the site, they may be used anywhere you can imagine from custom front-ends to the Windows start menu tiles.