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Steam In-Home Streaming and Steam Link thread

G

geestack

Member
got mine yesterday and i'm very satisfied with it. i only tried la noire, but it works incredibly well over my wireless network. i'm using a google wifi router with both my pc and the link on wireless with beautiful settings, everything else out of the box. now i just need to find a good controller to use with the link as i'm currently using my ps4 controller attached by usb.

should i just bite the bullet and buy a steam controller? i already use a wireless xbox 360 controller with wireless dongle on my pc
 
C

cyress8

Banned
geestack said:
got mine yesterday and i'm very satisfied with it. i only tried la noire, but it works incredibly well over my wireless network. i'm using a google wifi router with both my pc and the link on wireless with beautiful settings, everything else out of the box. now i just need to find a good controller to use with the link as i'm currently using my ps4 controller attached by usb.

should i just bite the bullet and buy a steam controller? i already use a wireless xbox 360 controller with wireless dongle on my pc
Click to expand...

Grab it while it is on sale. Some people like it and others hate it with a passion. Getting it cheap is the best thing to do right now and see how you like it.
 
Nabs

Nabs

Member
geestack said:
got mine yesterday and i'm very satisfied with it. i only tried la noire, but it works incredibly well over my wireless network. i'm using a google wifi router with both my pc and the link on wireless with beautiful settings, everything else out of the box. now i just need to find a good controller to use with the link as i'm currently using my ps4 controller attached by usb.

should i just bite the bullet and buy a steam controller? i already use a wireless xbox 360 controller with wireless dongle on my pc
Click to expand...

You can use your PS4 controller wirelessly if you'd like. By attaching it via USB, you've already set it up.

The Steam Controller is fantastic if you're willing to give it a chance. The only problem is that it's no longer on sale.
 
D

dangeROSS

Member
I got one of these a while back and it's never worked great on my setup.
Currently I have the Link wired to my Router which then connects to my PC Wirelessly.
Reading around - Does it really help if you:

- Connect your Router to your PC via ethernet and then stream wirelessly to the Link?

- Change your wifi to 5GHz?
 
C

codswallop

Member
dangeROSS said:
I got one of these a while back and it's never worked great on my setup.
Currently I have the Link wired to my Router which then connects to my PC Wirelessly.
Click to expand...
Ideally you'd have the Steam Link wired to the router, and also the PC wired to the router. 5GHz might be better (generally it's a faster connection but more susceptible to interference, whereas 2.4GHz is slower but more resilient).

Personally, I found the wireless receiver in the Steam Link isn't fantastic (when it's inside a TV unit, and a wireless router is in a different room). I've solved that in my case by using a wireless extender (that I already had) as a wireless bridge (Steam Link <- wired -> extender <- wireless -> router <- wired -> PC), because the antennae on it are much bigger. I don't have any issues with this setup.

+10 upvotes for the Steam Controller. But in the early stages you've gotta be committed, and work for it.
 
A

AlanOC91

Member
Moved into my new house Saturday and set up my Steam Link yesterday (had 0 issues in my previous house).

Internet and everything is the same on the 360mb package (except I'm not using my Archer C7 router, I'm using the ISP-given router). Steam link is on the wired connection. PC upstairs on a powerline connection (again, same as previous house) getting on average close to the 360mb ceiling.

Turned on FF7 to play down in the sitting room and it was kind of choppy :-/ Audio was skipping and it was losing some frames (despite doing a perfect network test before-hand).

Strange one, could have just been FF7 acting weird with Steam Link since I never played that game before on Steam Link but I hope there isn't an issue in the new house with all of it.

Everything else plays fine, 4k netflix and the likes without any need for buffering.
 
daninthemix

daninthemix

Member
AlanOC91 said:
Everything else plays fine, 4k netflix and the likes without any need for buffering.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure the issue is with the powerline connection.

Steam Link is much more latency-sensitive than Netflix. Netflix can buffer data and use that to smooth out network inconsistencies. Steam Link can't, because any buffering would result in input lag. It has to be 'live' on a frame-by-frame basis.
 
W

Wolf Akela

Member
Just want to kick myself for missing the AU sale on both Link and Controller. They don't ship outside AU so I had to find a service that does it for me. Right after I signed up, the sale ended.
 
A

AlanOC91

Member
daninthemix said:
Pretty sure the issue is with the powerline connection.

Steam Link is much more latency-sensitive than Netflix. Netflix can buffer data and use that to smooth out network inconsistencies. Steam Link can't, because any buffering would result in input lag. It has to be 'live' on a frame-by-frame basis.
Click to expand...

To be fair I've used my PC on a powerline connection for well over a year and never had issues with my Steam Link on it. Always been a perfect connection.

Also, just to be clear, the Steam Link isn't on the powerline connection, it's straight to the router.
 
P

pestul

Member
dangeROSS said:
I got one of these a while back and it's never worked great on my setup.
Currently I have the Link wired to my Router which then connects to my PC Wirelessly.
Reading around - Does it really help if you:

- Connect your Router to your PC via ethernet and then stream wirelessly to the Link?

- Change your wifi to 5GHz?
Click to expand...
Probably yes on both accounts but the SL might perform better plugged into a wireless repeater.. My gaming PC is wired to my router through gigabit and then the router streams 5GHz down to my repeater in the living room which the SteamLink is plugged into. I get flawless 1080p/60fps on everything at 'Beautiful' settings. The repeater definitely has a much stronger connection than just using the SL wifi.
 
D

dangeROSS

Member
pestul said:
Probably yes on both accounts but the SL might perform better plugged into a wireless repeater.. My gaming PC is wired to my router through gigabit and then the router streams 5GHz down to my repeater in the living room which the SteamLink is plugged into. I get flawless 1080p/60fps on everything at 'Beautiful' settings. The repeater definitely has a much stronger connection than just using the SL wifi.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I will have to try changing my setup this weekend to see if it improves things.
 
daninthemix

daninthemix

Member
AlanOC91 said:
To be fair I've used my PC on a powerline connection for well over a year and never had issues with my Steam Link on it. Always been a perfect connection.

Also, just to be clear, the Steam Link isn't on the powerline connection, it's straight to the router.
Click to expand...

Yes but you said you've moved house - so the quality of the mains, how long and congested the circuit is, etc, are different than before.

Powerline is a lot like wireless - its a crapshoot based on a bunch of factors outside your control.
 
A

AlanOC91

Member
daninthemix said:
Yes but you said you've moved house - so the quality of the mains, how long and congested the circuit is, etc, are different than before.

Powerline is a lot like wireless - its a crapshoot based on a bunch of factors outside your control.
Click to expand...

Yeah crap :/ It's an old house renovated to be modern so the electrics could be crap. I actually did trip the electrics twice plugging in the powerline adapter upstairs. I don't think I'll get landlord permission to drill a hole for a cat5 cable :p
 
D

digitalrelic

Banned
SUPGUYZ said:
I hope a 4k SteamLink comes out soon. I mainly use my Shield TV now but would love to use my Steam Controller again.
Click to expand...

How's the latency/image quality of the Shield TV vs Steam Link? Contemplating moving away from the Link, as I have a 4K HDR tv in the living room. Just want to see how the quality is.
 
daninthemix

daninthemix

Member
AlanOC91 said:
Yeah crap :/ It's an old house renovated to be modern so the electrics could be crap. I actually did trip the electrics twice plugging in the powerline adapter upstairs. I don't think I'll get landlord permission to drill a hole for a cat5 cable :p
Click to expand...

Might be worth trying 5GHz wireless instead and seeing if its better.
 
W

Weevilone

Member
digitalrelic said:
How's the latency/image quality of the Shield TV vs Steam Link? Contemplating moving away from the Link, as I have a 4K HDR tv in the living room. Just want to see how the quality is.
Click to expand...

My experience is that the Shield TV is great with latency, and it'll do 4k. I'm much happier with it at this point, but obviously it's more expensive.
 
C

codswallop

Member
Wolf Akela said:
Just want to kick myself for missing the AU sale on both Link and Controller. They don't ship outside AU so I had to find a service that does it for me. Right after I signed up, the sale ended.
Click to expand...
EB has had them on sale every couple of months, just keep an eye out. I bought mine from Amazon before they were available here without any issue, not sure if Amazon still ships them to Australia though.
 
J

JCH!

Member
Hey guys, just got my Steam Link. Pretty pleased so far, no noticeable input lag even over wifi.

Only 'problem' I've encountered so far is that some games (The Witcher 3, for example) are a bit dark and ingame gamma/brightness settings don't seem to work at all. Have any of you experienced this problem? Any ideas?
 
H

Hasney

Member
JCH! said:
Hey guys, just got my Steam Link. Pretty pleased so far, no noticeable input lag even over wifi.

Only 'problem' I've encountered so far is that some games (The Witcher 3, for example) are a bit dark and ingame gamma/brightness settings don't seem to work at all. Have any of you experienced this problem? Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Mess around with full screen settings. Windowed and Borderless Fullscreen don't always work great with brightness things.
 
F

FlammableD

Banned
Anyone play GTA V (Social Club) with this? Used to work no problems, but I reinstalled GTA (as the PC port is trash and crashed on startup), and now Steam seems to think that the launcher has exited so GTA has and doesn't send the controller through.
 
S

SUPGUYZ

Banned
digitalrelic said:
How's the latency/image quality of the Shield TV vs Steam Link? Contemplating moving away from the Link, as I have a 4K HDR tv in the living room. Just want to see how the quality is.
Click to expand...

Sorry I didn't see this, I have no latency on 80 up/12 down. I'm probably 12 feet away from a 65" TV and it looks great!
 
C

codswallop

Member
JCH! said:
Only 'problem' I've encountered so far is that some games (The Witcher 3, for example) are a bit dark and ingame gamma/brightness settings don't seem to work at all. Have any of you experienced this problem? Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Yeah I've found this. Witcher 3 in particular was dark on one TV no matter what I did at either end, and on a different TV it was fine.

IIRC Steam Streaming just ignores PC-side gamma, or perhaps it was just with one type of encoding type (NVENC or NVFBC or whatever).
 
Admiral Snackbar

Admiral Snackbar

Member
Got mine last week. Changed my stupid life. I have about 20-30ms of input lag, though it's tested in Crypt of the Necrodancer and not an actual signal receiver. Which is fine for just about anything, really.

It's great but I wouldn't want to play multiplayer stuff over it, just on the OFF CHANCE of lag.
 
A

AlanOC91

Member
daninthemix said:
Might be worth trying 5GHz wireless instead and seeing if its better.
Click to expand...

Alright. So I tried the Steam Link again yesterday in the new house to play the following with my mates: Shovel Knight, Streets of Rage and Worms.

The first two consistently lagged. It would be fine for 2 minutes and then have a lag spike with the "Slow Network" notification. It was super frustrating.

So after a session of Streets of Rage I went up to my PC and changes some in-home streaming settings. I ticked the box to prioritize the network and enabled some Nvidia setting.

Seemed to be perfect after that. We played 3 player worms flawlessly so hopefully that's all it needed.
 
D

digitalrelic

Banned
Weevilone said:
My experience is that the Shield TV is great with latency, and it'll do 4k. I'm much happier with it at this point, but obviously it's more expensive.
Click to expand...

SUPGUYZ said:
Sorry I didn't see this, I have no latency on 80 up/12 down. I'm probably 12 feet away from a 65" TV and it looks great!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input! I picked one up. Definitely easily superior to my Steam Link. 4K 60fps streaming looks phenomenal and I can't believe how little lag there is. Super impressed with the Shield TV.
 
D

deadfolk

Member
digitalrelic said:
Thanks for the input! I picked one up. Definitely easily superior to my Steam Link. 4K 60fps streaming looks phenomenal and I can't believe how little lag there is. Super impressed with the Shield TV.
Click to expand...

So 4k streaming is really a reality with this thing? Might have to think about picking one up. Steam Link works great most of the time for me, but since getting a 4k TV, I'm always itching for stuff in 4k.
 
D

digitalrelic

Banned
deadfolk said:
So 4k streaming is really a reality with this thing? Might have to think about picking one up. Steam Link works great most of the time for me, but since getting a 4k TV, I'm always itching for stuff in 4k.
Click to expand...

It absolutely is. I'm getting less latency at 4K then I had in 1080p with the Link. That H.265 codec doing wonders.
 
D

digitalrelic

Banned
deadfolk said:
Dayum! Going to have to save my pennies.

Does it work with regular controllers (DS4, XBone, etc.) or only the Nvidia one?
Click to expand...

I think it works with some other controllers but there may be some work/fiddling involved to get them working. Not sure as I'm happy with the nVidia one included. It's a solid controller.
 
E

EatinOlives

Member
Finally got around to trying mine. Works very well out of the box but I'm having an annoying little problem.

Everything is wired (SteamLink and PC are connected together via ethernet through a router). The max bandwidth I believe is 100 Mbps according to the performance stats shown.

Games look pretty good but framerate is less than perfect. Games that run at a solid 60fps in desktop mode frequently stutter between 59 and 60 fps while in SteamLink. Doesn't make games unplayable but it's definitely noticeable and sort of annoying after a while.

Is this a common occurrence for wired setups?
 
C

codswallop

Member
EatinOlives said:
Games look pretty good but framerate is less than perfect. Games that run at a solid 60fps in desktop mode frequently stutter between 59 and 60 fps while in SteamLink. Doesn't make games unplayable but it's definitely noticeable and sort of annoying after a while.
Click to expand...
If you're talking microstutter, it's an ongoing problem. Apparently nVidia solved it on the Shield, but Valve still haven't on the Link.
 
W

Wolf Akela

Member
How do you guys deal with Windows login?

I can't connect at all when my PC is locked. I was hoping it would be like TeamViewer or AnyDesk where I could at least see the lock screen and type stuff.
 
L

LegendX48

Member
First, sorry for bump

Anywho, got a steam link a few days ago and I have a question. What does "Suspend System" do exactly? Haven't been able to find an answer anywhere.
 
C

codswallop

Member
Is that the second-last option? If so, on my Windows machine it's the equivalent of me choosing 'Sleep'. If you have hibernate enabled it /might/ be that instead, but I'm not sure.

Personally that's the option I use most, it's very convenient.
 
L

LegendX48

Member
codswallop said:
Is that the second-last option? If so, on my Windows machine it's the equivalent of me choosing 'Sleep'. If you have hibernate enabled it /might/ be that instead, but I'm not sure.

Personally that's the option I use most, it's very convenient.
Click to expand...

thanks. I think I may start using it now that I know what it is
 
daninthemix

daninthemix

Member
Just thought I'd post this on the off-chance that (like me), someone tries to stream Quake 1 or 2 to Steam Link and find it mysteriously doesn't work.

In my case I used Quakespasm and Yamagi Quake 2, and what I needed to do was, having installed and tested the mods / source ports, copy the entire folder where Steam installed the game somewhere else, rename the main exe so they were NOT quake2.exe / GLquake.exe (just rename them to anything else), then add that renamed exe as a non-Steam game. It will then work over Steam Link.

I think it's probably the Nvidia driver that makes assumptions about the graphics API based on the executable name, but it could be Steam itself causing the problem.
 
daninthemix

daninthemix

Member
Just getting my arcade set up...all these games run on the Model 2 or Model 3 emulators perfectly over Steam Link, using the controller.

 
T

timcsavage

Member
I have found (don't want to tempt fate) that AMD encoding has got better with latest stable steam and link software and latest WHQL Win10 drivers for R9 380X. This is over host 5Ghz AC wireless network and Link gigabit LAN connection mixture, bit rate limited to 30 Mbit/sec and beautiful settings.
 
H

Hasney

Member
The Samsung steam Link app has some details and a beta

Samsung is adding Steam Link functionality directly to their latest line of Smart TVs.

If you are in the United States and have a 2016 or 2017 Samsung UHD TV, we'd like to invite you to help test the Steam Link App, now available as a free beta from the Samsung Smart Hub.

The App uses the same streaming technology as Valve's Steam Link, allowing users to play their favorite games, and even spectate VR games on the HTC Vive, wherever they watch TV.

During the beta, playback of 1080p video at 60 FPS and support for the Steam Controller are included. For worldwide release later this summer, support for streaming 4K resolutions and additional controllers will be added.

Note: Streaming to the TV requires a Steam Controller and a high-quality network, at least 5GHz. A wired network is strongly recommended.
Click to expand...
 
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