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[Miff]

I'm streaming to Link wirelessly via a 4yr old stock ISP router. Windows 10. My living room TV is one floor below, in the opposite corner to my router / PC (fairly small house).

I had a strange first half hour. At first the stream would struggle and freeze within seconds; sometimes at the Steam logo, other times when browsing BPM. Hardware encoding didn't seem to do anything so I whacked all settings down to minimum and got a slight improvement, stream looked like it was running 15fps.

Left Rocket League running for about 10min whilst I had lunch, thinking that I would have to go grab some power line adaptors.

But then noticed that it looked a bit smoother. Had a choppy kick-around and the stream continued to improve, so I started bumping up settings bit by bit.

And shortly after? Fucking butter smooth on max settings. And it's been like that ever since. No perceptible lag and perfect picture quality.

It seemed like my devices just needed a bit of time to warm up and adjust themselves to communicating with each other- but it could have been just some temp interference for all I know.

I absolutely love it though, and I'm really surprised at how good the image quality is. It's easy to use, hidden away, but ever-present; it does the job.

I still need to do some more testing (i.e. putting my router under additional strain, and a nice long Rocket League session) but so far so good!

 

[Waveset]

Got an email from Valve saying due to delays with Mac streaming, they've added Valve complete pack to my account.

 

[TheChewyWaffles]

Anyone else getting an audio delay? Just audio. Video and controls are perfectly responsive, audio is a half second behind.

Using a wired connection.

It's not my TV. Some games are fine.

I noticed something like this during Witcher 3 but thought I just saw wrong.

 

[Despera]

It doesn't. It's stereo.

Pretty useless for me then.

 

[ashecitism]

Is there a convenient way to hook up the steam controller to the link while you have the dongle connected to a pc? The only way I've found is to remove the dongle on the host pc and then connect the controller to the link, but removing the dongle to play on the tv is annoying.

Also idk if there were updates but my experience has been a lot smoother than it was the first few hours.

Edit: Well hooking up the controller to the link is now not connecting to the dongle on my pc, even when I disconnect the Link from power. This is fairly annoying. Had to add it as a new controller. There needs to be a way to turn on the Link from your PC. Connecting back and forth is a pain

Read AdrianF's posts, I added them to the OP.

 

[McHuj]

I've been playing around with mine. Pretty cool so far. There's a noticeable quality loss, but the lag is imperceptible.

My desktop is 1900x1200, so it's kind of a pain to have to toggle every game to 1080p. Hotline Miami 2 wouldn't let me select 1080p, weird.

 

[ducksauce]

Anyone else getting an audio delay? Just audio. Video and controls are perfectly responsive, audio is a half second behind.

Using a wired connection.

It's not my TV. Some games are fine.

I had this same issue. Haven't had time to try to fix it. Wired connection, noticed it while I was playing Borderlands.

My video cut out sometimes too. I don't think it's my hdmi cable since I used the same one that was just working fine on my Apple TV.

 

[Iorv3th]

How do you power the link on/off? I just unplugged the power cable as I couldn't find a button or anything.

 

[MNC]

I streamed a bunch of games yesterday through my laptop. The streaming in general works pretty well (Have done it before) But the "game running" management could be better. Half the times I wanted to quit out, the game didn't quit. In the end, when I went back to my PC to check, I was apparently running Rollercoaster Tycoon, MGSV and Rocket League all at the same time.

 

[bomberman447]

I am running my link wired through a switch to ethernet powerline. Some games were just unplayable, when a while ago I had used my mac via wireless AC and they worked fine. FPS is differing in each game MGS was hovering around 40 while others hover at 30. I have tried mine on both beautiful and fast. Seems to be playable for themost part though. Hoping to get my actualy ethernet wiring in soon, I am guessing that should improve it some.

 

[Roshin]

I received the Link today, but not the Controller, because someone thought it was a great idea to ship them as separate items.

I tried connecting my wireless 360 adapter to the Link, but it wouldn't recognise it. It did recognise my DS4, though, so I could try to set the thing up. The Link connects to my computer, kinda, but it says "Remote Steam client offline" and then does nothing. The PC Steam client is not offline, so I'm not sure what's going on there. Any advice would be appreciated.

Edit: Also, my 360 wireless adapter refuses to work now when I plug it back into the PC. It's completely dead, but worked fine before. I know it sounds stupid, but there it is. Nothing but trouble so far.

 

[JayWood2010]

I have it on max settings running perfectly. The sound isnt that great though. Is there a way to improve the audio quality?

 

[Erekiddo]

That's not a weird setup, that's setup exactly how those 3 devices are supposed to be setup if you have them. Of course Steam Link is going to work over a properly setup network.

It is when you throw in the fact I had two sets of SSIDs broadcasting (oops) and add the Powerline adapter into the mix.

 

[codswallop]

IMy desktop is 1900x1200, so it's kind of a pain to have to toggle every game to 1080p. Hotline Miami 2 wouldn't let me select 1080p, weird.

I've been using In-Home Streaming for over a year with this same setup (1920x1200 PC, 1920x1080 TV) and have the same gripe. Some games won't let you choose 1080p, some default to 1200p resolution and won't change at all, some only allow 16:10 resolution choices.

So frustrating.

 

[AwesomeMeat]

How do you power the link on/off? I just unplugged the power cable as I couldn't find a button or anything.

There is a power option in the top tight once you back all the way out in the software.

 

[ashecitism]

How do you power the link on/off? I just unplugged the power cable as I couldn't find a button or anything.

There is a power option in the top tight once you back all the way out in the software.

illustrated with a pic: http://www.engadget.com/gallery/steam-link-user-interface/#!slide=3665717

and as I understand power on is automatic? Can you turn it on with your controller?

 

[888]

Really waiting to see how this works so I can stop running a 50ft HDMI cable across my finished basement floor. Also my wife is waiting.

I feel like I could wire everything. I have 120MB down and never have any issues so it should be pretty good.

Am I going in the right direction?

Your isp isn't going to have anything to do with it. It will be your internal speeds.

 

[Jibbajabbawockky]

Tried using the Link downstairs using wireless on my main TV while my PC and router is upstairs.

Terrible performance, which I sort of expected since IHS was pretty much unplayable for most games when I tried it earlier this year using my laptop in a similar setup.

But, whoever has recommended powerline adapters is absolutely right. Plugged in my powerline adapters and wired one up to the Link and everything streams PERFECTLY. I also tried hooking the Link up via ethernet using this wireless range extender and it also works fantastic.

I was getting pretty disappointed with the Link, but definitely try it with some powerline adapters or a range extender sort of thing if you can't just hard wire it to your router and your wireless isn't good enough.

 

[Roshin]

Well, it streams now, but the lag makes it borderline unplayable.

 

[Hari Seldon]

I just powered mine on. Setup was easy and the first game I tried ran smooth. However it appears that the edges of the screen are not showing up. If I'm running this from a 1900x1200 PC to a standard 1900x1080 TV what game resolution should I pick? This was on Lego World BTW.

 

[cyress8]

I tried FF13 last night. They fucking fixed it. Awhile ago, you could not get past the the new game screen because the game just stopped recognizing the controller. They also fixed what ever caused Distant Worlds to never show the GUI.

Thanks Valve.

 

[Exuro]

Anyone succeed pairing a ds4 to it? Theres a thread on Reddit saying its possible and that the link wraps it with xinput. Personally haven't been able to get it to pair. It'll randomly show up in the bluetooth settings when I press home/share on the ds4. and when it does show up it always times out.

Also played some Meatboy for a bit and was never able to hit max fps. Also froze the screen and I had to stop the stream to get it working again.

 

[Kamakazie!]

I've used the Link for a few hours now on various games and in general I'm really happy. Everything is gigabit E in the house though so that certainly helps.

Only 2 gripes so far:
- Portal 2 doesn't work with the steam controller through Link. It opens but the menu doesn't work and it just sits their with a mouse cursor showing on the menu screen.
- Because my main PC is 1680x1050, I can't seem to get anything to render at 1080p on my HD tv. The IHS settings are set on both to be 1080p but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Any one know of a fix, or do I just have to deal with black borders on my TV until I get a 1080p monitor?

 

[ashecitism]

Anyone succeed pairing a ds4 to it? Theres a thread on Reddit saying its possible and that the link wraps it with xinput. Personally haven't been able to get it to pair. It'll randomly show up in the bluetooth settings when I press home/share on the ds4. and when it does show up it always times out.

tried this?

you have to go to the bluetooth pairing menu in the steam link user interface via a wired gamepad/keyboard first, then simultaneously press and hold share and home on the ps4 controller to make it go into the pairing mode (the light will starting blinking).

select the "wireless controller" that comes up with your other controller and your ps4 controller is now paired. just press the home button once more and the light should hold steady.

I'm currently playing MGSV with a wireless ps4 controller with steam link and it works great--the rumble doesn't work but that's not a big deal to me.

Update: You have to manually power down the controller everytime you're done playing (the light bar will stay on); hold down the home button for 7-10 seconds to turn off the controller.

 

[scitek]

Host:
GTX 970
i5 2500k @ 4.5GHz
8GB RAM
Windows 10

Client: Lenovo Y50 laptop w/4GB 860m and 16GB RAM


Whenever I stream Mad Max, for example, the game runs easily at a solid 60fps on my host machine, but while streaming, it runs in the 30s and 40s, even with hardware en/decoding on. Is there something I should try doing to improve performance? I'm streaming over 5GHz WiFi, btw. Wiring the laptop isn't really possible.

- Because my main PC is 1680x1050, I can't seem to get anything to render at 1080p on my HD tv. The IHS settings are set on both to be 1080p but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Any one know of a fix, or do I just have to deal with black borders on my TV until I get a 1080p monitor?

I'd try choosing 1600x900 in the game's menu. It's giving you black bars because you're not playing in a 16:9 aspect ratio.

 

[VillageBC]

Thanks for the help all. Sorted out the scaling issue and the controller problem. For the controller I had to go back into controller settings with it plugged in via USB and tell it to find it again.

My TV is old, still only 720p but my monitor is 1080p. I have it set right now to stream 720p, but it renders at 1080p. Theoretically, I could save some computer resources by rendering it at a lower resolution as well. It wasn't an issue in Bioshock Infinite, but giving Elite Dangerous a try I was noticing it was saying slow network, decode and capture.

 

[Exuro]

tried this?

That's exactly what I did.

 

[ashecitism]

Host:
GTX 970
i5 2500k @ 4.5GHz
8GB RAM
Windows 10

Client: Lenovo Y50 laptop w/4GB 860m and 16GB RAM

Might be Win10. Someone earlier said he installed 8.1 back and it worked fine again. Or Nvidia driver. Several posts about that in the Steam group.

Thanks for the help all. Sorted out the scaling issue and the controller problem. For the controller I had to go back into controller settings with it plugged in via USB and tell it to find it again.

Did you unplug and turn off the controller after it and then use Guide+X? Want to put this in the OP.

 

[epmode]

If anyone is having the trouble I was, where audio for certain games would lag far behind the video, try reinstalling the audio drivers for your motherboard (if you have on-board audio).

I was getting a half second delay in The Talos Principle until I installed the latest W8.1 audio drivers for my W10 computer. EVGA P67 motherboard.

 

[epmode]

Might be a dumb question but how do you pair a Steam controller with the Link? The Link apparently has its own receiver so I shouldn't need to plug the bluetooth thing in but I can't get it to find my controller when I go into the Bluetooth menu.

I tried using a wired XBone controller to get to the bluetooth menu, then pressed the home button on my Steam controller. It blinks for a few seconds but the Link never sees it.

 

[ashecitism]

When it's asking you for controllers, Guide+X. Or plug in your controller via USB, navigate to controlelr settings, find new controller, unplug it. I updated the OP with this.

 

[epmode]

Thanks, that worked.

 

[Cartman86]

I received the Link today, but not the Controller, because someone thought it was a great idea to ship them as separate items.

I tried connecting my wireless 360 adapter to the Link, but it wouldn't recognise it. It did recognise my DS4, though, so I could try to set the thing up. The Link connects to my computer, kinda, but it says "Remote Steam client offline" and then does nothing. The PC Steam client is not offline, so I'm not sure what's going on there. Any advice would be appreciated.

Edit: Also, my 360 wireless adapter refuses to work now when I plug it back into the PC. It's completely dead, but worked fine before. I know it sounds stupid, but there it is. Nothing but trouble so far.

I assume you plugged it back into the same USB port? Also you generally have to manually install the drivers for those things.

 

[petethepanda]

This morning's fun with the Steam Link: No sound! Receiver isn't getting any audio signal from it at all, even in the system menus before connecting to the PC. Tried everything but a full factory reset, which I'm doing now.

 

[Kamakazie!]

When it's asking you for controllers, Guide+X. Or plug in your controller via USB, navigate to controlelr settings, find new controller, unplug it. I updated the OP with this.

Nice, just seen this.
Being able to switch between paired devices so easily is really cool too!
Gg Valve.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Has anyone been able to get a WiiU Pro Controller working with the Link yet?

I wish that I could browse the Big Picture Mode with the Steam Controller as a mouse. It's odd switching from using the analog stick on the menus and then to the touch pads in game.

Also, has anyone had success using RetroArch? I had it running yesterday but now it seems to be ignoring my controllers.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

I was messing around with the Link moments ago. I only had the Link and host PC connected via ethernet at my router. I had no connection from my modem. In-Home Streaming still worked. Does that mean that the Link does not use bandwidth? If so, that would be great news for those with data caps.

 

[GearDraxon]

I was messing around with the Link moments ago. I only had the Link and host PC connected via ethernet at my router. I had no connection from my modem. In-Home Streaming still worked. Does that mean that the Link does not use bandwidth? If so, that would be great news for those with data caps.

It shouldn't, as it's In-Home Streaming, as mentioned in the OP.

I'm guessing that it sends a bit of diagnostic info to Valve, especially in this pre-normal-availability period.

 

[Gumbie]

I was messing around with the Link moments ago. I only had the Link and host PC connected via ethernet at my router. I had no connection from my modem. In-Home Streaming still worked. Does that mean that the Link does not use bandwidth? If so, that would be great news for those with data caps.

The link uses your internal Lan network. It has no connection at all to your isp or bandwidth.

 

[Hari Seldon]

I figured out the problem with the clipping at the edge of the screen, I just had to use the screen adjustment thing in the main menu and scale it back approx 20%. I would suggest to Valve to force users to do this on first boot up since I was assuming it was a problem with the game resolution.

The only bugs I have seen so far is that one time the guide button brought me to the menu that comes up if you hold it down, even if I just tapped it. Quitting the game and going back in fixed it. The other bug was fairly garbled sound even when the visuals were perfectly fine with no lag.

My setup is a 1 gen old apple router running on the 5ghz network.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Jeez, I switched TV's from a 32" to a 50". I couldn't get it to work in the other room. When they're close I could run DOOM 3 on the 32".

I switched over to my 50" with Metal Slug 3. It was lagging on the menu and then froze while playing the game.

I wonder, can I just hook it up to an Ethernet cord to my PC and share the connection or something?

I have DSL. I can play online, stream films, but the lag is pretty bad with this. It glitches up and freezes on my TV. I'm also wireless as the box is upstairs. Otherwise I can do lots with the Internet.

I can only play remote play from one area in the house too. Going too far cuts me out on the Vita.

I thought I'd get a better connection with the Link. I'm kinda pissed and irritated, but I know it can somehow work.

 

[TI82]

Thought this came out this weekend in stores. Guess not. Oh well next month, just bought some powerline adapters for my apartment too.

 

[SuperChoco]

Does anyone know or can test if a Wii U Pro controller works using the Mayflash adapter? It's currently my favorite controller for PC games and I'll be really disappointed if I can't get it to work with the Link.

It works.

 

[Chaser324]

Anyone succeed pairing a ds4 to it? Theres a thread on Reddit saying its possible and that the link wraps it with xinput. Personally haven't been able to get it to pair.

I'm curious about this too. I've seen scattered reports of people getting it to work, but I'm not seeing the Steam Link detect anything when I put a Dualshock 4 into pairing mode. Bluetooth device list just stays totally blank.

The Dualshock 4 does work well when plugged in, but I'd prefer to avoid having a long USB cable across my living room.

 

[VillageBC]

Might be Win10. Someone earlier said he installed 8.1 back and it worked fine again. Or Nvidia driver. Several posts about that in the Steam group.



Did you unplug and turn off the controller after it and then use Guide+X? Want to put this in the OP.

No, I didn't need to do guide+X afterwards. It turns on now though. I haven't gone back to use it on the PC though.

 

[diablos991]

So with a PC ewuipped with a newer i5, 970 and a high quality Asus AC router, am I going to see minimal latency with this thing? Wouldn't mind gaming on a TV for less competitive games but latency is a real buzzkill for me.

 

[Quote]

I'm super interested in this but my desktop runs at 1440, so it's kind of stupid that it can't automatically figure out when to change it to 1080 when streaming.

 

[McHuj]

So with a PC ewuipped with a newer i5, 970 and a high quality Asus AC router, am I going to see minimal latency with this thing? Wouldn't mind gaming on a TV for less competitive games but latency is a real buzzkill for me.

I have a i7-3770k with a 970 and played a bunch of Arkham Knight today at 1080p/60 with no noticable lag, imo. I have an AC router, but I'm running wired. I would say the IQ looked a tad worse, but still great.

 

[diablos991]

I have a i7-3770k with a 970 and played a bunch of Arkham Knight today at 1080p/60 with no noticable lag, imo. I have an AC router, but I'm running wired. I would say the IQ looked a tad worse, but still great.

How was the latency? As good as the vita to ps4 cross play?
If it's as good as the vita/ps4 I'll probably pick one of these up.

 

[McHuj]

How was the latency? As good as the vita to ps4 cross play?
If it's as good as the vita/ps4 I'll probably pick one of these up.

Sorry, I don't have a vita so I don't know