Steam Link

[Jay]

Just ordered one of these bad boys to play my PC games on my 52 inch TV. I hope it works as I will be doing it via my wifi signal. Anyone hear anything about it?

[Drem]

No, what is it? I just plug my laptop into the HDMI and it works fine

[Jay]

I have a desktop in my bedroom and my TV is in my living room. Theoretically I will be able to play my PC games in my living room on my TV without running wires across my house. It's a little box that has USB ports and bluetooth for my controllers and transmits my game to my tv via wifi and connects via hdmi.

I'm assuming I will have some sort of input lag and I'm hoping it's not severe.

[Reynaldo]

Post feedback on how it goes. I've been interested in the Playstation TV to play my PS4 games in the bedroom but really weary on the lag.

[Jay]

I did not know about the existence of Playstation TV. I'm excited now.

[brinstar]

yes please post detailed reports on this

i am moving into a house with my gf this weekend - currently in my tiny apt the tv/stereo is 5 feet from my desk, but in the new place the tv/stereo will be in the living room on 1F while the desk will be in the office on 2F

would be killer to still be able to game big

[Lyion]

I ordered one on Friday and a Controller. My main reason though is my 10 year old loves Train Simulator which has no variant on the consoles. I'll tinker with it, but by and large I've been morphing my gaming more to consoles. I use my PC just for work and coding and for Virtualbox sandbox testing. Surface Pro has taken over my freelance writing, and I use my PS4 for gaming more.

Congrats on the new house, Brin! Setup a LAN configuration in your living room, dude! Use that 70" Big Screen while gaming!

[brinstar]

Setup a LAN configuration in your living room, dude! Use that 70" Big Screen while gaming!

well it's 50" but yeah that's why i want to hear more about the Link, so i can play vidya on my living room TV with my desktop still being upstairs

(it's a cool house btw, thanks)

[Jay]

The Steam link works great! Few slight issues with setup but I've been using it for Fallout 4 now and it runs like a dream. I probably wouldn't play any CS:GO with it since there is slight input lag, but for campaign, single player type games it's perfect. Input lag could be from my TV though and not the link's fault. Also, as a Street Fighter player I'm particularly over-sensitive to input lag.

Couple of annoying things though. When you start Fallout 4, you have to have a mouse hooked up because you have to click Play lol. At first, it looks like you're playing a really high quality twitch stream, then you eventually get used to it. I later found out that there's actually a quality setting inside of the Steam Link's menu where you can change it to quality over performance. It defaults at "balanced". Running on high quality now with no noticeable lag, artifacts or major issues and I'm running on 5ghz wifi, internet is 100mbps down, 12 up and I'm using an AC2100 Netgear Nighthawk gaming router.

As for Bluetooth, I had issues setting up my PS4 controller initially but I guess when you are pairing your controller has to be VERY close to the Steam link. Once it's paired, I can play from across the living room with no glitch.

[Tossica]

Interesting. Wouldn't mind being able to play PC games in the home theater.

[Lyion]

After a few days I can say Train Simulator works very well. RTS games also play decently, although it's limited to a controller right now. Pillars of Eternity is also great on it.

There is a slight input lag, which makes some real time games a bit off. I believe it's from streaming over the Network, even though I have switched Gigabit. I changed the display from beautiful down a notch and it responds much better. Dirt Rally is not well playable even with that due to the very slight lag. I'm sure it'll get better with some updates.

[brinstar]

FORUMS NECROMANCY!!!

literally just got and installed my steam link today and it sucks balls

the experience, not the link

so my 2F office is on the NW corner of the house and that's where my desktop beast is hardwired directly to my wifi router. the 50" TV is on the NE corner of the house but on 1F. it seems my wifi router must be just a big pile of garbage based on how performance on the TV was skipping and lagging and glitching. seems weird to me because my wii U (hardwired to the TV) uses wifi to stream netflix/hulu at no less than 720p without much trouble at all

is there just THAT much of a difference between trying to stream steam's A/V output versus streaming video? i mean fucks' sake i am just trying to play goddamn stardew valley (2D 16-bit gfx) and it's nigh unplayable

[brinstar]

followup question

my wireless router is about ten years old - one of those blue linksys WRT types

can anyone recommend me a wireless router robust enough to handle steamlink that would still cost under a benjamin?

[Drem]

i'm surprised a ten year old router works at all. i guarantee it can't handle the speeds you're trying to transmit

i return my router at home and get a new one thru comcast every year. sure as shit, after about 8 months, they always crap out. even the ones i actually buy from reputable companies for our business start acting wonky once they're about a year old

any netgear or belkin will only cost you like $60 or $70 and then after it starts acting weird just return it on warranty for a new one

maybe other people have different luck but i've never seen a router act like it did out of the box after a year

[brinstar]

ok so my every instinct is wrong and the optional "equipment rental" charge from my telco is worth it just to make sure i get new infrastructure shit every year?

i'm mildly incredulous that the plausibility of this proposal so effortlessly eviscerates the basic principle of my assumption that it was just another way for them to wring more ducats out of me each month

(i realize this sounds at least somewhat sarcastic but i assure you i mean nothing of the sort)

[brinstar]

update:

i took my old-ass cable modem into the telco office this morning and asked for a new one - and mentioned that my wireless hub is abt 10 years old

dude asked if i wanted to get a combo modem/wifi for an extra $5 a month

i asked whether i could at any time swap back (in the event i didn't like the combo) and have that $5/mo come back off my bill and he was like o yea totes

so i brought it home and set it up, and holy shit it screams. just to give you an idea, my old hardware would max out at somewhere between 12mbps and 20 mbps on speedtest.org (on a good day!) and had the annoying habit of occasionally forgetting how to be on the internet (on most days!)

first speed test with new hardware (via ethernet-connected desktop) hit 70.00mpbs flat, which i'm pretty sure is the max speed of the tier of service we pay for.

only bummer is it seems our wii u can't connect to 5ghz signal, which is supposed to have shorter range but does streaming way better. hopped on 2.4ghz signal with it and it's damn fast anyway though

didn't have time to do a speed test over wifi or give the steam link a second go, as i had to go to work. best believe i'm gonna fire it up tonight

[brinstar]

didn't have time to do a speed test over wifi or give the steam link a second go, as i had to go to work

wifi speed test blazed just as fast

steam link is not quite silky smooth (there's a hiccup every couple minutes or so) but by and large a great experience

thanks drem

[Drem]

heck yeah man, glad it worked out

[Jay]

I liked my Steam Link back when I used it. It was good for most games if you don't mind slight input lag. Now if you're playing the speed bike level on Battletoads you're probably fucked.

[brinstar]

even 0 ping/lag wouldn't prevent that

[brinstar]

bump, heads up, there is a deep sale on the link ($15) and controller ($35) right now if you buy them directly from steam

so basically you can get both for the price of just the link, if you want to think about it that way

personally i've found the steam controller isn't quite as tight as a wired xbox controller despite being more flexible with mapping and such - i think i'd rather have a stick on the right instead of that weird touch pad. my wired xbox controller has a touchy usb cable though so sometimes it stops working - making the steam controller more dependable

yeah it's #firstworldproblems to have to choose between reliability and usefulness but it's still annoying lol

(the link itself is still pretty great i have to say)