Last week we posted a video that looked over the new Valve Steam Controller and I offered some feedback and input on the new hardware. It was interesting, to say the least, and took some getting used to, but in the end I was surprised by how easy some things were, and how different other things felt. It's an interesting experiment for $50 or so, but it definitely is not a product I recommend all of our readers invest in immediately.
But what about the Steam Link device? This second piece of the puzzle is a small unit that sits near your TV or entertainment system, with an HDMI output, USB inputs, integrated wireless connectivity and Ethernet support. The goal is to stream Steam games from your primary PC without the need for a second computer. Instead, much like the NVIDIA GameStream technology that we have seen for a couple years now, the Steam Link receives a video stream from the gaming PC, accepts input from a controller or keyboard/mouse, and loops it all back.
Specifications (from Valve website):
- 1080p resolution at 60 FPS
- Wired 100 Mbit/s Fast Ethernet and Wireless 802.11ac 2×2 (MIMO) networking abilities
- 3 USB 2.0 ports
- Bluetooth 4.0
- HDMI out
- Supports Steam Controller (sold separately,) Xbox One or 360 Wired Controller, Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows, Logitech Wireless Gamepad F710, or keyboard and mouse
In the Box
- Steam Link
- Power cable and adapter
- HDMI 2.0 cable
- Ethernet cable
To get my full take on it, and to see me test out a handful of games using the Steam Link in our office, check out the video above. The short answer is that game streaming technology is still hit or miss: some titles work great others are an immediate turn off. Want to play a fast paced FPS game? You're going to hate it if you have any kind of PC gaming experience already. Maybe you need to catch up on those recent indie games released on the PC but want to sit on your couch? Steam Link will do the trick.
Again, the device is only $50, so it's not a significant investment for most people, and it might be worth trying if you have some time and are interested in checking out the technology out for yourself.
Can you measure the
Can you measure the latency?
Is it better or worse than other streaming solutions?
And what about graphics quality?
You can monitor latency.
Much
You can monitor latency.
Much better.
This subjective, but I think it looks really good (for a stream)
Totally worth $50. A note: wifi sucks at my house and I got unplayable stuttering as a result. Went and spent $30 on a couple ethernet over power adapters and now it’s flawless. YMMV.
Can you get to the latency
Can you get to the latency info/graph that you can see when streaming to a standard PC on steam link?
On my PC it says like 2ms input latency, and i dont feel any lag (over wifi).
I enable that info in
I enable that info in Settings – Home Streaming – Advanced Client Settings – Show Performance
Maybe this option isnt avalible on steam link.
Sry Englis isn´t my first language.
Were did they find 100mbit
Were did they find 100mbit Ethernet ports did they dig em up in a landfill? Why not toss a proper gbit nic inside. Atm shield pro is still better for streaming my steam games alots it’s about $300 more.
I’d be curious to know how
I’d be curious to know how the latency compares on Nvidia gpu vs AMD gpu. Maybe Nvidia’s built in hardware encoder is much more efficient because it’s designed specifically for their own game streaming solution?
AMD GCN cards have a built in
AMD GCN cards have a built in H.264 encoders on them. Just anything prior to GCN 1.2 doesn’t support 4k (IIRC)
Yes, I’m fully aware of that.
Yes, I’m fully aware of that. However AMD does not offer game streaming solution and it’s likely that they designed their encoder around video editing or general media streaming cases where a bit of additional latency does not hurt user experience.
I wondering about that
I wondering about that myself. It isn’t clear that these solutions are optimized for latency yet. It would be good if we can get some actual measurements somehow and get numbers for AMD and Nvidia cards. We could also use some numbers for connecting the controller directly to the PC. I wouldn’t think that this would make much of a difference, but since it is wireless, a lot of people may be able to do it.
I don’t know how far away
I don’t know how far away your host is from the client. I have been connecting my controller directly to my PC (wirelessly) in the other room. Then streaming to my HTPC via ethernet.
So it goes
TV
HTPC——ethernet—–PC
______________________/
Controller/
The difference between connecting the controller to the host and the client is night and day. I can’t feel the latency when the controller is connected to the PC. It is pretty obvious when its connected to the HTPC.
I’m not sure how much delay the controller streaming adds, I’ve not tested it. But it takes it over the limit of what I’m sensitive to.
Is that correct? It doesn’t
Is that correct? It doesn’t have gigabit Ethernet? Wow…
It would be nice to know what
It would be nice to know what is the input lag of your TV.
This is good point. Ryan when
This is good point. Ryan when u played without the steam link, was it hooked up to the same TV set? Was the TV set to gaming mode?
Input lag of that perticular model?
Did you put the TV into game
Did you put the TV into game mode to remove and lag due to HDMI processing?
Was the firmware update?
also
Was the firmware update?
also valve said that there would be another update when it is “officially” released.
What settings are you using? perf? balanced? pretty?
Is the PC you are steaming from set for hardware encoding?
also, the nic interface is 100
How well does it work for
How well does it work for non-steam games? (officially or unofficially)
Could your capture device be
Could your capture device be adding latency? I ask because our experience has been completely different than yours.
A good thought, but no, we
A good thought, but no, we split before the capture device.
My network consists of my
My network consists of my Link hardwired to router/modem and my pc is connected to my network on 2.4(wireless N).
Trying to stream at 1080 does have some occasional stuttering, and turning down the stream to 720(or even 768) does away with it almost completely(in my case). Games still look really good.
Input lag? I have a wired xbox 360 controller connected to the Link, I don’t notice any input lag, but then again I haven’t played any multiplayer games other than bf4(which is unplayable through Link). I’ve played Borderlands 1&2, Lost Planet 3, Resident Evil 2, Styx: master of shadows, Skyrim and some side scrollers adn they all work great.
Honestly, I can’t see playing multiplayer games with this, way too used to the accuracy and precision a kb&m is for MP type games. Gamig on the couch to me currently means playing a game without competitive edge baked in, which is what the majority of my steam library is.
edit: and before anyone rants about my wireless connection, I know about wireless AC, it’s just a matter of budget which means I can’t get it right now.
This should have included
This should have included gigabit and 4k support (hdmi 2.0)
I suspect that a future
I suspect that a future generation will have those, but as a first gen device that does game stream well for $50, 1080 is just fine.
How many people have a 4K tv
How many people have a 4K tv right now? The installed base isn’t that large yet, an supporting 4K would have increased the cost of the device significantly. Also, even with gigabit ethernet, would you be able to run 4K at. Low latency? This isn’t just the network, but also the encode and decode. Can current systems encode 4K at 60 fps with low enough latency? You definately need hardware support, but even with hardware support, I don’t know if it would be able to do it. Nvidia seems to have targeted streaming with their encoders to support their own streaming products. The hardware required goes up significantly as you try to decrease the latency though. You would need to throw a lot of hardware at the problem to do 4K since it is 4x the number of pixels compared to 1080p.
The point is… I’m not
The point is… I’m not interested in finding a reason to spend more than the $50 just to have 4k support and hdmi 2.0 when it can easily be accomplished now.
Your in luck then; this
Your in luck then; this product is not more than $50. The point is, 4K is probably not doable for less than $50 right now. You are probably underestimating what this would require. If you don’t want to pay $50 for this streaming device, then don’t buy it. There is almost no market for a 4K device since this would require a computer capable of playing the game at 4K, a 4K television, a video card capable of encoding 4K at 60 fps (exist?), and a customer who has all of this hardware and wants to play a 4K steam game on their television. Bottom line, 4K support would probably add significantly to the cost and there would probably not be many customers who could use it even if it works.
To this and the other reply
To this and the other reply below me,
You can successfully stream 4k at 60 frames per second with Steam, it has been done before. Releasing this one without 4k support is almost like releasing the most recent Chromecast without 4k support. I would pay just a little more if it means not having to replace it within 6 months to a year from now, because we can be sure that 4k will be significantly more prevalent by then. But we can disagree.
I don’t know what you mean.
I don’t know what you mean. I assume you are not interested in buying it at $50. I believe the Nvidia shield android tv is supposed to support 4k@60 Hz, but it is $200. I am not sure you can game stream to it at the full 4k60 though. I guess it can be “easily accomplished now”, but it probably can’t be for $50. If you give it a couple years it might be $50, but by then people will probably be complaining that i doesn’t support 8k or something.
Can you please compare it to
Can you please compare it to Nvidia gamestream with shield console??
Also the controller being hooked up to the pc, does that make a difference?
My PC and TV are not that far away, same room but I don’t want to run an HDMI from pc to TV because of cable routing and length problems etc. I could connect the steam controller to my pc, does this make a difference rather than the steam controller being hooked up to the steam link.
The 100 Mbit link should be
The 100 Mbit link should be sufficient for streaming 1080p. It doesn’t seem like gigabit would have been that much more expensive though. It may effect the latency since the controller input is going across the same connection. Someone already suggested connecting the controller directly to the PC; if you have the range, then that may be a good solution. I would be interested to know the actual latency breakdown if there is some way you can measure it. If wifi is an issue, then perhaps it would be best to build the router into the streaming device such that it can have a direct, single hop, connection to the PC.
In my opinion, they should be able to get the latency down low enough that it isn’t noticable for connections inside your house. Streaming across the internet is different though. Perhaps the hardwareneeds a bit more work before it is capable of streaming at really low latency locally. I don’t really like that this is a streaming device for a specific bit of software only. I think it would be much better to have a solution that would allow you to stream anything you want. Nvidia has some advantages in that they have control over the hardware at both ends. A lot of work needs to be done to reduce latency, since this will be required for VR. There is probably a lot that can be done to reduce the hardware video encode/decode latency, if that is the issue. It may require more hardware, but for 1080p, most gamers have hardware to spare. If you are talking about a local gigabit connection though, you don’t actually have to compress the video that much at 1080p60. It seems like the streaming solution should come from the hardware side, rather than from the software vendors. It shouldn’t be hard to provide a general streaming solution which passes video through in addition to USB for input devices and maybe sound.
Have you checked the Steam
Have you checked the Steam streaming_log file to see what is causing the latency?
I do not have a Steam Link but recently built a Steam machine for the living room and stream to it often. I have Nvidia hardware encoding (970’s SLI) on the host and decoding (960) on the client and receive less than one frame (usually between 13-20ms) of added latency from the stream.
I know other people have had trouble with AMD’s VCE hardware encoding. I wonder if that is the culprit?
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Iv tried the beta gfe tool
Iv tried the beta gfe tool from nvidia on my 240Hz 4k TV they still don’t support 4 streaming maybe they meant twitch streaming because there sheild Pro doesn’t offer receiving streams above 1080P 60 fps. Could be 980Ti oced to 1550mhz and 8000mhz mem isn’t strong enough.
I believe the video
I believe the video encode/decode engine is independent of the rest of the GPU. Correct me if I am wrong, but I didn’t think that it uses the streaming processor array for encoding the video. Nvidia’s advertising seems to indicate that is supports 4K game streaming:
“Enjoy the convenience of playing PC gaming on your TV with your SHIELD. Connect your SHIELD TV to a 4K TV and enjoy 4K, 60fps gaming with 5.1 surround sound through our GeForce Experience Beta.”
Do you need to have the beta software on both your PC and on the shield tv?
It is in Nvidia’s best interest to support 4K since this will drive people to get higher performance video cards. Valve isn’t in the video card business, so they want to produce a mass market device at a reasonable price for the installed base. The number of people who have all of the necessary hardware and want to stream 4K to their TV is tiny. Most people will want to stream 1080p; the steam link device at $50 is probably a good option.