Steam In-Home Streaming

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I tested two games tonight, Borderlands and The Walking Dead.. and Steam In-Home Streaming works. I was logged into my steam account on both machines at the same time. Once two systems are logged in at once, the Play and Install Game links change so there is a drop down for both options. You can select any game, click the drop down and choose to install or play / stream any game from either machine. So I picked Borderlands to try first and set it to stream from my new desktop. It loaded up fine but I had to change all the video settings because it has never been played on that PC before. I set everything to max graphics, something my laptop has not been able to do for this game, and started playing BL on my laptop in maxed settings. It worked flawlessly. I only played for a few minutes, but my laptop's fan didn't even kick on like it normally would for that game. It was definitely running off the other computer because I've tried these settings on my laptop before and it was unplayable do to how horribly laggy it became. But with the in-home streaming, it wasn't an issue at all. I seemed to have some issues with the Walking Dead. It lagged out on me once and a second time it kicked me from the game. But I think it was because the desktop was going into sleep mode. I'll have to test that again later.

 

I'm now very interested in getting a Steam Machine.. but not some powerful one, no.. I want the lowest end steam machine that comes with a controller. As long as I can stream from my main desktop, I'll have no problem playing every game on my steam account and I won't be limited to what can only run on Steam OS. I wonder if some company will make a HDMI dongle steam machine made strictly for streaming from another computer over wifi. I'd buy it.

[Myk JL 1,731]

I'll probably want the lowest end Steam Machine too. Unless its weaker than PS4 or Xbox One. Then it has to be a bit more powerful than those. Especially if it can actually safely dual boot.
 
Until 2015 though I'm going to have to figure out what I'll do with my spare time as my GWG & PS Plus Games don't grab my interest beyond buying them. I should probably read up on Linux programming, C++, Game Engine Design, etcetera.
 
Though part of me is scared Steam OS will be too different. Then I'll have wasted my money & time on things intended for different Linux OSs & Windows....
 
I haven't really checked but part of me assumes I won't be able to use my CRT monitor. Though I was relieved I didn't need a new flat screen HD monitor for this Windows 7 PC.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Steam os is Linux based so I'm assuming it's all Linux based programming. As long as the stream machine has the vga output that crt should still work. But I'm really wondering how much longer vga will be supported, seeing as there is hdmi, dvi and display port which are all superior.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I've been having router issues for the last week or so and I thought my router was dying. But it looks like steam in home streaming might be the culprit. Steam is completely ravaging my wifi signal even when there is no game actually streaming. As long as I am logged into steam on 2 pcs at the same time, the two clients connecting to each other uses all available bandwidth in my local network. I still have some more testing to confirm this, but if it is steam then I won't be trying in home streaming again unless both systems are plugged into the router or I'll have to get a more powerful router.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

 

Probably going to need one of those $200 routers.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Lol.

The newer "AC" routers are definitely superior to the N ones. If I got one of those and an AC usb dongle for each of the laptops, ps4, etc. Then I'd have no problem streaming my steam games while streaming Netflix on a couple other systems all at the same time.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Ok.. my router is crapping out. This may not be a steam in home streaming issue. I'll have to test steam streaming again once I get a new router later on. Turns out my Belkin router no longer connects on the 5ghz band and unless I set the 2.4 ghz band to G only, all devices connected on 802.11n will lose their connection once I my PC connects via a wired connection to the router.. wtf.. So I set the PC to be wireless also and the connections still crap out for N.. This router is on it's way to the scrap yard.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Ok, this should be my final update on Steam In-Home Streaming. Long story short, it works great. Now that I figured out my router issues... I had to disable Wireless N and the 5ghtz band, which means my network is wireless G only and I'm maxing out at 54 mbps on my laptop. My PC is directly connected to the router and I'm streaming from it to my Laptop via wireless. I turned hardware encoding and decoding on both machines, set the laptop to balanced and set the PC host options to "Prioritize network". I can now stream any of my steam games directly to my laptop. I played Darksiders on my laptop via streaming and it played great. I was even using my xbox 360 controller with no problem. The game wasn't showing any noticeable lag to me, but I'm sure if I played directly on my PC I'd see the performance difference. I also tested Alan Wake and The Walking Dead. With both of those games, I noticed that anti-aliasing does not work that good for Steam's in-home streaming and would often cause graphical issues. It looks like I can run both games at max graphics settings, but I have to turn anti-aliasing completely down or off. Also Alan Wake seemed to give me some slow network settings.. But that might have been my wireless signal dropping because other people were on their laptops / phones on the same wifi. But turning the game's resolution down to 720p fixed it.

 

If I got a better router with a more powerful wireless signal and transfer rate, then Steam In-Home Streaming would work even better at higher resolutions. Either that, or have the host and client machines hooked up directly to a router. Overall I'm quite pleased with Steam In-Home Streaming.