Stream games from office to living room

agnes · 17 Nov 2021 at 17:52

I've got a big beefy gaming PC and the cost of building a separate living room PC just isn't on the cards at the moment (new house). I used to be able to run a long HDMI cable in the apartment I used to live in from the office to the living room which were next to each other and the wireless xbox controller still had decent connection.

However, in the new house, my office is now on the 2nd floor and considerably further away from the living room TV.

Are there any devices that allow me to 'cast' my PC to my TV without input lag and also accept the Xbox wireless dongle so it also can connect? Thankfully every room in the house has at least 2 ethernet ports and it's all running through a 24 port 10gig switch, so if said device can connect to ethernet to reduce input lag, even better.

Thanks!

smogsy · 17 Nov 2021 at 17:59

Steam has casting feature with Steam cast? https://store.steampowered.com/streaming/
Nvidia geforce streaming (requires geforce experience)
https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/shield/support/shield-tv-pro/gamestream/

those are the ones that come to mind

NVIDIA works with controllers fine as does steam

SkeeterUK · 17 Nov 2021 at 18:09

I used a android box once to stream gta 5 to living room tv using a app for android that could connect to steam or pc, i think steam. Was ok and could use 360 pad ok i think in the android boxes usb port iirc. Think the res was 720p tho but tbh it looked ok when playing on 50in tv.

Not sure but maybe parsec can do it too?

Totally dunno about this either but if u can get discord on ur tv through a app, u could maybe stream ur screen on ur pc, and use discord on the tv to watch the streamed screen but i have no idea about input lag if it would even work. Or at the quality of the stream.

You can also try
Wireless HDMI Transmitter and Receiver kinda things?

tres · 18 Nov 2021 at 00:26

Steam link?

agnes · 18 Nov 2021 at 19:56

tres said:
Steam link?

I totally forgot I have one... It also supports 4k at 60fps over LAN. Just ordered a CAT5 cable and will give it a shot over the weekend.

Haggisman · 18 Nov 2021 at 20:06

Steam link is limited to 1080p

Nvidia shield is a nice upgrade if you want 4k

meths · 18 Nov 2021 at 20:22

I used Steam Link from my PC to the app on an Nvidia Shield Pro over powerline adaptors. Didn't work very well and I gave up eventually.

It was telling me I was getting 130Mbps over the connection with a low ping but everything was choppy and framerates were inconsistent.

Someone else recommended Parsec but I've not tried it. Ended up getting GeForce Now in the end which has turned out better than I expected.

Edit: I still need to try setting it up as a Gamestream connection in the Nvidia games app. Might work better than Steam Link.

agnes · 18 Nov 2021 at 20:32

Haggisman said:
Steam link is limited to 1080p

Nvidia shield is a nice upgrade if you want 4k

https://store.steampowered.com/app/353380/Steam_Link/

You can tune streaming resolution and bitrate for the best experience on your setup with Advanced Settings. Over a 5 GHz network, our target is a resolution of 1080p at 60 frames per second, with good quality for most scenes. If you have a powerful gaming rig, a wired network, and a capable client device, it's possible to stream 4K at 60 FPS.

meths said:
I used Steam Link from my PC to the app on an Nvidia Shield Pro over powerline adaptors. Didn't work very well and I gave up eventually.

It was telling me I was getting 130Mbps over the connection with a low ping but everything was choppy and framerates were inconsistent.

Someone else recommended Parsec but I've not tried it. Ended up getting GeForce Now in the end which has turned out better than I expected.

Edit: I still need to try setting it up as a Gamestream connection in the Nvidia games app. Might work better than Steam Link.

I looked into Nvidia Shield, it looked to be focused on streaming games online? Similar to that google thingy?

Haggisman · 18 Nov 2021 at 20:41

That's referring to the app, the physical steam link is limited to 1080p/60fps.

The Nvidia shield is an Android TV box which is focused towards gaming, so it has all the usual android TV stuff, but also the Nvidia Gamestream software (which is basically the Nvidia equivalent of the Steam Link app) and GeForce Now (which is the online streaming service you're thinking of). However if you have an AMD card, you can also install the Steam Link app on it and stream to that.

To be fair you can install the app on most android devices, but I've read about performance issues with lower powered ones

meths · 18 Nov 2021 at 20:47

agnes said:
I looked into Nvidia Shield, it looked to be focused on streaming games online? Similar to that google thingy?

What @Haggisman says is correct. Everything you do on the Shield will be through a connection to your PC except GeForce Now. That's similar to the google thingy.

Anyway, that's the kids in bed. I'm off to set up Gamestream and see if it's any good on my setup.

meths · 18 Nov 2021 at 23:57

Gamestream seems to be the answer by the way. Much better than the Steamlink app.

J.D · 18 Nov 2021 at 23:59

meths said:
Gamestream seems to be the answer by the way. Much better than the Steamlink app.

Nice of you to take time to help. Kudos.

agnes · 19 Nov 2021 at 09:29

Nvidia Shield TV Pro being delivered today, will have it connected via LAN going through my switch. Excited to see if it's any good! I read I need to do some trickery to use my Xbox One controller with rumble, else it doesn't output rumble which is weird

Haggisman · 19 Nov 2021 at 09:56

meths said:
Gamestream seems to be the answer by the way. Much better than the Steamlink app.

Yeah it is, better performance, and also supports HDR, which the Steam Link app unfortunately doesn't

Unfortunately that requires an Nvidia GPU

agnes said:
Nvidia Shield TV Pro being delivered today, will have it connected via LAN going through my switch. Excited to see if it's any good! I read I need to do some trickery to use my Xbox One controller with rumble, else it doesn't output rumble which is weird

Nice!

Not sure about the Xbox controller, but I had no issues setting up my PS3 & PS5 controllers with it

agnes · 19 Nov 2021 at 16:53

Haggisman said:
Yeah it is, better performance, and also supports HDR, which the Steam Link app unfortunately doesn't

Unfortunately that requires an Nvidia GPU

Nice!

Not sure about the Xbox controller, but I had no issues setting up my PS3 & PS5 controllers with it

After reading up, the only issue is it doesn't support rumble. So I'll have to setup something called VirtualHere. Basically a virtual USB hub, apparently it also improves controller latency and supports rumble. Still waiting on delivery, supposed to be here before 2100

purplesky · 19 Nov 2021 at 22:40

For a laugh, I built a DVB-T2 modulator which even without any RF amplification could transmit from the bedroom to the downstairs TV that was fed by the outdoor TV antenna. Latency would have been terrible for gaming though.

agnes · 19 Nov 2021 at 23:40

Welp, after spending several hours on what can only be described as a homebrew Pi running android with a decent chip... It's going back to the shop. Beyond buggy, not once was I able to play a game, myriad of issues.

I'm sure with a simple setup this could work, but it just felt like a very cheap device when it comes to software and caused several headaches with not a second in game. I'm just gonna use my 9900k, Z390 and 32GB ram and build a small gaming PC in the living room when I upgrade to Alderlake. At least I'll enjoy setting that up lol. Utter waste of 200 EUR.

smogsy · 20 Nov 2021 at 21:39

agnes said:
Welp, after spending several hours on what can only be described as a homebrew Pi running android with a decent chip... It's going back to the shop. Beyond buggy, not once was I able to play a game, myriad of issues.

I'm sure with a simple setup this could work, but it just felt like a very cheap device when it comes to software and caused several headaches with not a second in game. I'm just gonna use my 9900k, Z390 and 32GB ram and build a small gaming PC in the living room when I upgrade to Alderlake. At least I'll enjoy setting that up lol. Utter waste of 200 EUR.

the sheild you talking about?

i got 5 one in each room and they are legendary in hardware & software?

agnes · 21 Nov 2021 at 00:02

smogsy said:
the sheild you talking about?

i got 5 one in each room and they are legendary in hardware & software?

Aye, spent 5 hours trying to get it to work. Utter nightmare.

smogsy · 21 Nov 2021 at 08:13

agnes said:
Aye, spent 5 hours trying to get it to work. Utter nightmare.

so the shield is 3 buttons to get working, or do you mean just game stream?

like i say i got 5 sheild one in each room for great 4K hdr & multitasking on netflix/disney etc