Soldato
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Hold the middle button on the 360 pad for a second or 2 makes it turn on for me!
Steam Link and Steam Controller now available to Pre Order
- Thread starter Skeeter
- Start date
Hold the middle button on the 360 pad for a second or 2 makes it turn on for me!
I'll give that a go, cheers
Soldato
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Mines wired though but should be the same!
Seems to work great, thanks.
It's a shame that you can send a WOL request to a PC to wake it up, but then can't play as Steam wont stream if the screens locked
.
And it would be great if Steam detected you weren't using a mouse and hid the cursor, but I expect this is a game specific issue.
It's a shame that you can send a WOL request to a PC to wake it up, but then can't play as Steam wont stream if the screens locked
.And it would be great if Steam detected you weren't using a mouse and hid the cursor, but I expect this is a game specific issue.
Cheers... this thing pretty much has my dark winter evenings sorted!
Oh, I tried changing streaming settings to "beautiful" and it didn't seem so great. "Balanced" seems to work best.
Not sure why that is as I'm getting very good throughput on my homeplugs when I run an iperf test. Maybe it's my PC struggling to encode.
I've had trouble getting the image quality to look good enough, I'm not sure if it's an encoder issue on the PC, or if it's the TV making things look worse due to it upscaling from 1080p to 4K.
Basic games look fantastic, but the more graphics intensive ones look awful and I can't get it to sit at anywhere near 50-60fps despite the desktop being able to do that with no problems. For example, GTA V runs at a solid 60fps, but through the Link it would hover at about 40-50 and constantly be yo-yo'ing, plus the colours looked blocky and streaky.
Had the same problem with gta v, turning off vsync in game fixed it for me.Also every game should have it turned off, plus off in gfx card settings for best streaming results, the encoder adds its own vsync anyway.
Associate
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- 15 Dec 2009
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Got my Steam Link delivered on Friday- bought from Steam directly, not from GAME. Only got the Link, not the controller.
First impressions- I was amazed at how compact it was, I was expecting something along the size of a double DVD case or bigger, but was surprised to see it was about the size of a Galaxy S5! Brilliant- I can hide it on the TV unit and the missus doesn't even know its there!
The setup in my house is as follows:
Steam Link connected to Samsung UE46F6320 46" TV
Steam Link connected to Virgin Media Home Hub via 3m cat5 Ethernet cable
Virgin Media Home Hub connected to TP Link AV500 powerline adapter
TP Link AV500 powerline adapter connected to the PC via 2m cat5 Ethernet cable
1930's brick house, unsure of the age of the wiring.
Very easy to set up- plug and play essentially. Slight issue with initial setup as for some reason the language was set to Finish, so had to use Google Translate app to find the Language setting and change it to English.
Installed the latest updates and it saw the PC straight away and I was connected to my Library in minutes.
Only used it so far with the 360 controller, but will swap it out to the XBOne controller at some point.
I've got the connection set up on the 'beautiful' option and prioritise network traffic to the Link.
Turning the Steam Link on at the wall turns the TV on too which is handy and saves going through the AV list. And it appears to auto-off when you turn the TV off.
You can use either Steam Big Picture or have it mirror your desktop which I wasn't expecting, so you can use all your desktop programs as normal which is great.
The games I’ve played so far are:
GTAV - non-Steam version, and it played through a Steam shortcut no issue. All settings set to high and resolution set to 1080p and it plays at 60fps with the occasional tear. Looses some quality when driving but still playable. Need to play around with the settings on this one I think. (Just spotted the recommendation to turn off the vsync in the comments above, so will try this)
Carmageddon Reincarnation - with max settings plays great and with no lag
Borderlands The Pre-Sequel - with max settings plays great with the slightest hint of input lag
Grid 2 - picture freezes for 2-3 seconds at the start of a race but then plays great with the slightest hint of input lag
Grid Autosport - wouldn't load up and returned to library
Tales From the Borderlands - wouldn't load up and crashed the link, so had to turn off and back on
Fallout New Vegas – had to go to the PC to start it from the splash screen as it would not recognise the input from the controller – did give a warning that it was a mouse/keyboard game!
Couple of minor issues with it; the Wake Up LAN does turn on the PC, but you cant get past the Windows 10 logon through the Link so there is going to be a bit of running back and forth from your PC to your sofa. Also, I had to leave my PC screen on, turning it off mirrored a black screen on the link.
Overall, slightly disappointed that not every game is working, given that it was advertised that you would have access to your whole library but accept that this is early days and otherwise very happy with the Steam Link and pleased I bought this over the NZXT DOKO. Hopefully future updates should resolve compatibility with some of the games, or it may be worth going and reducing resolution for games on the PC down to 1080p and then see if this helps. 4/5 from me!
First impressions- I was amazed at how compact it was, I was expecting something along the size of a double DVD case or bigger, but was surprised to see it was about the size of a Galaxy S5! Brilliant- I can hide it on the TV unit and the missus doesn't even know its there!
The setup in my house is as follows:
Steam Link connected to Samsung UE46F6320 46" TV
Steam Link connected to Virgin Media Home Hub via 3m cat5 Ethernet cable
Virgin Media Home Hub connected to TP Link AV500 powerline adapter
TP Link AV500 powerline adapter connected to the PC via 2m cat5 Ethernet cable
1930's brick house, unsure of the age of the wiring.
Very easy to set up- plug and play essentially. Slight issue with initial setup as for some reason the language was set to Finish, so had to use Google Translate app to find the Language setting and change it to English.
Installed the latest updates and it saw the PC straight away and I was connected to my Library in minutes.
Only used it so far with the 360 controller, but will swap it out to the XBOne controller at some point.
I've got the connection set up on the 'beautiful' option and prioritise network traffic to the Link.
Turning the Steam Link on at the wall turns the TV on too which is handy and saves going through the AV list. And it appears to auto-off when you turn the TV off.
You can use either Steam Big Picture or have it mirror your desktop which I wasn't expecting, so you can use all your desktop programs as normal which is great.
The games I’ve played so far are:
GTAV - non-Steam version, and it played through a Steam shortcut no issue. All settings set to high and resolution set to 1080p and it plays at 60fps with the occasional tear. Looses some quality when driving but still playable. Need to play around with the settings on this one I think. (Just spotted the recommendation to turn off the vsync in the comments above, so will try this)
Carmageddon Reincarnation - with max settings plays great and with no lag
Borderlands The Pre-Sequel - with max settings plays great with the slightest hint of input lag
Grid 2 - picture freezes for 2-3 seconds at the start of a race but then plays great with the slightest hint of input lag
Grid Autosport - wouldn't load up and returned to library
Tales From the Borderlands - wouldn't load up and crashed the link, so had to turn off and back on
Fallout New Vegas – had to go to the PC to start it from the splash screen as it would not recognise the input from the controller – did give a warning that it was a mouse/keyboard game!
Couple of minor issues with it; the Wake Up LAN does turn on the PC, but you cant get past the Windows 10 logon through the Link so there is going to be a bit of running back and forth from your PC to your sofa. Also, I had to leave my PC screen on, turning it off mirrored a black screen on the link.
Overall, slightly disappointed that not every game is working, given that it was advertised that you would have access to your whole library but accept that this is early days and otherwise very happy with the Steam Link and pleased I bought this over the NZXT DOKO. Hopefully future updates should resolve compatibility with some of the games, or it may be worth going and reducing resolution for games on the PC down to 1080p and then see if this helps. 4/5 from me!
Turning my monitor off doesn't cause any issues? I'm using Big Picture though.
The Beautiful setting just seemed a bit laggy to me. Picture was really nice.
While Powerline works fine, I think I'm going to run a cable out of the bedroom and down the external wall and back in again. No way am I chasing out walls. I think it's worth the hassle of doing.
PC gaming on a 55" TV is just amazing.
For those using Powerline - have you enabled stats and checked out what the frame loss was like? I was getting 1.5% or so.
Soldato
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So was looking to be able to play some games with a controller on the sofa and this looks ideal. Would you guys say it's worth buying yet or should I wait?
I've been tinkering with gyro controls for racing games for the past few days, I've seen other people attempt it but so far I haven't seen a video of anyone actually get anywhere near wheel functionality.
If the gyro controls resemble joystick controls then this is just a gimmick with no real benefit, but if you remove the deadzone and get the sensitivity and dampening right then this is one application where I believe the Steam Controller easily outperforms a standard controller in every way.
If the gyro controls resemble joystick controls then this is just a gimmick with no real benefit, but if you remove the deadzone and get the sensitivity and dampening right then this is one application where I believe the Steam Controller easily outperforms a standard controller in every way.
Soldato
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Sounds like we have an almost identical set up except im in a new build home of which the wiring is just over a year old!
Getting similar results! Quick tip, in steam opt in for the steam client beta as they have added the ability to use the left stick as a mouse to launch games with there own launcher like fallout! Right trigger is left click if i remember! Very handy.
So what encoder are you guys getting when you view the stats? I have heard to enable shadow play to get nvidia encoder to work, but then seen others say to disable it to get the desktop one instead?
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Nvbfc aka shadowplay encoder massacres the others as far as I'm concerned ,as it encodes everything, dx 9, dx10, dx11, OpenGL and the desktop.
NVifr is good when it kicks in, but its rare apart from dx11 games, half the time you end up with just software encoding with this on, which is a shame as the quality is a little better when it works.
Soldato
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So i was correct to enable shadow play then! Nice! So do some games actually stream better that others for decoder related reasons?
Soldato
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So why are the encoders so random? Earlier it was just the desktop something or other while playing fo4, and now its changed to game async d3d11 +nvifr h264? Stream seems great but surely it should just stay on 1 encoder?
Soldato
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My understanding is with shadow play on and set to manual, you will get nvidias encoder. But it changes randomly from time to time so i dint really know either
Have you thought about doing that with a hdmi cable instead? I have done this, I have put the hdmi cable in a conduit. It has been outside for years now. Ideally you would run a usb extension cable as well and put a hub by your TV.Turning my monitor off doesn't cause any issues? I'm using Big Picture though.
The Beautiful setting just seemed a bit laggy to me. Picture was really nice.
While Powerline works fine, I think I'm going to run a cable out of the bedroom and down the external wall and back in again. No way am I chasing out walls. I think it's worth the hassle of doing.
PC gaming on a 55" TV is just amazing.
For those using Powerline - have you enabled stats and checked out what the frame loss was like? I was getting 1.5% or so.