Steam Link and Steam Controller now available to Pre Order

corkhead · 13 Oct 2015 at 20:27

Controller and link are supposed to arrive on the 16th for me. I preordered ages ago I can't actually remember when haha!

nitram100 · 13 Oct 2015 at 20:49

Definitely picking one of these up just want to read a review from someone on here first

Radec · 13 Oct 2015 at 21:43

Have been wanting a controller. Might as well wait for the review of this I guess before choosing one.

Seanspeed · 15 Oct 2015 at 21:33

Radec said:
Have been wanting a controller. Might as well wait for the review of this I guess before choosing one.

Lots of reviews out there now. Here's a place with a rundown of most of them:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1125051

Seems like it's exactly what I expected. Will have its uses, but definitely wont be replacing your kb/m or even traditional controller anytime soon.

Also gotta laugh at the people in the thread linked above going into full damage control mode because it's not being universally hailed and praised as the best controller ever. All of this should have been obvious from the get-go, but some people really thought it was going to be the end all of controllers and they're clearly not handling that it isn't very well.

Anyways, I still think I'm gonna get one. As most reviewers are saying, it will have its uses.

stooeh · 16 Oct 2015 at 08:33

Well I pre ordered one and it is out for delivery today apparently :eek:

I hope I have the patience to properly learn to use the thing...

darkgen · 16 Oct 2015 at 09:48

Well they've arrived....

randal · 16 Oct 2015 at 10:04

Look forward to hearing your thoughts darkgen.

I'm especially interested at seeing how these perform when plugging into an AV receiver, with a cabled network connection.

darkgen · 16 Oct 2015 at 10:12

I WfH but I'll leave it till this evening to fiddle. However right out of the box the controller does feel "plasticy" as conveyed in previews. The link certainly feels sturdy and is pretty low key which was exactly what I wanted as my plan was to stick it behind a wall mounted TV. The big downer is the somewhat clunky interchangeable plug which means that certainly will not fit with the available sockets without modding.

randal · 16 Oct 2015 at 10:28

Interesting, I think I'd have similar issues to your with power if I put one of these on the bedroom TV as that sits flush to the wall.

The more I read about the Steam Controller the more I think an XBone pad + wireless module might be the way to go (if compatible).

silversurfer · 16 Oct 2015 at 11:15

Is the steam OS biased to Nvidia, I heard its this way from drivers. Interested to hear how people go with the various setups possible anyhow

darkgen · 16 Oct 2015 at 11:48

randal said:
Interesting, I think I'd have similar issues to your with power if I put one of these on the bedroom TV as that sits flush to the wall.

It's a real shame they couldn't conjure a power draw low enough to be entirely USB powered but that's likely asking way too much considering it is decoding on the fly (apparently).

Garfo · 16 Oct 2015 at 12:26

very tempting to get that pad

Garfo · 16 Oct 2015 at 12:35

is it only game and steam that sell the pad?

phazari180 · 16 Oct 2015 at 13:28

My Steam Linik arrived today, looking forward to giving it a go after work.

stooeh · 16 Oct 2015 at 13:39

Well mine arrived (controller) and I've had a go. Interesting

Will take some getting used to. Reminds me of 1996 - trying to play Quake with a mouse for the first time.
Strangely portal 2 seemed pretty naff with it despite having native support. Worked really well in XCOM (used someone else's profile) but that game works pretty well with an XBOX pad anyway.

Need more time with it but optimistic atm.

VincentHanna · 16 Oct 2015 at 14:08

Does it work with non-steam games? e.g Battlefield 4?

stooeh · 16 Oct 2015 at 14:28

If you can launch them from steam then yeah (need big picture mode afaik) I tried with Crysis 3 from origin and that worked

Atari · 16 Oct 2015 at 14:30

I've just read that you need an Ivy Bridge or later Intel CPU to enable hardware encoding - I'm still on Sandy Bridge with a GTX 970. I'm not sure how well the Steam Link is gonna work for me now.

The support page mentions some streaking with Nvidia hardware encoding which looks to be my only option.

Edit: Ignore me, I think that might be a typo on the Steam support page, the Intel Quick Sync technology they refer to is valid in my Sandy Bridge i5-2500k.

Garfo · 16 Oct 2015 at 14:56

Are eBay links allowed here ?

Seanspeed · 16 Oct 2015 at 15:23

stooeh said:
If you can launch them from steam then yeah (need big picture mode afaik) I tried with Crysis 3 from origin and that worked

I thought you only need BPM to configure the controller? Do you really have to launch a game in BPM just to use any custom configurations? That'd be kinda crappy.

The controller should be detected as a kb/m by basically any other application, by the way. So it'll technically 'work', but wont be configurable and probably not terribly useful for the most part.