[bbrks]

If you already have Ethernet at both ends I cannot recommend enough game streaming. With the right setup it is almost identical to having my computer plugged in physically, and I am very sensitive to input latency.

I can get 4K HDR 120Hz running over gigabit Ethernet without visually sacrificing too much on bitrate, but you can squeeze more bitrate at lower fps or 1440p (obviously) if that is your preference. You can also tune these settings per-game with the setup I have which is quite useful.

Hardware wise, I'm using a Steam Deck as the streaming client in a docked setup (ala Nintendo Switch). It seems to handle everything I can throw at it, and it has the bonus of being able to run simpler games without streaming anything.

I have a third-party (UGREEN) dock providing power, USB and gigabit Ethernet, display (though unfortunately no HDMI-CEC to turn the TV on automatically (I worked around this using a janky automation script)). The official dock has HDMI-CEC but costs ~2x as much with less IO. I'll deal with my jank script.

For software, I'm running MoonDeck for game streaming via Sunshine on my gaming PC. The Steam Remote Play streaming is good, but not quite _as_ good, sadly.

[shepherdjerred]

I have a gaming PC and a steam deck. My goal was to use my steam deck as a steam link (their old streaming hardware) w/ a Xbox controller

Both are connected via Ethernet and actually the video quality was very very good, and input lag was completely fine.

Unfortunately there were so many issues. I want a console like experience where I can just decide that i want to pick up a controller and play.

With this setup I have to unlock windows which is annoying. Also often times something gets stuck so I have to walk to the desktop to fix/click around, or it plays audio via PC, or I have to disable HDR, etc.

[cwel]

The issue in your setup is Windows^tm. (what I do) gaming machine's shell profile,

  if [[ $(tty) == "/dev/tty2" ]]; then
  <insert your steamOS session invocation/args here>; sudo chvt 1; exit
  fi

then all you need is some event(s) to trigger changing to tty2 on the target machine. perhaps when a controller connects, or your tv changes input, or you press a button on your tv/tv box remote.

[vips7L]

I don’t think having to write bash is a console like experience.

[cwel]

Never claimed it was. This is (essentially) a shortcut to a dedicated steamOS session. You could just plug the machine into a display, connect a controller, and open the steam 10ft ui.

[awakeasleep]

Along with the complexity you mention, a real dealbreaker for me is controller support for couch co-op/multiplayer.

It's the biggest difference and flaw between steam devices and traditional consoles. Even hugely popular multiplayer titles like Overcooked either don't work, or require hours of research and configuration.

[jrm4]

This is such a baffling claim? I've had very close to zero issues with couch gaming with my steam deck + wireless xbox controllers. They overwhelmingly just work. Including Overcooked?

[darth_aardvark]

Xbox controller support on the Steam Deck has worked seamlessly for me with 0 extra setup, I'm not sure what you're talking about?

Streaming has been ok, but I've had the same issues as the parent commenter, with the stream dying for whatever reason every hour or so.

[distances]

What do you mean? I have 4 DualSense controllers connected to my Steam Deck for couch co-op, and Overcooked works just fine with them?

[akimbostrawman]

>require hours of research and configuration

more like couple seconds on protondb https://www.protondb.com/app/448510

[qwerpy]

I tried using the official steam client on my TV (running some google/android TV OS) which was hard-wired in (100 Mbps) which should be sufficient for 1080p/60 if not 4K/60 but there is some android TV bug that adds an unacceptable audio lag. Video quality was fine. (https://steamcommunity.com/app/353380/discussions/0/62441675...)

Seems like a waste to use a steam deck for this when the TV hardware seems more than powerful enough but if it works it works, and my steam deck is gathering dust anyway. Thanks for the idea.

[staindk]

My TV was cheap so I didn't expect much. Steam link really struggles on it - thankfully I still have the old Steam Link hardware and it works alright. Locked to 1080p though.

Refused to spend more on a TV because I feel you don't get much more processing power for an increase in price. All smart TVs I've interacted with in the last 5 years have been much slower than I would consider acceptable.

[mrandish]

> Refused to spend more on a TV...

While one can always try to see if their "Smart TV" can actually run a streaming client app like Moonlight with adequate performance, it's so hit-and-miss I just assume I'll have to plug in a ~$50 Android TV streaming stick via an HDMI input. I've used the 'Google Chromecast with Google TV' and 'Amazon Fire TV Stick 4k 2nd gen' and was able to sideload the open source Moonlight client app to stream 4K HDR10+ / 60fps from my server PC at 80 to 100Mbps.

It's not necessarily the CPU power, it's just that most of these TVs have wildly varying throughput from crufty driver stacks. The manufacturers don't seem to test them beyond the ability to receive ~25Mbps streams in the usual streaming apps. As long as it does that, they don't care to make it work to the rated speeds the hardware should be capable of. So maybe it has higher throughput, maybe it doesn't. And there's no guarantee what the throughput will be after the next firmware update. Since I want to do game streaming and also have UHD rips that can go up to ~100Mbps, I now just always use 'Smart TV's in dumb mode and run content from an external device.

[flutas]

Also really depends on what codecs are done in software vs hardware on the device.

Speaking from working on the Android/Fire TV devices, they all have at most one hardware decoder, which really limits what the streaming companies can do. My team recently launched a multiview feature on A/FTV and we had to do so much hand holding and device detection work (4K decoder) to try and make the experience good and hide it from others...

Meanwhile the mobile teams, roku, iOS / tvOS / vision pro teams can full send with 4 players because the devices all have multiple hardware decoders... for some reason Android TV devices are along in this category.

[mrandish]

> a multiview feature...

I'm actually surprised you're able to support true multiview across diverse hardware platforms at all - so congrats! Consumer streaming sticks, dongles, boxes and smart TVs are a fragmented hellscape between divergent hardware, firmware, OSes, codecs, DRM and apps. Pretty much anything more demanding than baseline '1 stream in 1 app' will have lurking issues on at least one platform with a >1M unit installed base.

The android streaming device market pretty much died when it became a race to zero margin. Arguably, the best Android-based streaming device money can buy is still the NVidia Shield, which is a 10 year old hardware design.

[flutas]

> I'm actually surprised you're able to support true multiview across diverse hardware platforms at all - so congrats!

We had to define a ton of different variables to try to categorize the system, and from that we track playback events (buffering, errors, etc) and if a device family as a whole shows too many issues we kill switch the feature for that device. This is on top of device side watchdogs that kill the feature for a user specifically if we fail to have a baseline playback performance with the software decoder. It's a very hands on feature, but I'm proud of the work our team did!

> Arguably, the best Android-based streaming device money can buy is still the NVidia Shield, which is a 10 year old hardware design.

Absolutely. As an example other devices had good playback at only 360p, but couldn't hit 540p. Shield can reliably hit x2 720p streams.

It's still my daily driver for personal browsing and the device I primarily develop on (also the only 64 bit kernel ATV device currently iirc). The Walmart Onn Pro 4K boxes are the runner up in my experience, they're pretty good.

[reddalo]

I'm still mad that Steam stopped producing the hardware Steam Link.

The app replacement is garbage (and not because of the app itself, but because of Android and the fact that most TV have garbage hardware).

I wish Steam would release a new 4k Steam Link, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

[tacticalturtle]

You can run steam link on a Raspberry Pi.

Or like the other commenter said, Apple TV is what I use.

[drak0n1c]

Apple TV is affordable and has a Steam Link app that works pretty well.

[foldr]

I got a second hand M1 Mac Mini for this purpose. Costs about $200 and it can easily handle 4K streaming.

[anon7000]

My TV was expensive and it still only has a 100Mbps adapter

[c-hendricks]

Steam Remote Play sadly breaks down if anything involving Admin comes up. Task manager, admin prompt, etc.

Sunshine / moonlight can work but you need to run them as admin.

Sunshine / moonshine also have problems with the full DualSense features, you need to be wired, have VirtualHere set up, and even then it might not all work with all clients.

So yes both can work, but both have downsides that can be alleviated with an HDMI cable.

[jauntywundrkind]

DualSense just got wireless rumble support Linux. I think that was the last missing feature!

Audio jack support has been in since 6.18 last November. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Sony-DualSense-Audio-Handling

Come to the penguin side: we have the best drivers.

[staticman2]

Dualsense's main advantage is the built in trackpad and gyroscope but if you want to play wirelessly you are probably better off switching to the Steam Controller at this point which also has a trackpad and gyroscope. Or if using Windows standard Xbox controller if you don't need a trackpad or gyroscope, as Xbox controllers have first class support.

[c-hendricks]

Not really looking to spend another $150 while losing a headphone jack, adaptive triggers, and microphone tho.

My point is, streaming introduces compromises, while I chose PC gaming to avoid a lot of compromises.

[Dylan16807]

If you particularly want a steam controller go for it, but otherwise that sounds worse and more expensive than the long cable option.

[Lammy]

I just disable UAC. Yada yada bad practice yeah I know. I'm sick of constant slight annoyance due to hypothetical threat. If I get pwned I get pwned; hasn't happened yet lol

[dTal]

that you know of

[Lammy]

”If a tree falls in a forest”, U=U, etc. This is just FUD otherwise.

[eunice]

re: wired dualsense features, try https://github.com/awalol/DS5Dongle

[0x457]

> If you already have Ethernet at both ends I cannot recommend enough game streaming. With the right setup it is almost identical to having my computer plugged in physically, and I am very sensitive to input latency.

There still some issues. If your beefy machine has monitor of a different resolution it gets a bit wacky. In the past I had to plug fake HDMI-EDID thing because my main PC is ultra-wide and what will get streamed is a coin toss: sometimes it's ultra-wide made to fit in destination screen, sometimes It's something else.

If game you're trying to stream has a launcher: again, coin toss - might display launcher that is PITA to use from controller or not at all. I recall having to walk to another room to do the launcher steps on the main PC to play on steam deck.

Meanwhile, PS Portal is flawless when connected to 5GHz network.

[BrokenCogs]

Look into Apollo, which is a fork of Sunshine. This works flawlessly for monitors plugged into the host, and clients using a different resolution

[0x457]

I will try, but I already can tell lack of HDR is going to make me sad.

[staticman2]

> can get 4K HDR 120Hz running over gigabit Ethernet without visually sacrificing too much on bitrate,

While I agree game streaming can work well, in practice on a modern game the frame rate will vary if you try to get 4k hdr 120k and I don't believe a game stream can use variable refresh rate. In practice what do you do if playing a modern AAA game? Do you set the frame rate to a locked 60?

I used to do game streaming but ended up buying a 50 foot HDMI cable and USB and ethernet to link two rooms. One advantage of this is I don't need to worry about what frame rate to set the stream at and my Xbox adapter (or any adapter really) can be used natively on USB without worrying about controller compatibility over Ethernet.

[bbrks]

Yeah, in practice for a demanding game (RDR2 is a good example for me) I do lock at 60.

There are many many types of games (platformers) that can achieve and are preferable to play locked at 120 though.

[namibj]

The video codec does not care about VRR, it happily does it. If the receiving display can do VRR, it'll just work.

[jrm4]

So, I just discovered MoCa Coax in the house, and it's the kind of thing that makes me feel silly, especially since we don't have cable tv. I suppose it's because of the ubiquitousness of "wireless."

Anyway, will be looking into all of this soon.

[nottorp]

I think you can run Moonlight or Sunshine (i forgot which is which end) even directly on some "smart" TVs lately.

Second hand info though, I have a friend who swears by those but he didn't give me the details.

[ladberg]

I run Moonlight directly on my Apple TV and it's great! Apple TV is so wildly better than any smart TV on the market that I'll always have it be the brains of any TV I own for the foreseeable future anyway.

[anakaine]

Do you pair your controller to the Apple TV, or the remote computer?

[anon7000]

Except Apple TV doesn’t support 120fps which is a huge bummer

[maattdd]

It does ?

[wildzzz]

Back when I actually had a gaming PC, I loved using my Steam Link. I used powerline Ethernet to get a decent connection from my bedroom to the basement and it worked well, rarely stuttering. I could never get the D-pad working on my PS4 controller with the Link, no idea what went wrong but my wired 360 controller was perfect. I would use a handheld wireless keyboard/touchpad for any kb/mouse input. It was great.

[Rant423]

I miss Stadia

I just had a screen and a internet connection. Bliss.

[noxvilleza]

With Sunshine (I looked at it ages ago but totally forgot about it), do you have to be logged in order to accept clients? With Steam remote play streaming it won't let me stream unless I'm logged in - which is a problem given that I leave my PC (Windows 10). in my bedroom and I don't want to leave it unlocked.

[cisophrene]

Sunshine will solve your problem, the computer does not need to be unlocked once the service run.

[pipes]

I'm missing something here, are you streaming from your pc on to your deck? But then why would you need a dock?

[abejfehr]

I do this.

I have a gaming PC connected to my living room TV, but sometimes I’m lazy and want to play games from my bed.

My solution is that my bedroom TV has a Steam Deck dock connected, so I take my wireless controller to the bedroom and stream the games there instead.

[torben-friis]

To the tv through the deck, is what I understood (maybe not using the smart features of the tv?)

[dolmen]

Probably for wired networking.

[kulahan]

Out of curiosity, why not use a $10 steam link to achieve a similar effect to using a $700 gaming tablet?

[bbrks]

Steam Link is very oudated hardware which does not support modern codecs.

I have tried both Smart TV and Android Streaming Box hardware to run various setups - both of which are theoretically capable - but in practice fall short compared to the Steam Deck experience (which I already had lying around almost gathering dust)

[kulahan]

This is making me wonder if there is a product that just... streams things well for you. I hate my Chromecasts, but it's the best solution I've found for what I want.

[bbrks]

It does seem like a huge gap in the market somehow. There is just not one thing that supports both gaming and media well with modern features.

The oudated 2019 NVIDIA Shield TV Pro is still regarded as the best in class - despite not supporting many modern things like AV1, HDR10+, HDMI 2.1 or Dolby Vision.

I ended up using a Homatics Box R 4k Plus for everything video-related which _does_ support all of the above quite well, but it unfortunately has so many software issues which prevented me from using Steam Remote Play or Moonlight which is why I ended up settling on just using a docked Steam Deck for that use-case.

I switch between the two, which is pretty annoying!

[rockostrich]

Not the person you're responding to but I bought the Steam Deck to use mainly as a handheld and docking it is a bonus. The Steam Deck's controller support is the best of the other cheaper options that you could also use to stream.

[yellow_lead]

Do you find Sunshine to be better than Steam's streaming?

[cisophrene]

I find the Sunshine clients to be much better. You can set them up with much more granularity than Steam client, which can help a lot depending on the type of game you want to play. You also have a variety of clients not just Moonlight, for ex, on iPad I can recommend VoidLink which is really well made and handle touch events beautifully, turning the iPad into an actual MS Surface with multi-touch support when streaming Windows.

I actually have an interesting setup to play Civ 4 with the family (best civ game, change my mind): the games are running on virtual machines on a headless servers and we play on iPads using the native touch controls. It's really nice user experience and I was surprised it worked so well on such an old game.

[Fizz43]

what settings are you using? Game streaming from my PC to my steamdeck over ethernet for me feels like absolute shit. The quality gets destroyed every time i rotate the camera even on 1080p

[c-hendricks]

With Steam Link I just press the "enhanced 1080p" or "4K" preset then tweak whatever else. The latest update allows up to 250mbps bitrate I think.

[Fizz43]

I'll give it another go maybe there is some routing issue thats messing things up

[c-hendricks]

FWIW due to the other quirks of streaming me and other people have mentioned I too have switched to a very long HDMI cable + Ethernet usb hub