Steam In-Home Streaming

[el-Capitan]

Has anyone else gotten the beta invite and had the chance to test this? I wasn't expecting this to go live so soon, so I am pumped to be trying this. I have been on the fence for getting a beefier (and louder) GFX for my HTPC for so long. Glad that I never pulled the trigger.

I'll try and see that I can make some time available tonight to test it. Would be curious to hear from you guys too. :thumbsup:

 

[Red Storm]

Would love to hear your thoughts on it after testing! Specifically latency.

 

[CU]

What are the min. requirements for the client? Can you play one non steam game on your server and still stream a steam game to a client. I know it would reduce performance alot depending on what games you played. I am just curious if it would work.

 

[WiseUp216]

I was invited but I don't know when I'll be able to test it out. All I have right now to test clients with is a couple of laptops.

 

[Aikouka]

What are the requirements to receive an invite? Do you have to be on the beta Steam client update channel?

 

[WiseUp216]

What are the requirements to receive an invite? Do you have to be on the beta Steam client update channel?

Pretty sure all I had to do was join the official Steam in-home streaming group and wait a month or so.

 

[KaOTiK]

I'm in it but haven't gotten to test it out yet, been busy

 

[NickelPlate]

I'm in and did some testing yesterday evening. It works surprisingly well streaming to my crummy low budget $299 Lenovo laptop. On 802.11g, there's too much latency, packet and frame loss for me but wired is nearly lossless. However most titles are limited to 30fps which while still playable is kind of a bummer considering my main PC can run most games maxed out today. But I don't think the beta is doing hardware encoding yet, it's all software.

I think it has alot of potential to stream games into the living room on the HDTV with cheap computer/laptop.

 

[el-Capitan]

I've only had 10 minutes. Works without any additional settings on configuration. The games on the main rig simply appear in the games tab and launch as if they were installed locally. Note the game will also launch and screen on the origin machine.

It works very well on my wired connection. Tested :

Nidhogg - gotta start easy. Seeing the the host screen in the background i did not notice any lag.
Amnesia - no prob.
Civilization V - opened a late game, frame rate was not top notch, but definitely playable.
Kentucky Route Zero - no prob
Borderlands 2 - got an error message along the lines of "error streaming"
Alice: Madness Returns - had to log into the EA DRM again, but no prob after. Worked very well with the 360 controller. Such a great game.
Gothic II - "Game does not support streaming". I wasn't expecting that to work anyway...

The host runs at 1200p, the client at 1080p. There is a thick black border and the graphics seem a little smudged. Def some interpolation going on there. I'll have a closer look at that the next days.

So far I am very impressed. Finally I'll be able to finish gamer such as Alan Wake, LA Noire, GTA IV, etc which just play better with a controller and on a couch. Very exciting!

 

[Aikouka]

The host runs at 1200p, the client at 1080p. There is a thick black border and the graphics seem a little smudged. Def some interpolation going on there. I'll have a closer look at that the next days.

That's interesting, because when NVIDIA does it with the Shield streaming, they actively change the resolution of the game to match the end device's resolution. So, if you're streaming to the Shield itself, your game will be rendering at 720p (and you can see it on the screen as you mentioned), or if you're streaming to a TV through the Shield (via HDMI Out), it will render at whatever resolution your TV is.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

In home streaming seems so silly to me, it's a really over-engineered solution to which a single HDMI cable would be better.

Still...I would be interested in hearing feedback, people who want to get steam box and want to continue to play the vast majority of their current catalog will absolutely need this.

 

[manimal]

In home streaming seems so silly to me, it's a really over-engineered solution to which a single HDMI cable would be better.

Still...I would be interested in hearing feedback, people who want to get steam box and want to continue to play the vast majority of their current catalog will absolutely need this.

My 3500 square foot house is already wired ethernet and a large part of the consumer base is as well. Buying a new cable as you say to send video doesnt solve the controller issue in the other room so thats another wire too. I have six HTPCs in the house and being able to have all my games installed in one computer instead of a few would save steam alot of download bandwith and me time.

 

[cmdrdredd]

With the games having issues, lowered graphical quality, latency issues (there will always be some when you stream games), it is a silly idea to me. If you're streaming to a portable device that you can walk around with from room to room etc that seems like a more reasonable idea.

So you wanna play games on the couch from your PC? A single HDMI cable answers all those needs or wants and introduces no extra latency over what you'd get normally and every game is supported.

 

[Aikouka]

So you wanna play games on the couch from your PC? A single HDMI cable answers all those needs or wants and introduces no extra latency over what you'd get normally and every game is supported.

My gaming PC is one floor up and on the completely opposite side of my home from my living room TV. Running a giant HDMI cable is not an option.

 

[mazeroth]

I am very excited about this! I have two weak HTPC's and a pretty powerful gaming PC. Being able to game on any of them at high res without the need of buying expensive graphics cards is great.

 

[mmntech]

My TV and computer are in the same room so it's pointless for me. Now if I can stream games to my iPad using a Bluetooth controller, now we're talking. Be great for summer. Chill outside on the deck with a beer, fire up a little Skyrim or Bioshock.

 

[pandaga]

Cool, I hope I get into the beta as well, it would come in handy.

 

[cmdrdredd]

My gaming PC is one floor up and on the completely opposite side of my home from my living room TV. Running a giant HDMI cable is not an option.

I just move my pc if I really wanna be on the tv with it. Streaming would have too many noticeable issues for me.

The input lag alone in some gamez would make me break something.

 

[Aikouka]

I just move my pc if I really wanna be on the tv with it. Streaming would have too many noticeable issues for me.

My main desktop is in a Corsair 900D. I'm not moving it for a poor reason such as playing on a TV.

 

[cmdrdredd]

My main desktop is in a Corsair 900D. I'm not moving it for a poor reason such as playing on a TV.

Heh...I have no first hand experience with that case. Is it heavy or scratch easy or something? My HAF932 is a bit of a tank but I rarely move it anyway. No reason to personally. I did play a couple games on my new gaming tv from it to see how it worked that way but I personally dont have a reason to use my pc on the tv that often. I think I still prefer 1440p for most titles.

 

[Red Storm]

I am very excited about this! I have two weak HTPC's and a pretty powerful gaming PC. Being able to game on any of them at high res without the need of buying expensive graphics cards is great.

Exactly. The main benefit of this is being to able to game anywhere in your house without having to drag the big desktop around or pay for multiple video cards.

 

[Aikouka]

Heh...I have no first hand experience with that case. Is it heavy or scratch easy or something?

It's actually fairly scratch resistant from what I can tell, but it's flippin' huge. The case is about 30"x30"x14" and weighs probably around 30-40 pounds. It's definitely a lot lighter without all the water cooling stuff in it, but I still wouldn't enjoy carrying it down the stairs. I actually keep it on a painted furniture dolly so I can easily move it around if I need to tinker with it.

I did play a couple games on my new gaming tv from it to see how it worked that way but I personally dont have a reason to use my pc on the tv that often. I think I still prefer 1440p for most titles.

Yeah, I used to have a gaming-oriented HTPC (using a GTX 660 Ti) hooked up to my downstairs TV, but I rarely ever used it for gaming. I decided to just move my fanless HTPC down there and part out the gaming HTPC. I didn't dislike it, but I never had much of a reason to use it. That's especially the case since Big Picture Mode was kind of new back then, and it wasn't all that feature-rich. I also didn't like kicking my desktop off Steam because I logged in on my HTPC.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

My 3500 square foot house is already wired ethernet and a large part of the consumer base is as well. Buying a new cable as you say to send video doesnt solve the controller issue in the other room so thats another wire too. I have six HTPCs in the house and being able to have all my games installed in one computer instead of a few would save steam alot of download bandwith and me time.

A much more elegant solution to that problem is a USB dongle for your PC which transmits video/audio/controllers over wifi and a similar adapter for your TV.

The OnLive box for the livingroom did that only it sent data back to their servers not back to your local PC so we know it can be done and know it's super cheap to produce the chip to do the encoding/decoding.

A whole PC with a custom OS and custom software on top of that is a massive over engineering for that kind of streaming, the only reason they have it is because there's no reliable way for them to provide backwards compatibility for the majority of their game library which wont work on their new OS.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Exactly. The main benefit of this is being to able to game anywhere in your house without having to drag the big desktop around or pay for multiple video cards.

Not anywhere...only where you have another pc and a tv.

 

[Red Storm]

Not anywhere...only where you have another pc and a tv.

Every other machine is going to be a slim laptop, tablet, or smartphone so they can easily be anywhere in the house, and nobody said you you had to stream to a TV.