steam deck remote play

[JxstWink]

im getting a 1TB OLED soon and i have some questions about the remote play feature
(as its gonna be the feature im certainly gonna be using semi often, due to my obvious inability to mod a steam deck to dual-boot windows 11 and other benefactors)

do the steam deck's remote play feature requires the steam deck to be on the same network as my computer? if not; can i use my hotspot to connect to my computer to play?

using the steam deck's remote play feature, do i just like, have full control of my computer? (desktop interactivity, using different launchers like epic games to play rocket league, etc.)
or is it like, i can only interact with steam related stuff on my pc?

and is dual boot not a option for the steam deck till steam OS 3 is polished and refined enough in valves terms to be possible? or is there already a workaround for this

(not relevant but how's windows 11 on steam deck?)

[ReBoot]

You need a local connection for first-time setup. Afterwards, it works all over the internet.
You'll be playing Steam games. If you want to access the desktop, you need another solution.

Dual boot is already an option, although why? Do you need Windows for something specific you know won't work on Linux or dou you merely suspect you'll need Windows?

Also, if you need Windows, you can replace SteamOS with it, don't necessarily need dual boot.

[JxstWink]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

1 ~ You need a local connection for first-time setup. Afterwards, it works all over the internet.
1.5 ~ You'll be playing Steam games. If you want to access the desktop, you need another solution.

2 ~ Dual boot is already an option, although why? Do you need Windows for something specific you know won't work on Linux or dou you merely suspect you'll need Windows?

3 ~ Also, if you need Windows, you can replace SteamOS with it, don't necessarily need dual boot.

1 - Ah, thanks for that! i kinda thought it was gonna be like the playstation portal for a while lol!
1.5 - knowing how long the steam deck's been released, im feeling a bit confident that someone already made a solution to my question about this either a long time ago or fairly recently, i shouldn't be cocky about this though so thanks for the heads up!

2 - ive never used linux before so its gonna take me a fair complicated while to get used to, though i am familiar with text terminals (im not, i just used my dads older pc back when i was younger lol) but aside from that, probably because of the anti-cheat compatibility issue that's plagued linux's name for the longest time

3 ~ im kinda hoping i dont need to replace steam OS, just gotta find a workaround; like streaming as i mentioned before (to basically eliminate any issues with linux's weakpoints regarding game compatibility for online titles, as per usual in often's time; some game that once wasn't offensive on anti-cheat now turns a different side, and then now steam deck is incompatible due to a dev's hurtful but warranted decision to implement anti-cheat thats on a kernel level. [staring hard at you GTA 5])

to kinda explain this short, i download games that run perfectly on steam deck, and stream games from my computer if it cannot run on steam deck (gta 5, rocket league, (because i didnt buy the game before it got delisted a while back) valorant (harsh one to explain) and yada yada ya)

[ReBoot]

Of course did someone make another solution. Those solutions have been existing long before the Deck came along! Pro tip: the Deck is jsut a PC running Linux so any remoting solution that's available on Linux works on the Deck.

Pro tip: don't focus on text terminals and focus on what you want to do. Do you want to do text processing? No terminal needed. Image editing? No terminal needed. Hell, you don't even need one for software development.

Quite frankly, I get the impression you're totally overthinking this one.

[shadowboy813]

No. Remote play does not require you be on the same subnet. You will see drastically reduced performance over the internet though (in particular, latency will go up, and you may see artifacts).

Note that streaming is a bit flaky in game mode, you may have better results in desktop mode (I certainly do).

I have personally streamed FF7 Rebirth from my home PC to my SD while I was in the breakroom at work waiting for a tow truck.

[Haruspex]

Any particular reason why you need Windows? I'm not seeing anything in your library that immediately screams incompatibility with Linux. Also the kinds of games that you would need Windows for due to anti-cheat would be fast-paced and competitive, which won't be ideal with the extra latency streaming introduces.

[JxstWink]

Originally posted by Haruspex:

Any particular reason why you need Windows? I'm not seeing anything in your library that immediately screams incompatibility with Linux. Also the kinds of games that you would need Windows for due to anti-cheat would be fast-paced and competitive, which won't be ideal with the extra latency streaming introduces.

now that you mentioned that last part, i am starting to deeply question myself about downloading windows on the steam deck lol

if i learn steam OS, i realize i can possibly branch out to linux somewhat in the future and learn some big new things. i only particularly question having windows on steam deck solely for gta 5 (i dont have it in my library but im planning to buy it when i get my steam deck)

that... and also because i have a knack for playing competitive games casually with friends (CS2 would be fine, my worry is valorant and rocket league, RL is a epic games store title that im currently looking into buying a CD key just to avoid the epic launcher, but i have nothing to contest valorant to besides linking my steam deck to my computer and downloading windows 11.
funnily enough, as a roblox enjoyer, that game also haves anti-cheat. but ive seen many workarounds floating on the internet so linux actually has a strong fighting chance)

[WarnerCK]

Originally posted by JxstWink:

RL is a epic games store title that im currently looking into buying a CD key just to avoid the epic launcher

https://heroicgameslauncher.com/

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by JxstWink:

Originally posted by Haruspex:

Any particular reason why you need Windows? I'm not seeing anything in your library that immediately screams incompatibility with Linux. Also the kinds of games that you would need Windows for due to anti-cheat would be fast-paced and competitive, which won't be ideal with the extra latency streaming introduces.

now that you mentioned that last part, i am starting to deeply question myself about downloading windows on the steam deck lol

if i learn steam OS, i realize i can possibly branch out to linux somewhat in the future and learn some big new things. i only particularly question having windows on steam deck solely for gta 5 (i dont have it in my library but im planning to buy it when i get my steam deck)

that... and also because i have a knack for playing competitive games casually with friends (CS2 would be fine, my worry is valorant and rocket league, RL is a epic games store title that im currently looking into buying a CD key just to avoid the epic launcher, but i have nothing to contest valorant to besides linking my steam deck to my computer and downloading windows 11.
funnily enough, as a roblox enjoyer, that game also haves anti-cheat. but ive seen many workarounds floating on the internet so linux actually has a strong fighting chance)

You don't really have to learn SteamOS. Unless you actually want to dig deep into the system, all you have to do is to open the appstore, install the app you want to use and then use it. If you can use the appstore on Android, you can do so on SteamOS. If you can use the appstore on Windows, you can do so on SteamOS.

You can connect to WLANs without learning anything specifically about SteamOS/Linux, you can do normal computing work without learning anything specifically about SteamOS/Linux. You can use Bluetooth devices without learning anything specifically about SteamOS/Linux.

That said, that "extra latency" from streaming isn't that bad. Speaking from own experience, 30 FPS are quite literally unplayable for me due to the input lag. Being highly sensitive to input lag (I don't even need an FPS counter to tell you I'm running >100 FPS as opposed to mere 60), I don't mind streaming games, including the ones where timing is crucual. If input lag really was that bad, I would feel it.

I don't. Steam streaming works fine. Depends, obviously, on your internet connection. I tried cellular streaming once and it was abhorrently ♥♥♥♥♥♥. But sitting @ Thomas' place (a friend of mine who has DSL @ home), playing ME4 streaming from my PC at home (also DSL), felt natural.

[Mr. Toasty]

Steam remote play doesn't have official support for streaming your desktop or non-steam games. There are workarounds and some good 3rd-party options for streaming like Moonlight (sunshine for host) and maybe Parsec. Moonlight has HDR steaming support also.

[MarvinR]

Originally posted by JxstWink:

that... and also because i have a knack for playing competitive games casually with friends (CS2 would be fine, my worry is valorant and rocket league, RL is a epic games store title that im currently looking into buying a CD key just to avoid the epic launcher, but i have nothing to contest valorant to besides linking my steam deck to my computer and downloading windows 11.

valorant will not run natively, streaming or dual-boot are your only options.

rocket league however runs perfectly, i installed it through lutris(epic store version) and had it added to my steam library.
i have a rocket league icon among my steam game icons, it updates and launches the game when i hit the play game button in steam, and unless steam is installing updates for other games it runs without any hiccups.