Troubleshooting: Game-mode remote play

[Rachio]

Good morning, everyone!

I seem to be having an issue with remote play streaming from my desktop to my Steamdeck. I've recently tried to play both BG3 and FF14, but to no avail. I keep getting the spinning connecting screen, however I do get a message saying the connection is established and there is audio from the host machine as well as visible mouse movements, but no actual game screen. I've tried updating to both Beta and Preview channels to see if it was a version issue, but it still persists. One thing odd I've noticed is that if I enter desktop mode and stream from there, it works. I'm at a complete loss and any help would be appreciated! Thank you in advance!

REMOTE PLAY SETTINGS:
HOST PC: AMD RYZEN 5800X | NVIDIA RTX 3080TI
PLAY AUDIO ON HOST: ON
CHANGE DESKTOP RESOLUTION TO MATCH STREAMING CLIENT: OFF
DYNAMICALLY ADJUST CAPTURE RESOLUTION TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE: ON
USE NVFBC CAPTURE ON NVIDIA GPU: OFF
ENABLE HARDWARE ENCODING: ON
ENABLE HARDWARE ENCODING ON NVIDIA GPU: ON
ENABLE HARDWARE ENCODING ON AMD GPU: ON
ENABLE HARDWARE ENCODING ON INTEL IGPU: ON
NUMBER OF SOFTWARE ENCODING THREADS: AUTO
PRIORITIZE NETWORK TRAFFIC: ON
ENABLE ADVANCED CLIENT OPTIONS: ON
VIDEO: BALANCED
AUDIO: STEREO
CONTROLLER OVERLAY: DEFAULT BUTTON
PERFORMANCE OVERLAY: SHOW ICONS
BANDWITH LIMIT: AUTO
FRAMERATE LIMIT: AUTO
RESOLUTION LIMIT: AUTO
HARDWARE DECODING: ON
HEVC VIDEO: ON
LOW LATENCY NETWORKING: ON
CLIENT STEAMDECK:
VIDEO: BALANCED
AUDIO: STEREO
PERFORMANCE OVERLAY: SHOW ICONS
BANDWITH LIMIT: AUTO
FRAMERATE LIMIT: AUTO
RESOLUTION LIMIT: AUTO
HARDWARE DECODING: OFF
HEVC VIDEO: ON
LOW LATENCY NETWORKING: ON

[PopinFRESH]

On your desktop

Turn this on
USE NVFBC CAPTURE ON NVIDIA GPU: OFF

Turn these off
ENABLE HARDWARE ENCODING ON AMD GPU: ON
ENABLE HARDWARE ENCODING ON INTEL IGPU: ON

On your Steam Deck in Game mode settings for Remote Play

Turn this on
HARDWARE DECODING: OFF

Change this to 1080p or 1080p optimized
VIDEO: BALANCED

Since you noted it works in desktop mode this likely isn't the issue, however, make sure any firewall you have (e.g. on your router, etc.) has the necessary ports open for your local LAN.

Originally posted by Valve:

What network ports does streaming use?

Streaming uses UDP ports 27031 and 27036 and TCP ports 27036 and 27037. Please make sure Steam can listen on these ports in your firewall software.

Lastly, if it still isn't working then try to disable hardware encoding/decoding on both the host and the client and see if that resolves it.

[Rachio]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

On your desktop

Turn this on
USE NVFBC CAPTURE ON NVIDIA GPU: OFF

Turn these off
ENABLE HARDWARE ENCODING ON AMD GPU: ON
ENABLE HARDWARE ENCODING ON INTEL IGPU: ON

On your Steam Deck in Game mode settings for Remote Play

Turn this on
HARDWARE DECODING: OFF

Change this to 1080p or 1080p optimized
VIDEO: BALANCED

Since you noted it works in desktop mode this likely isn't the issue, however, make sure any firewall you have (e.g. on your router, etc.) has the necessary ports open for your local LAN.

Originally posted by Valve:

What network ports does streaming use?

Streaming uses UDP ports 27031 and 27036 and TCP ports 27036 and 27037. Please make sure Steam can listen on these ports in your firewall software.

Lastly, if it still isn't working then try to disable hardware encoding/decoding on both the host and the client and see if that resolves it.

Hello, Popin! Thank you so much for your reply, sadly it's still no-joy. I went through all the settings you highlighted first. After none of those options worked, I opened up the mentioned ports and retried all the initial steps to cover all my bases. I'm honestly quite baffled to why it's not working now... Played fine about a month ago on the beta channel.

[PopinFRESH]

Are you connecting wirelessly or via ethernet using the/a dock?

[Hiro]

If you are using the Preview / Beta channels remote play is broken, has been for the last few updates.

Not sure why Valve is not fixing it, maybe they are waiting something to land on the Kernel.
Some communication on this would be nice from them.

Either way, I don't know if the Stable has it working still, but you could try that.

[Rachio]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Are you connecting wirelessly or via ethernet using the/a dock?

I am currently using ethernet for pc and wifi for deck.

Originally posted by Hiro:

If you are using the Preview / Beta channels remote play is broken, has been for the last few updates.

Not sure why Valve is not fixing it, maybe they are waiting something to land on the Kernel.
Some communication on this would be nice from them.

Either way, I don't know if the Stable has it working still, but you could try that.

So, I've reverted back to stable on both the deck and PC and that seems to have gotten me picture back. However, it is definitely not as smooth as it was previously, sadly. I get constant red and yellow connection symbols and a fair amount of stutter. I'm going back and playing with settings Popin recommended to see if that clears it up a bit. Little bummed since it used to work flawlessly with no issues before and when I'm home sick it doesn't want to work. Lol