Emulator Picture Quality.. Can it be improved? Less blocky?

[Mister Vain]

So I have owned the Steam Link for over a year now. Recently I got into an emulator I really like... Cemu (Wii U emulator). I've gotten everything to work including the controllers. However, when it comes down to the actually streaming part, the picture looks blocky and the performance is not as fluid and smooth. It looks more like I am watching a youtube video or something.

Which brings me to my question. I am aware that some games/apps just don't work well with the Steam Link (in terms of quality) but is there anyway to improve the picture quality on these 3rd party apps? When I play some of my other actual steam games, they look pretty damn close to the original. As in less blocky and a cleaner picture than the emulator...

In case you are wondering, I am playing Xenoblade Chronicles X through Cemu using the 1080p graphics pack. On my PC, it's flawless in terms of graphic quailty and speed.

Also, I have the Steam Link set to beautiful and 50mbps. Hardware Encoding disabled (which makes my opther games look great).

[daninthemix]

Not sure why you're having that issue. I have only played Mario 3D World in Cemu over Link, but it looked and moved great. I use Beautiful 30Mbps, hardware encoding enabled (Nvidia).

Your performance issue may be because Cemu requires a LOT of CPU power, and you're also doing the encoding on your CPU as well.

[Mister Vain]

Yeah it's strange cause every other game I play looks and plays silky smooth. I have an overclocked i7 4770k running @ 4.3ghz per core. I hope it's not my CPU :S I also have a brand new GTX 1060 6b so it wouldn't be that either...

And just to clarify.. it's not all that bad. I guess to the untrained eye it would look good but to me it's pixelated. More so than anything else on steam link.

[JimmyJames26]

It's probably struggling amidst streaming. The Wii and Wii U take a ton of horse power to emulate. This might be too much when adding the streaming into the mix.

[daninthemix]

May I suggest you try with hardware encoding enabled, but NVFBC disabled, and see how that goes?

[Mister Vain]

Originally posted by daninthemix:

May I suggest you try with hardware encoding enabled, but NVFBC disabled, and see how that goes?

I tried your suggestions but it was actually slightly worse. I did however fix the performance issue.. I switched the fullscreen setting in Cemu from "Keep aspect ratio" to "Stretch". That made the preformace much better. Less stutter.

The most optimal settings for the Steam Link for me are NVFBC enabled with Hardware Encoding enabled in Nvidia GPU as well as Harware encoding disabled on the client. This produces the nicest looking picture for my other games but still pixalted in Cemu.

I am starting to think it's something to do with how Steam Link is handling the application (cemu) while in Full screen. It's tough to say and I can only speculate but when I play Cemu on my PC.. it's so damn beautiful looking I wanna cry...

[daninthemix]

Well, maybe you should take a look at Nvidia's Shield TV? I hear that has very good quality and performance these days.

[Mister Vain]

I improved the quality but simply enabling antialiasing on max settings (but not FXAA) within the NVCP. This is done by adding Cemu into the NVCP. I also left it in windowed mode leaving the Steam Link to full screen it for me and it improved by quite a bit. It does look sharper and performs much better.

I was looking into it the Nvidia shield the other day. Price point is a little high but if that means better quality, I don't mind. In-home streaming will become more of a thing in the next couple of years anyways. I heard they are building smart tv's that have built in Steam Link type functionailty.

The Steam Link is good for what it does but requires lots of tweaking to get it just right. And I know people say to just hook it up with an ethernet cable but doesnt that defeat the whole convenience thing of in-home Streaming?

[daninthemix]

Originally posted by Mister Vain:

I improved the quality but simply enabling antialiasing on max settings (but not FXAA) within the NVCP. This is done by adding Cemu into the NVCP. I also left it in windowed mode leaving the Steam Link to full screen it for me and it improved by quite a bit. It does look sharper and performs much better.

I was looking into it the Nvidia shield the other day. Price point is a little high but if that means better quality, I don't mind. In-home streaming will become more of a thing in the next couple of years anyways. I heard they are building smart tv's that have built in Steam Link type functionailty.

The Steam Link is good for what it does but requires lots of tweaking to get it just right. And I know people say to just hook it up with an ethernet cable but doesnt that defeat the whole convenience thing of in-home Streaming?

That's true, I use an ethernet cable. I think game streaming is very hard to get right over wireless, because you have input latency to worry about, as well as a higher frame-rate. There's simply more data than something like Netflix, and it has to get there a lot more quickly.