How can I decrease display latency?

[Bluelight]

I just bought a steam link and have been loving it. I run it on beautiful mode which caps off at 30mbit/s and everything is pretty much default settings other than that. I am running a good PC with a gtx 1070 and I am playing on my 1080p tv on GAME MODE.

I am getting 0 lost frames, a ping between 6ms-10ms, input latency less than 1ms, but display latency is around 30-37ms.

I have tested my controller and can see that even when paired with the steam link, if I walk into my PC room I am not getting any input lag, its just the display is updating slightly late and it feels like input lag.

It is very noticable with the controls on games that involve aiming a gun etc.

I am using a powerline adapter plugged into my router with cat5e cables on both sides of the stream. I would like to get the display latency down to closer to 15, even 20ms so maybe it isn't so noticable but I have messed with lots of settings and any changes either make it worse or stays the same so I set it back to default.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

NOTE: I am aware that the TV adds latency but that isn't reflected in the stats on the steamlink so this is all through the stream. I also know that hardwired directly to the router would maybe help a little but that isn't an option unfortunately.

[Stefan1200]

Well, Powerline also adds some milliseconds, so if you still have 30-37 ms, it sounds quite good. I have direct cable connection, just my Router and a GBit Switch between the Steam Link and PC and I have a display latency of 22-25 ms in games (Steam big picture menu around 19 ms).

[Bluelight]

UPDATE!

So I just decided to try connecting via wireless 5G to my router. I never tried before because everyone trashed wifi and says its unplayable on wifi which is why I went the powerline route.

Well, connecting to my 5G wifi ended up giving me much better results than even the powerline!

Now with the 5G wifi, I get about 14ms display lag in big picture and about 22ms in games!! I also reduced my ping down to less than 1ms according to the readout vs about 10ms on powerline.

Prior to this, I was getting about 37ms in overwatch which was causing some issues.. it feels much better at 22ms. The input lag remains less than 1ms on both types of connections.

Figured I would let anyone know not to necessarily listen to people who trash wifi for steam link.. I disconnected my lan cable and will be playing like this from now on!

My only small concern is that my phone connects to 5G and loses the signal often so I hope the steam link will not lose connection like that but since it is stationary in the house and not far from the router, it hopefully will be stable.

:D

[Xjph]

Originally posted by Bluelight:

Well, connecting to my 5G wifi ended up giving me much better results than even the powerline!

I have the exact same experience, I don't understand the doom and gloom around wireless on this discussion board. I try to pipe up whenever I see someone make a post flatly saying that wifi won't work well, because it's simply not true.

Do you need a strong signal? Of course you do, but when you've got that it works perfectly.


Some other tips for lowering latency:

Change your stream quality from "beautiful" to "balanced" or "fast". I find at 30Mbps the difference between beautiful and balanced isn't noticeable anyway.

Try a different encoder. I actually find the x264 software encoder frequently gives lower latency than either AMD or nvidia's hardware encoders (haven't tried quicksync). Of course, doing this will probably give you a somewhat more inconsistent result from game to game, on account of the CPU load.

Lower the game's resolution. The lower you can tolerate setting it the lower your latency is going to be, as the smaller image can be captured and encoded more quickly. Less than one frame (below 16ms) is possible if you're willing to lower it enough. If your PC is natively higher than 1080p lowering it to 1080p while streaming is an easy way to squeeze out a few ms.

[Stefan1200]

Well, 5G wifi is not completly bad. But the support afford is much bigger, if people try to use 2.4G wifi in an crowded 2.4G area or have a cheap 5G router. And 5G wifi should be only used with the Steam Link, if you have a strong signal. A Smartphone can live with it, if it gets only 50 MBits, because of walls. The Steam Link always need more. ;)

But beside of that, 5G wifi with a strong signal should be better than Powerline. In my opinion Powerline is always the worst way for networks. But sometimes wifi and lan is not an option (maybe the router has to be in the basement and you can't get a lan cable to the ground floor.