Honest reviews - what is actually wrong with the steamlink?

[tstki]

It's super cheap right now,. really tempted - but ive seen SO MANY negative reviews that It really makes me worry.

I got an eternet cable available, no wifi - as that's just asking for trouble and lag,.
So,. to those people who suffer lag from this,. what is your setup? How noticeable is input lag with a mouse?
How unplayable are fighting games where split second reactions actually matter?
How poor is your PC?

Or,. is it just games with quickly moving frames, high fps and resolution that give you the most trouble?


For anyone with no complaints - how long have you been using the device,. what build number?
Have there been any improvements to speed since the early builds?

[Bota]

For me it's the stuttering. I had the link for more than six months and the issue was never fixed. For people that are used to play with unlocked frame rates i suppose that's not a problem, but I'm used to locked 60 or at least, locked 30.

Steam link works well for a few seconds to minutes, then you have some stuttering then the cycle repeats itself. Notice that shield tv and a cheap android box with moonlight game streaming give me perfect results. And everything connected through ethernet. I suppose that most folks here have dejudder enabled on their tvs and don't notice the issue much...

You can minimise the problem reducing quality to balanced or fast.

Oh, and stream quality is not very good. It's ok, but not good. The shield tv has good quality. It's almost(almost...) undistinguishble from the pc. This one, well... lets says that image is a bit soft and the compression artifacts are very visible.

[nick]

The main issue with this is that there are a LOT of variables in play to make this a good setup. You have to be a tinkerer to get it running properly.

1) Quicksync is the best quality and least lag, AMD looks terrible and software will almost always cause to much of a burden on your CPU, I don't have any experience with Nvidia encoding. Quicksync requires you to enabe the on board GPU for Intel CPU's in your BIOS.
2) Vsync disabled makes a big improvement to input lag, as it does on normal displays but this just adds to the additional lag from streaming.
3) There are tiny hickups here and there every couple of minutes, really tiny ones (for me its not a problem at all as its probably every 5-10 minutes)
4) Mouse movement is dependant on USB polling rate and the game. For compettive FPS it's a no-go for single player its fine.
5) Have to set sound to 24 bit, has to be redone every time you update your GFX card.
6) Forcing everything through Steam can be troublesome with for example Origin and Blizzard games. Lots of tweaking to get it setup hassle free. UWP does not work.
7) It can be working fine and then an update to either Steam or the Steam Link can break a lot of things. Controller support in steam is just awkward and is being worked on constantly.
8) The Steam Link hardware cuts it so close performance wise for 1080p streaming, there is NO overhead left for anything out of the ordinary. For example Virtualhere with a Steering wheel with a high USB polling rate can be an issue for the on board CPU.

It's a fantastic deal for ~20 euros though :)

[General Spanky]

Originally posted by nick:

The main issue with this is that there are a LOT of variables in play to make this a good setup. You have to be a tinkerer to get it running properly.

1) Quicksync is the best quality and least lag, AMD looks terrible and software will almost always cause to much of a burden on your CPU, I don't have any experience with Nvidia encoding. Quicksync requires you to enabe the on board GPU for Intel CPU's in your BIOS.
2) Vsync disabled makes a big improvement to input lag, as it does on normal displays but this just adds to the additional lag from streaming.
3) There are tiny hickups here and there every couple of minutes, really tiny ones (for me its not a problem at all as its probably every 5-10 minutes)
4) Mouse movement is dependant on USB polling rate and the game. For compettive FPS it's a no-go for single player its fine.
5) Have to set sound to 24 bit, has to be redone every time you update your GFX card.
6) Forcing everything through Steam can be troublesome with for example Origin and Blizzard games. Lots of tweaking to get it setup hassle free. UWP does not work.
7) It can be working fine and then an update to either Steam or the Steam Link can break a lot of things. Controller support in steam is just awkward and is being worked on constantly.
8) The Steam Link hardware cuts it so close performance wise for 1080p streaming, there is NO overhead left for anything out of the ordinary. For example Virtualhere with a Steering wheel with a high USB polling rate can be an issue for the on board CPU.

It's a fantastic deal for ~20 euros though :)

Great info! I think im still going to buy it considering the price. I plan to play simple 2D-3D platform games on it. Nothing fancy like GTAV or Tomb Raider. I do have one question before I make the purchase. What kind of PS4 controller do I need? I do not own a PS4 but I do know they are use and bluetooh. Where can I find a controller that has a USB stick to plug into the steam link?

[zach]

Worked great for most games out of the box for me. No stuttering at all, and I'm running over wifi. Picture looks just like the game if you're using the hardware encoding with NVIDIA (not sure about AMD). And I'm pretty particular about sound and video quality. Sound is a little wonky on some lesser known games, but changing the link to do 2 channel instead of auto fixed those issues.

[zach]

Also, for how cheap it is, I really like the Steam Controller for the price. Using Gyro it's almost as accurate as a mouse. It's super configurable, so if you don't like something you can just change it yourself.

[Bluelight]

I 2nd what diehard2 said. Mine works awesomely out of the box on 5G wifi (actually better performance than powerline adapters) and set to "beautiful" it looks just like if my PC was hooked directly to my TV.

I don't understand why so many people are having issues with it. I know there are alot of variables and some of it I think comes from people not understanding those variables or how the whole thing works but I'm loving it.

Best investment for gaming I ever made in this price range!

[Aapje]

Originally posted by Spanky702:

Great info! I think im still going to buy it considering the price. I plan to play simple 2D-3D platform games on it. Nothing fancy like GTAV or Tomb Raider. I do have one question before I make the purchase. What kind of PS4 controller do I need? I do not own a PS4 but I do know they are use and bluetooh. Where can I find a controller that has a USB stick to plug into the steam link?

I've played GTA V more on my Steam Link than directly on my pc.

[Xjph]

My experience is the same as Bluelight and diehard2. Works great out of the box for most games, with 5GHz wifi giving a better experience than powerline. Currently playing The Witcher 3 almost entirely via my Link.

I've used both nvidia and AMD hardware encoding, and honestly at the bitrate used by the Link (30Mbps) I don't know if I could tell them apart in a blind test.