Choppy streaming with CEMU

[VMan]

I've got my Steam Link connected via ethernet to the same network my PC is on (no powerline adapters) and I've noticed if I ever try and stream CEMU with my Steam Link, the display isn't as smooth as other games.

When I turn the performance overlay on the display latency is under 20ms but the gameplay just doesn't look smooth at all.

The weird thing is if I stream a more intensive game such as Hitman 2 or The Witcher 3, they run nice and smooth without issues!

I followed the FAQ and turned everything down (resolution to 480p), enabled all hardware encoding, and the choppiness is still there, except for other games.


I've done a bit of testing and I think when CEMU is run, the Steam Link captures the game in "Desktop DWM NV12" mode, even though the app is set to full screen. It does look like CEMU uses windowed fullscreen and other games usually use Exclusive Fullscreen which is captured and displayed a lot smoother on the other end.

Has anyone else noticed this bad performance as well?
It seems there was 1 bug report about this (https://steamcommunity.com/groups/homestream/discussions/1/2561864094349095385/) but that got closed off without a resolution, which is a shame as there are many desktop or non steam apps that I'd like to stream.

Would be nice if there was a solution to it. I'm on build 692 but the problem still occurs in previous builds.

[Ersan]

DWM capture is notoriously bad - if you have an Nvidia card try to enable NVFBC in steam streaming advanced client settings.

[Xjph]

Do you have CEMU added to your library as a non-steam game?

[VMan]

Originally posted by Ersan:

DWM capture is notoriously bad - if you have an Nvidia card try to enable NVFBC in steam streaming advanced client settings.

I've got that turned on yes. Sorry I should have mentioned I have a Ryzen 1700 CPU and an NVIDIA 1080Ti.

Originally posted by Xjph:

Do you have CEMU added to your library as a non-steam game?

I do, it's set to launch specific games in fullscreen with the -f command line argument.

I'm surprised more users haven't mentioned this. As Ersan has mentioned, it just seems to be the DWM capture that is bad. Even when I change the settings it will always go to DWM capture for CEMU.

Every other game that runs in fullscreen (most likely exclusive mode) runs smoothly, even on Wi-Fi.

[Ersan]

Do you have Geforce Experience installed? I've read that NVFBC may not work sometimes if you don't have it installed.

[VMan]

Originally posted by Ersan:

Do you have Geforce Experience installed? I've read that NVFBC may not work sometimes if you don't have it installed.

Just the standard NVIDIA Drivers. I've never installed GFE and after it required an account didn't think to anymore.

I believe it's the DWM capture, as I ran Hitman 2 in Windows and Fullscreen and Exclusive Fullscreen and it all was showing as Game polled and ran smoothly. Will try and do more testing.

[Ersan]

Originally posted by VMan:

Originally posted by Ersan:

Do you have Geforce Experience installed? I've read that NVFBC may not work sometimes if you don't have it installed.

Just the standard NVIDIA Drivers. I've never installed GFE and after it required an account didn't think to anymore.

I believe it's the DWM capture, as I ran Hitman 2 in Windows and Fullscreen and Exclusive Fullscreen and it all was showing as Game polled and ran smoothly. Will try and do more testing.

Right, you *should* install Geforce Experience and see if NVFBC starts working.

[VMan]

Originally posted by Ersan:

Originally posted by VMan:

Just the standard NVIDIA Drivers. I've never installed GFE and after it required an account didn't think to anymore.

I believe it's the DWM capture, as I ran Hitman 2 in Windows and Fullscreen and Exclusive Fullscreen and it all was showing as Game polled and ran smoothly. Will try and do more testing.

Right, you *should* install Geforce Experience and see if NVFBC starts working.

Oh sorry I didn't see the "may not work" part!

I'll give it a try, but I have done some testing and may have figured it out!

My CEMU version was v1.15.5, and after testing each version going back, version v1.15.2 is the last version where it works normally.

The capture is Game Delayed OpenGL NV12 when the app is launched. However it will default to Desktop DWM if you tab out of the game.

It runs smooth as I remember it even on WiFi so it's the DWM capture that is the issue. I don't think any game more than 60fps runs nicely with DWM capture.

So maybe somewhere in the 1.15.2 update and later versions they've changed something. I notice they added the game background picture on the loading screen which may be it, I'm not sure.

Now, whether this is a Steam In-home streaming or Remote Play issue, or a CEMU issue I'm not sure. I think it could be Steam not being able to detect CEMU properly after that update and therefore defaults to Desktop DWM capture.

[Hegom]

Hi, have you found some solution? I have exactly the same problem, I have a GTX 1080ti and I59600k and the Steam Link is using Desktop DWM which gives a lot of stuttering.

I have the lastest version and I don't want to downgrade to an older version.

[VMan]

No solution apart from what I already stated works, but you don't want to use an older version. I'm happy with that if it streams smoothly.

[Hegom]

Originally posted by VMan:

No solution apart from what I already stated works, but you don't want to use an older version. I'm happy with that if it streams smoothly.

I tried to use the version that you mention but the game doesn't load, it stops/crashes on the loading screen.

I found a workaround and is to use Moonlight streaming, I found that I can install Moonlight on my steam link box and works awesome.

The main downside is that I can't use my steam controller for the Gyro aiming which I'm used to.