Experience with Wireless Keyboard/Mouse (Logitech & Bluetooth)

[The Art of Getting Shanked]

Hi SteamLink Friends,

Thought I would take a few minutes to type up my experience with Steam Link, in the hopes that it will help others.

My Setup

• Samsung UN65J6300[www.amazon.com]
  
• Cisco SG300-10MP[www.amazon.com] gigabit ethernet (wired) to Link, TV, & PC
  
• Battleship PC[www.userbenchmark.com]
  
• Logitech mk520[www.amazon.com] Wireless keyboard & mouse combo
  
• Microsoft H3S Bluetooth Mouse[www.amazon.com]

TLDR

• Logitech 2.4ghz keyboard/mouse is too laggy for most use cases
  
• Bluetooth performs much better than USB-based wireless kb/m
  
• Beta builds perform much better than GA builds when using wireless kb/m
  
• Synergy interferes with input streaming and should be disabled

My Experience

I play mostly FPS/COD type games exclusively via keyboard/mouse (sorry, controller freaks), which are super sensitive to input lag (anything over 15ms makes those sorts of games unplayable). The Logitech mk520 is a typical wireless keyboard/mouse that uses a 2.4ghz combo usb receiver that is well supported in almost all linux versions (including SteamOS). Upon initial boot of the Link the keyboard and mouse worked, however there was tremendous input lag between moving the mouse and the mouse cursor moving on screen (before linking to my steam PC), to the point that it was hard to click through the initial setup without moving the mouse very slowly. I would estimate this input lag at greater than 100ms.

Once initial setup was complete the system automatically applied the latest public/golden software patches (don't remember version #) and rebooted, however the horribly laggy keyboard/mouse persisted. I then went into the system settings and switched to the latest beta build (441). Upon rebooting into beta 441 the (local) input lag was much better, but still somewhat noticeable (I'd guess maybe 50-60 ms).

Once I got everything linked up, the keyboard and mouse would completely stop working once I launched a game (the "can't press enter" problem referenced in some other discussions). My issue was caused by running Synergy Server[synergy-project.org] on my desktop, which I use to share my PC's keyboard/mouse to other PC's. The problem goes away when I stop the Synergy service on the PC before connecting the Steam Link. I also disabled steam overlay, as suggested by other posts. Note to Steam: would be super-awesome if there was a pre-link command and post-link command option, where I could run a command or powershell script before Link establishes, and once it terminates.

Within FPS games, a 2.4gHz wireless keyboard/mouse is pretty much unusable (as expected). Since the lag is present before linking to the PC, it's clearly caused by either the wireless connection itself or the linux kernel driver supporting it... I don't notice nearly as much lag when using the same keyboard/mouse directly on the Windows system, so I suspect it's something under the hood on the Link. Note, I did try a second similar Logitech keyboard/mouse (mk220 I think) with same results.

So, I decided to switch to using the Microsoft bluetooth mouse. Pairing was simple and worked flawlessly, and upon switching to a bluetooth mouse the input lag dropped significantly (I would guess maybe 30 ms). While it's still too much for a multiplayer FPS like COD (or even Goat Simulator), the system became usable.

I am now in the process of searching for a good wireless bluetooth keyboard, which will eliminate 2.4ghz entirely and may get me closer to playability.

Other Notes

As others have noted, ending Big Picture without killing streaming allows one to use the Steam Link as a remote desktop client (which is pretty awesome). However I am having trouble keeping the keyboard/mouse input streams connected, so to speak. After a few clicks of the mouse, the clicks and keyboard buttons no longer register on the PC... I can move the cursor, but I can't click anything. Stopping and restarting the stream results in the same (works for a few minutes, then doesn't). I haven't had time to deep dive into this issue to try and figure out where the break is.

[AoeAoe]

Thanks.