Steam Link FAQ

[8BitCerberus]

Steam Support Knowledge Base: Steam Link

UPDATE: 2015/10/15 Email From Valve:

The first Steam Link and Steam Controller pre-order units are scheduled to arrive over the next few days.

We're eager to hear your feedback as we continue to make changes and improvements leading up to the full retail launch on November 10th. For the next few weeks, we recommend that you opt in to the Steam client beta (through the System settings panel in the Big Picture UI) so that you'll be running the most current fixes and functionality.

We'll be keeping an eye on forums everywhere, but we've also set up a contact email address for everyone on the team: [e-mail]. Whether you're having a great time or running into issues, we want to know.

Thank you

A lot of these questions are answered on the store page, yet people keep asking them over and over and over again. Stop it. If I have not answered your question, before responding or starting a new thread, go to the store page and see if it’s answered there first. IF at that point your specific question still has not been answered, then feel free to comment below, or if you must, start a new thread.

Here is the store page for your reference:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/353380

Now, on to the FAQ:

UPDATE 8/27/2015: Concerning the pre-order bonus free games, Rocket League and Portal 2, here is the official response:

Originally posted by Me:

I would like to know if this offer is applied retroactively for people like myself that previously pre-ordered, or are we left out because it wasn't within this 48 hour window?

Originally posted by Valve:

You'll get a gift copy or a subscription to both games, depending on whether you already own them or not. Thanks!

This is pointless, an HDMI cable will do the same thing for less money!

Congratulations on living in an apartment or house small enough, or you don’t mind your gaming PC being in close enough proximity to your TV in order to be able to simply plug in an HDMI cable.

The Steam Link is an affordable, convenient option for the rest of us. Not everyone shares your circumstances. Some of us don’t like noisy computers next to our TVs, some of us like having our computers in another room entirely, possibly even another floor entirely. And some of us simply don’t want to spend 20 minutes removing all the peripherals and ejecting disks and getting everything shut down on our computers just to lug it across the house or downstairs, risking dropping it, just to play some games for a little while then lug it all back and spend another 20 minutes hooking everything back up again.

But hey, if you can do it, knock yourself out. Stop trying to convince everyone that your way is the only possible correct way.

WIRED NETWORK?! What is this the dark ages?!

Please learn the difference between “Recommended” and “Required”

They recommend a wired connection, because a wired connection is the one most likely to provide the best experience. In-Home Streaming, and thus the Steam Link, needs around 30Mbps in order to play games at 1080p, 60 frames per second. If you have an N or AC wireless network, you absolutely CAN use them. But wireless networks are susceptible to interference, and if you have a lot of devices or there are a lot of other wireless access points around you, your network might not be capable of that 30Mbps.

If you find that your performance on a wireless network is not suitable, you have a few options that you can explore. Obviously you can run ethernet either through your walls or tucked under the floorboards and under the carpet. But you can also use powerline ethernet adapters, this is what I use in my home for now, or even HPNA adapters which can utilize the coax cable that is probably running through your house or apartment.

100Mbps ETHERNET?! WHHHHHAAaaattt?!!1

Yes. That is more than 3 times the bandwidth needed for in-home streaming. Why should they put a 1Gbps or 10Gbps port on there?

What resolutions does the Steam Link support? What if I play with three monitors, how is that going to work on a single TV?

Officially it supports 1080p, 720p, and 480p. If your host computer (the computer you are streaming the game from) runs at a different resolution, in-home streaming will resize the stream as necessary to fit into whatever resolution your TV is running.

For instance if you have a 1080p TV which is a 16:9 aspect, but your computer is running a 4:3 aspect resolution (such as 1600x1200, 1280x1024, etc) then what you see on your TV will fit into the 1080 pixels tall, but since the source is not 1920 pixels wide, there will be black bars on the sides, it will look a bit like a square in the center of your TV. Alternatively if you have 2-3 monitors on your computer and you like to play your games spanning them all, then you have a much wider aspect than 16:9, and what will show on the TV will fit into 1920 wide, leaving black bars on the top and bottom of the image.

You can change this, in-game, by simply choosing a 16:9 resolution. If your laptop is running some funky 1366x766 resolution, set your game to run 1280x720. If you have a 4:3 monitor that is 1600x1200 native resolution, set your game to run 1600x900. If you have 3 monitors and normally run 5760x1080, set your game to run 1920x1080. This isn’t set in stone, you can always change it back when you’re sitting at your computer and want to play with your 3 screens wrapped around you.

WAIT! ONLY 1080p?!

Yes.

What, you need a longer explanation? Ok. 4K TVs are a vast minority to 1080p TVs. Also there is the fact that a gaming computer capable of playing games at 4K, often not even at 30fps, is way beyond the financial reach of the average gamer, 1080p is still the defacto standard. And that’s not even factoring in the overhead needed to encode 4K and send it over the network to your TV. So actually taking advantage of a 4K capable Steam Link would cost an exorbitant amount of money.

Oh, right, and there are no hardware 4K video encoders. Basically making the whole proposition reliant on CPU based software encoding, which will drag your already sub 30fps games quite possibly into the single digits if it can even handle it at all. Oh, sure, 4K hardware encoding is coming. Sometime. Eventually. But it’s not here right now.

When 4K is mainstream, not only for TVs but also for gaming and any $200 GPU is capable of at least 30fps at 4K resolutions, if there isn’t already a revised Steam Link capable of 4K streaming, likely with a 1Gbps port, then you can complain about the 1080p upper limit.

Will the Steam Link work with [insert controller name here]?

The officially supported list of controllers is on the store page.

Supports Steam Controller (sold separately,) Xbox One or 360 Wired Controller, Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows, Logitech Wireless Gamepad F710, or keyboard and mouse

However, it is important to note that this is not an exhaustive list, and your off-brand generic controller or no-longer-being-produced controller you’ve had for 15 years may very well work just fine. But we can’t know until someone tries.

Same with racing wheels, fight sticks, flight sticks or full on HOTAS setups. We can’t know until someone tries. I think that it would be a great idea, once the Steam Link is released, to get a sticky going with a community built database to list which controllers work and which do not.

UPDATE 2016/01/13: While there is not a stickied list yet, this thread is an attempt to catalog which controllers are and are not working: https://steamcommunity.com/app/353380/discussions/0/483367798512557201/

Will the Steam Link work with [insert peripheral here]?

As with the controller, there’s just no way to know until someone tries. If it’s a popular enough peripheral, there is a good chance it already works, or that support will be added in with a firmware update very soon.

How many controllers does the Steam Link support?

We don’t know for certain, but we do know that during the Dev Days 2014 Steam Controller presentation, Valve have stated they have support for 16 Steam Controllers, which we can likely reliably assume that also goes for the Steam Link. That said, there are 3 USB ports, and Bluetooth connectivity. Theoretically you can use USB hubs to extend the number of USB ports and hook up more and more controllers. What that upper limit is, we don’t know yet.

But suffice to say you will at the very least be able to enjoy 4 player local games with no problems. If there are games out there that actually allow 16 (or more) simultaneous players on the same screen, I’d love to know about them.

[8BitCerberus]

Can I play a game on the Steam Link while my [insert relationship here] uses the computer to surf the web or do work?

In general, no. The Steam Link (and in-home streaming) mirrors what is on the host computer. If you’re playing a game and someone sits down at the computer and tabs out of the game to start browsing the web, you’re out of the game and in the web browser.

Can I play a game on the Steam Link while my [insert relationship here] uses the computer to play another game? Can we do multiplayer this way?

See the above answer.

Now there are a couple of options to work around this, but it requires a pretty high-end computer. Essentially what you can do is “split” your computer into two completely separate instances, running simultaneously. Either through a virtual machine using GPU passthrough, or through somewhat sketchy software that allows for “multiseat”. But you need two GPUs (if the goal of the computer is only for web surfing, then the onboard GPU would be fine for that, but if the goal is to play another game, you will want two discrete GPUs), and you’ll need a lot of RAM, and you’ll want a CPU with as many cores as you can get. It’s doable, but it’s not inexpensive, and it’s not a simple “push the button to make it work” process.

As for multiplayer, if it’s not a same screen/split screen game, then the same rules apply as with any game on Steam. Your [insert relationship here] will need their own Steam account, with their own copy of the game. Even if you manage to stream to Steam Link while someone uses the computer with one of the methods above, this is not a way around this limitation. They won’t be able to use your Steam account to play a game, even if it’s not the same game you’re playing, while you are streaming to your TV.

Is my internet connection fast enough for this?

This uses your home network. Your internet connection doesn’t matter, unless you plan on setting up a VPN so that you can connect to your computer from outside your network over the internet. Then your upload speed is going to be very important, and if you are on a metered connection, you will need to monitor yourself to make sure you are not going over your data cap.

If this is something you want to be able to do, it might be wiser to look at something like Amazon EC2, or LiquidSky which is currently in beta testing. These are basically server rental services that allow you to set up a fully functioning remote computer. Amazon EC2 averages out to about $0.55 / hour of use, while LiquidSky are aiming for about $10/month subscriptions, which sounds like the better option if you play games for more than 18-19 hours a month, but if you’re like me and would only need the remote play sporadically and most of your gaming is going to be done at home anyway, Amazon EC2 might prove to be the far less expensive option. I could see myself playing an hour here and there at the coffee shop, maybe 5 hours per month. With my schedule, 18-19 hours a month is often more than I have time to play even at home, much less have need of a remote gaming server.

It says pre-order but the store page doesn’t have a pre-order button

Unfortunately it seems you live in a region that, either by law or by some other reason, cannot pre-order. You will have to wait until November 10th to order directly. However, all is not lost because there are no real benefits to pre-ordering, other than maybe getting the Link on November 10th instead of a day or two later. Most likely Links won’t actually be shipped out until November 10th anyway, maybe a day or two before at best, so your delay in receiving a Link ordered on November 10th versus being able to pre-order right now will be minimal.

That said, if you have a GameStop in your region, you can always go by one on November 10th to get a Link. And it’s highly likely that more retailers, both online and brick and mortar, will carry the Steam Link very soon after the launch date.

Will this make my old crappy computer play games better? Will it play games as good as the Steam Machines?

Why, yes, of course a tiny $50 box the size of an 2.5” external drive will certainly take the place of a good gaming computer or $400+ Steam Machine. /s

No. And if you’re main computer is already struggling to play games, streaming them to your TV is only going to exacerbate the problem and make the performance worse. If this is something you want to be able to do, you’re going to need to upgrade your computer or buy a Steam Machine for your gaming system.

Does this only work with games purchased through Steam?

No, you can add any game to your Steam library as a non-Steam game and more likely than not, it will work just fine. There have been several people testing older games in the in-home streaming forums and some games have been identified as incompatible, but they are very old and there aren’t too many of them. You can add Origin games, or GOG games, or even games with no associated client or storefront, even Minecraft that’s a Java application. You can even add console emulators, or get fancy with command line parameters and add all your console games individually.

In fact, you can even stream a web browser, or media player. See the next question for further details.

Will I be able to stream Netflix/etc. with a Steam Link?

Add Chrome as a non-Steam game and stream to your Steam Link and that gets you access to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube, Spotify and any other media content you want. Or run a Plex Media Server anywhere on your network and use Plex’s web interface to access all your local media. Or add Kodi or VLC if you prefer them. Just about any program on your computer can be added to your Steam library as a non-Steam game, and most of them will stream just fine.

This is all, of course, the current way to do media streaming. However, back when SteamOS was first announced, Valve had said they were working with media partners to get their “apps” ready for the launch. The current speculation is that we will see the various media services with native apps ready either for the November 10th launch, or following soon after. So when they are available, you can just use the Chrome streaming work-around to fill in the gaps for any missing services you want to use.

edit to add: You can even stream your desktop with full control of your PC, simply by adding something like notepad as a non-Steam game, then tabbing out of it while it's streaming.

If it finds more than one computer running Steam on my network, how does it know where to stream from?

As with in-home streaming, if you are signed into more than one computer running Steam with the same game installed, there is a drop-down arrow on the “Stream” button that you can use to choose which computer it will stream from. This really only affects you if it’s your account signed onto multiple computers, or if you have Family Sharing on all your computers with different accounts signed in on the same network.

If you have roommates, or friends over with their computers, or you live in a dorm or duplex/apartment with a shared network, Steam Link will see them, but you won’t see anything from their libraries unless they have given you permission through Family Sharing.

It works exactly the same as in-home streaming, because that is all that the Steam Link is, a dedicated box for in-home streaming.

Why should I get a Steam Link instead of an Nvidia Shield/Razer ForgeTV/etc?

Well, it’s 25% of the price for about 85% of the functionality. If the ability to play Android games on your TV is worth the extra $150 to you, then by all means go for it. Of course there’s nothing stopping you from getting both, but that’s a bit redundant.

Why should I get a Steam Link instead of an Xbox/Playstation/Nintendo?

That’s for you to decide. Personally, I think if there are console games that I definitely want to play that are not either already on PC or known to be coming to PC, then I will buy the console in order to play them. However, the Steam Link is only $50 and will let me also bring my PC games to my TV, so I see no reason it can’t be used in addition to a console or three.

So with Xbox One streaming to Windows 10, could I then stream that to the Steam Link?

Uh… yeah, most likely. Why you would want to, instead of just playing the Xbox directly on the TV is a mystery to me, but … yeah, sure, you should be able to do that.

How do we do Steam VoIP/Teamspeak/Ventrillo/etc?

Right now you don’t. Currently microphone input is not possible through in-home streaming, but it’s something Valve is working on. If you have a wireless headset that has enough range to reach back to your computer, or a very long headphone cable, those are currently the only options, unfortunately. Hopefully this will be something they can figure out soon and be able to use Bluetooth or one of the USB ports to plug in a headset.

[edit]Another good question, answered by Vepar:

I pre-ordered the Link, but I will be moving before it ships. How do I change my shipping address?

Open your account details (upper right where your steam name is), then view purchase history, and click on the "view shipment details" on the [Link]. You can change it there.

Still have questions that I didn’t cover here, and the answers aren’t found on the store page?

Feel free to comment below, or start a new thread if you must. If you’re going to start a new thread, at least do a search of the forum first and make sure your question hasn’t already been asked (and likely thoroughly answered many times) already.

[halifax]

Great double post, it is funny how many people have been asking these same questions. Although not knocking most people, many of these are fair questions - just a few of the first you mentioned are the ignorant ones, like the HDMI cable crowd - and it is unfortunately a crowd! I think I've seen at least 10 people independently come along and make some dumb rehash of the "HDMI cable trumps it all!" post.

I paid about $200 for wireless HDMI (two small hardware devices, one transmitter and one receiver) and have been using that for years to stream to the living room: it's an inferior solution to Steam In-Home Streaming, though. Biggest issue is no USB ports included in the streaming devices. That alone would make it a LOT more viable. The other problem is not nearly as robust options for the streaming: "movie" or "game" modes are the only two options. Equated in practice to: "do you want too much lag or too much compression? choose one please" :-)

"100Mbps? wtf?!" is a little less ignorant, it's easy before you know anything at all specific about in-home streaming to think that a 1Gbps wired connection would be better than a 100Mbps connection. Actually, with some of the encoders, I was getting pretty respectable streaming with "unlimited" bandwidth selected on the client. The lag was staying at around 45ms, which is still doable for my non-competitive skillz. And the bandwidth would routinely get as high as 76 Mbps. So a good chunk of the switch/router, but still under 100Mbps...

Originally posted by 8-Bit Cerberus:

Will I be able to stream Netflix/etc. with a Steam Link?

Add Chrome as a non-Steam game and stream to your Steam Link and that gets you access to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube, Spotify and any other media content you want.

I was thinking of trying this, but since I'm using SteamOS vs. a Steamlink, it's more efficient to install Linux Chrome on the SteamOS desktop and run it local vs. stream it.

[Raven]

i think this is a good place to post this.
Here is a list of all known issues and limitations of In-Home streaming in general (which should also apply for the Steam Link):
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3629-RIAV-1617

[Keyboard Cowboy]

I haven't been able to find an answer for this, do I need to be using SteamOS to use this?

[Raven]

Originally posted by Cinder:

I haven't been able to find an answer for this, do I need to be using SteamOS to use this?

no ... the host machine just needs to have Steam running. Can be SteamOS, but doesn't have to be necessarily.
So In-Home streaming is already present for a while. Just see the Steam Link as another (headless) steam-client which doesn't store any games on it but only streams them from another Steam-client.

[Gerky]

I have a weird and possibly dumb question. So essentially, the box streams the contents of your computer to your TV wherever in the household. Neat, I'm interested. It'd be nice to kick back on the couch and play some games with having to deal with the hassle of disconnecting all my cords then having to tote my heavy computer to the TV to reconnect it for a few hours. That I am most pleased about.
However (now this is where it might sound stupid) is it required to use a controller as the primary source of gameplay? I did notice there are some usb ports on the back so I was thinking maybe it possible to connect a keyboard and mouse to play? I have a certain few dozen games that would be weird to play on controller.
I would assume it so because most games are not full or partial controller supported but I just wanted to cover my bases before I went and preordered it.

[halifax]

I'm thinking you didn't read the original post ;-) Yes, mouse and keyboard will work fine, you're covered.

[Keyboard Cowboy]

To add a second question, the Steam Link looks kinda small. I'm guessing it'll only have 2, maybe 4, usb ports. Would using a usb hub be possible?

[8BitCerberus]

3 ports, and hubs should be possible. You won't be hooking any hard drives up to it (it won't play games directly, no point) so non-powered hubs should work fine for controllers and keyboards/mice, though of course powered hubs would certainly work too.

[Gerky]

Originally posted by halifax:

I'm thinking you didn't read the original post ;-) Yes, mouse and keyboard will work fine, you're covered.

Oh lol I suppose. Had a buddy looking online too for an answer. I suppose it better to get all the stupid questions out so those people who try to make toast in the bathtub don't ask them over and over again.

[Swamp Ghost]

Coming to you fine gents with this question as it wasn't addressed in the FAQ:

I was reading a review on Tom's Hardware because I wanted to make my own sort of little steam machine for my girlfriend since I have some good parts to recycle into it. So, I want her to be able to play in the living room on her portable monitor hooked to a Steam Link. But then I came across this:

"I can't help but feel that there is wasted potential for the device. To play a game with Steam Link, you need to physically start a game on the PC, then go to where the Steam Link is and play the game. The device mirrors the PC, but it only does this after the game launches. You cannot just start the game remotely from the Steam Link.

I asked Gabe Newell, founder and president of Valve, if it is possible to control your computer with Steam Link for other purposes, such as Web browsing or watching a video. Newell said that it is technically possible, but Valve had no plans to use the device for this purpose. Newell did say, however, that OEMs who license the technology for embedding into other devices could develop this feature later on."

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/valve-steam-link-steam-controller,28733.html

Is this review just old? Is the information outdated? I'd really prefer not to have to get her a dumb throwaway monitor to attach to her box just to get games going and force her to change rooms to stream anything. It seems kind of absurd to me that you couldn't switch apps or start/stop apps from the 'streamee'.

Thanks for any clarification!

[8BitCerberus]

I would wager that review is wrong. [edit]And I can't find any other corroborating evidence to support it from other reviews/hands-on/previews. It would be monumentally silly for Valve to overlook something like that.

The Steam Link is just a purpose built box for using In-Home Streaming, and with IHS you don't have to start the game on the remote computer first, you just browse the library on the streaming computer and launch the game as if you were sitting at your computer.

[Raven]

Originally posted by 8-Bit Cerberus:

The Steam Link is just a purpose built box for using In-Home Streaming, and with IHS you don't have to start the game on the remote computer first, you just browse the library on the streaming computer and launch the game as if you were sitting at your computer.

This!
It's already possible to start a game remotely. If there is already a steam client in the (local) network which also has the game installed, you get an additional option to start and stream it from this machine. This all happens automatically in the background.
So the steam link will definitely also be capable to do it.

[Gel214th]

This was a great post and explained just about everything I needed to know, in a wonderful snarky and sarcastic tone. :-)

[PXL]

Originally posted by 8-Bit Cerberus:

...[snip]...

You sir, deserve a medal!!!!

I don't have a medal. Have some money!