Best TV streaming device for Steam Link?

[WatchAdam]

Does the Steam Link app work especially well on any TV streaming device (Roku, etc.)? I tried it on the Chromecast with Google TV as well as my Hisense Android TV interface, and had issues on both, particularly with latency (the TV won't even go into gaming mode for the app).

I have the original Steam Link device, which seems to provide the best experience. However, if there is a way for me to play games above 1080p on my TV without latency or other issues, that would be great.

Just wondering if anyone feels they have an ideal experience on any particular hardware with the Steam Link app?

[WatchAdam]

Quick followup -- I just discovered while looking into this that one could technically use a Steam Deck to do this -- stream from PC to the Deck and then dock it to a TV. Obviously this is probably the most expensive option. But I wondered if anyone's doing that and if it works well?

[琴影]

I try to use steam link on the steam deck, unfortunately it doesn't work well, it often freezes and the picture can't be output to my steam deck normally, so I think the option of running steam link through the steam deck and then connecting to the TV is impossible

[_I_]

an old laptop with link app, or steam client

[WatchAdam]

Originally posted by _I_:

an old laptop with link app, or steam client

Interesting! Would a Chromebook work or would a Windows laptop be best?

[_I_]

windows would be better, but if the chromebook has hdmi and supports the higher res it could work

[WatchAdam]

I have a Surface Pro 7+. Was just thinking about the idea of connecting a Surface dock to my TV, and streaming from my desktop to the Surface. That should work, right?

[Brohands McSmooth]

Originally posted by WatchAdam:

Originally posted by _I_:

an old laptop with link app, or steam client

Interesting! Would a Chromebook work or would a Windows laptop be best?

I used to do this on a Chromebook that I had Linux installed on and it worked very well. Acer C720 with Xubuntu (and later Xfce Debian)

[Fragish]

I use an android box from Verizon (Stream TV 4k) and have very good performance on 4k. It has wired ethernet so my network latency is very low. On the streaming stats, my red line usually hovers around +25ms. I've had play sessions where I forget that I'm streaming. There are occasional lag spikes, but I'm convinced that is a steam problem that you're going to have on any streaming client.

If pure performance is your concern (and you have an nvidia card), you should check out Moonlight+Nvidia Gamestream. With that combo, I can get 4k@60fps with <15ms total latency. Steam Link has a much superior user experience, but it can't compete with Moonlight on pure performance.

A caveat: I don't play twitch games so I'm not as sensitive to latency.

[WatchAdam]

Thanks for that input. Nvidia is killing Gamestream, so worried about anything using that.

Has anyone tried AMD Link, by the way?

[Brohands McSmooth]

Originally posted by WatchAdam:

Thanks for that input. Nvidia is killing Gamestream, so worried about anything using that.

Has anyone tried AMD Link, by the way?

I tried AMD Link only as a Remote Desktop, which it was very meh for.

Originally posted by Brohands McSmooth:

I used to do this on a Chromebook that I had Linux installed on and it worked very well. Acer C720 with Xubuntu (and later Xfce Debian)

Also I wanted to add to this as I just remembered, but I beat a full playthrough of Sekiro using this setup. Both using Wi-Fi in the same network.

I also used to bring my chromebook to a friends house and stream Dead by Daylight from across town. It was hit or miss, but pretty workable.

Edit to add: I've used a Raspberry Pi 4 with RetroPie/EmulationStation for this as well, it's playable but worse than the chromebook was. https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/28294/steam-link-within-retropie

[NOSOUPFORYOU]

I am currently looking at options myself, got a steam deck "and pc setup". But trying to figure out if it's wiser to get a dock and plug into the TV for my deck, or get an nvidia shield pro and get the steam link app since nvidias gaming experience is dead?

[_I_]

if you have the deck, the dock would work
the deck can play some games natively very well
or you can always stream games from a pc to it

steams remote play works good when configured properly, and deck supports almost any bt controller