Why does Steam’s remote play suck so much?

[Raphael Ambrosius Costeau]

I have my PC connected to a 2.5g connection and my steam deck is hardwired to a 1g connection and it’s so choppy or the latency is insane. It almost feels as if Steam abandoned remote play.

[Tarra Sama]

It's not your devices, it's literally steam. Don't waste your time with it.

[RPG Gamer Man]

I wish they would overhaul and improve it. That is one of my wishes for it in the future. I did mention years ago in suggestion thread about improving it's functions and adding netcode to it.

[Ogami]

2.5G connections are not optimal for streaming gameplay.
5G is much more stable so use that if its available.

Also look into using Moonlight/Sunshine as streaming clients for your games, they are much more stable and have better picture quality then the Steam client streaming.
Streamed a bunch of games from my desktop to my ROG ALLY with Moonlight and it worked really well.

[Haruspex]

It's much better if the source machine (your PC) is hardwired and the client machine (your Steam Deck) is wireless. It's largely dependent on your network environment though. Ideally both machines are wired and you cut wireless out of the equation entirely.

As Ogami mentioned, try to use the 5 Ghz connection instead.

Use a WiFi analyzer app on your phone to see if the wifi channel your network is using is crowded, and go into your router settings and switch to a less crowded channel.

Distance to your router and physical obstacles, plus the actual physical makeup of those obstacles matters. You'll have better signal if you have typical American style interior wall construction with timber and drywall, rather than older style construction with plaster.

[ReBoot]

Enable the performance graph and see which line spikes. Troubleshooting always begins with looking.

[Raphael Ambrosius Costeau]

Originally posted by Haruspex:

It's much better if the source machine (your PC) is hardwired and the client machine (your Steam Deck) is wireless. It's largely dependent on your network environment though. Ideally both machines are wired and you cut wireless out of the equation entirely.

As Ogami mentioned, try to use the 5 Ghz connection instead.

Use a WiFi analyzer app on your phone to see if the wifi channel your network is using is crowded, and go into your router settings and switch to a less crowded channel.

Distance to your router and physical obstacles, plus the actual physical makeup of those obstacles matters. You'll have better signal if you have typical American style interior wall construction with timber and drywall, rather than older style construction with plaster.

They’re in the same room running Ethernet. The router being used is an ASUS ax-11000

[Raphael Ambrosius Costeau]

Originally posted by Ogami:

2.5G connections are not optimal for streaming gameplay.
5G is much more stable so use that if its available.

Also look into using Moonlight/Sunshine as streaming clients for your games, they are much more stable and have better picture quality then the Steam client streaming.
Streamed a bunch of games from my desktop to my ROG ALLY with Moonlight and it worked really well.

Sorry it’s 2.5gigabit and the deck is in a gigabit connection

[Wolfpig]

Originally posted by 𝑅𝑒𝒶𝓅𝑒𝓇:

I have my PC connected to a 2.5g connection and my steam deck is hardwired to a 1g connection and it’s so choppy or the latency is insane. It almost feels as if Steam abandoned remote play.

Does your pc have a 2.5g network Port?
And your Router too?

Not that it would matter as it would max out at 1g (at best) either way as the speed of the slowest device gets matched.

And of course the Max speed has nothing to do with the latency between the devices at all.

[Raphael Ambrosius Costeau]

Originally posted by Wolfpig:

Originally posted by 𝑅𝑒𝒶𝓅𝑒𝓇:

I have my PC connected to a 2.5g connection and my steam deck is hardwired to a 1g connection and it’s so choppy or the latency is insane. It almost feels as if Steam abandoned remote play.

Does your pc have a 2.5g network Port?
And your Router too?

Not that it would matter as it would max out at 1g (at best) either way as the speed of the slowest device gets matched.

And of course the Max speed has nothing to do with the latency between the devices at all.

It’s less than 1ms of latency.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

Ive only bothered with it a few times and personally havent seen any issues with Remote Play.

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by AmsterdamHeavy:

Ive only bothered with it a few times and personally havent seen any issues with Remote Play.

Same, and my network setup is less than optimal. Both my PC and my Steam Deck are using WiFi. It works really well unless someone else in the house starts doing something that uses a lot of bandwidth, like downloading a game. Wireless VR through Steam also works really well.