Our phone as a second screen

[STURM]

Hello,

I have an idea. Now steam app is full OK on smartphone but a little limited. My idea is to use it not only for steam, but games around (from mods for example).
Using our smartphone to show more informations from games like the steam controller project did before from its little screen.
For example in the biding of Isaac, the HUD or the item tracker could be good if it was displayed in the phone's screen.
Do you think it could be a good idea ?
Thanks.

Max.

[Gwarsbane]

That would be up to the games makers to make functionality like that on the phone. Steam just can't do it on its own. So go ask the game makers to do something like that.

[Mohammad Hijazi]

引用自 Gwarsbane：

That would be up to the games makers to make functionality like that on the phone. Steam just can't do it on its own. So go ask the game makers to do something like that.

what about stats and achiements. like when you're playing the game it shows you the fps, gpu and cpu temps, what aciements you got and how long till the next one.


or even as a remote play thing like the ps vita or wiiu. it's good for some small turn based games so that you can play in bed and other stuff. but maybe use bluetooth mouse and keyboard on the phone/ tablet

[Gwarsbane]

Sending the FPS info to a phone is pointless as you by the time the phone would get it, that info would be outdated. Being on screen is where you need it at the time.

Achievements are not important, and don't need to be sent to the phone. You also have no idea how long before you get the next achievement. Couple be 3 seconds could be 3 hours could be 3 days. You would need to keep updating the info which would take up valuable cell data and those plans are not cheap, least not in the US and Canada. If your phone has wifi, its then free, but not everyone has that setup properly to switch to wifi when in the house with a wifi router handy.

GPU & CPU temps are not done by steam, they are done by 3rd party programs which has nothing to do with steam. You would need to talk to them to get them to make apps for stuff like that. There are a few keyboards that allow you to connect a cell phone up to it and you can have an app on it that sends all that info to it. A second monitor would be more effective as you can have all that info and more sitting there handy all the time instead of having to take your hand off the keyboard or mouse, basically stopping the game to pick up your cell and look at, unless you have it on some kind of stand, which most people won't. Also same point with the data usage above if you are using it remotely and not connected to anything.


Remote play is dumb, its laggy and you can already do this if you have tablet. Remote play with a tiny phone screen is again dumb as you can hardly see anything. At least with a decent size tablet you have half the screen you normally use. And again data plans are expensive.

[Mohammad Hijazi]

the fps thing doesn't have to be laggy (oooh it's a couple milliseconds off what will i do. that's the time required to pick up the damn phone) and it's just easier to pick up the phone and check when was the minimum, avergae and all that stuff without having to leave the game to check the log

and the achiements could be like "hey 2 more bad guys to kill till next achiement. or one more mission" and you don't need the router since it isn't that difficult to just plug the thing in since you're already at your pc (though that would require a rooted android phone)

and how hard is it to add that functionality (temp monitoring0 to steam. at least that way you don't have to download a ♥♥♥♥ ton of programs that al have terrible ui. plus they'd corner the market there since if you're already using steam then why use something else

for the remote play you ouldn't be using your data plan since it would require you to be on the same network hence wifi and some games don't utilize the whole screen hence giving you the ability to use a phone (and what's the average now 5.5" which is good enough for some games)
and since it wouldn't be perfect hence no twitch based games i did specifically state turnbased games since more if not all don't have a time limit and the lag wouldn't affect gameplay

[Gwarsbane]

引用自 mohamedhijazi22：

the fps thing doesn't have to be laggy (oooh it's a couple milliseconds off what will i do. that's the time required to pick up the damn phone) and it's just easier to pick up the phone and check when was the minimum, avergae and all that stuff without having to leave the game to check the log

If you are in the middle of action, and you are interested in seeing what your FPS picking up your phone is going to get you killed or one of your team killed because you are no longer paying attention to your screen and have a hand off your mouse or keyboard, or controller.

Also its more then a few miliseconds. It can be 1 to 2 seconds before that info reaches the phone as its got to go from the computer to the steam servers, to the phone company to the phone. This is why playing streaming games is pointless because of lag.

Seconds of lag to see an FPS which you can easily see on your own screen while playing is pointless. Its quicker and easier to glance up in the corner of your monitor while playing. If you don't want to see it all the time, get a FPS program that you can turn off with just a couple of key presses.

引用自 mohamedhijazi22：

and the achiements could be like "hey 2 more bad guys to kill till next achiement. or one more mission" and you don't need the router since it isn't that difficult to just plug the thing in since you're already at your pc (though that would require a rooted android phone)

Again achievements are pointless, if you need to know pause the game and take a look, if you can't pause the game, you really don't need to know at that point. Some games don't update the achievements in real time, they only drop when you exit the game.

引用自 mohamedhijazi22：

and how hard is it to add that functionality (temp monitoring0 to steam. at least that way you don't have to download a ♥♥♥♥ ton of programs that al have terrible ui. plus they'd corner the market there since if you're already using steam then why use something else

Valve and Steam are not into the hardware monitoring business. BUT heres is the thing. There are so many combos of motherboards, cpus, gpus and everything else that you can monitor stuff, they would have to figure out and keep updating all that stuff all the time. Again they are not in that business. But companies that make programs like speed fan, GPU-z and CPU-z are in that business so they are on top of all that stuff all the time.

If you want good accurate information on all that stuff sent to your cell phone, go talk to them about getting an app made to do such a thing.

引用自 mohamedhijazi22：

for the remote play you ouldn't be using your data plan since it would require you to be on the same network hence wifi and some games don't utilize the whole screen hence giving you the ability to use a phone (and what's the average now 5.5" which is good enough for some games)
and since it wouldn't be perfect hence no twitch based games i did specifically state turnbased games since more if not all don't have a time limit and the lag wouldn't affect gameplay

Even over wifi its still going to be laggy, again for some games it will be fine. Most people don't use the wifi part of their phones, if they did they would save a crap load of data usage on their plan.

Also doing stuff like this pretty much stops everyone else from doing anything major on your router like streaming a movie or watching youtube or stuff like that because those things are gonna suck up so much bandwidth there would be no point in playing as the lag it would cause would make even the simple games you talk about near impossible to play. So while fine, for someone who lives alone, its not that good for people who live with 1 or more other people that use the router to do things.

From my understanding, Steam is actually working on something like nvidia shield. Again I see it as pointless, as you are not going to be able to play top of the line games and be stuck with ones where lag doesn't matter.





And the reason why I am arguing with you over this as I see it as a waste of time for Valve, they could have those programmers off doing something else more important. Game streaming to either a dedicated steaming machine or to your cell phone is just not worth it.

[HOT DOG]

not erveryone has a smartphone for taking an advantage in a game. why not just get another monitor? still aint gonna make a difference when your in the game.

[STURM]

I though something like the logitech ARX CONTROL application. Or others gaming keyboard which display gaming informations. But open source to display what we want/need.

[Black Blade]

I think something like these can be pretty nice, and better then users needing to download new apps for these, or at least been able to send a link to the Play Store/App Store/Windows Store to get game Dev created app

There is a game i am planing for my 3rd game, that will also use a tablet/mobile when you play it, but that means now that i need to make my own app for it, and ask users to download it to enjoy the full experience (can play with out it), been able to link the download to the Steam app on the user phone to make it easy, or even the ability to create a simple UI for the game with in the Steam app on the mobile i think will be great
For example you can take the Metal Great Solid V, Companion app (Xbox One, PS4 Only at these time)
They have the abilty to do things while playing with out the need to open the menu, for exsample looking at the map, while you are in-game walking around
Example:

Warning spoilers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqchXRAwZ4U