(Solved) In-Home Streaming caps FPS to 47 ~ 48 on host machine

[MeganeDamashii]

Update / fix

In case you run into this issue: Double check the refresh rate on your client system, even if you think it's 60Hz.
It seems the host's game will be capped to the client's refresh rate.

Original post

Hi

I just tested In-Home Streaming with a couple of games and no matter which game or encoding settings I choose, I'm always getting capped to about 47.75 FPS host-side -- even if the game would otherwise run at >100 FPS without issues.


Host specs:
Intel i5 4690
16GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 960 4GB
Windows 7 64bit

Client specs:
Intel i5 6200U
8GB RAM
Intel HD Graphics 520
Windows 10 64bit

Games I tested: Valkyrie Drive Bhikkhuni, Dark Souls 2 SOTFS, The Talos Principle (and others)

The systems were directly connected with a single ethernet cable (ping and input latency at <1ms according to the performance info).
No warnings like "slow encode" popped up -- the actual games were being rendered slower.


As of now, I'm convinced that this is not a matter of the host lacking raw power. I used to play games via In-Home Streaming with the same host 1 or 2 years ago without this issue (yes, they were different games, but still). Plus, if a lack of performance was the issue, I doubt every single game would drop to exactly this frame rate.


Things I've tried so far:
I tried the different encoding methods: Software / NVENC / Quicksync. They were all basically the same (apart from quicksync delivering poor performance, but that's not the issue here)

I tried different client settings as well, but I cannot recall exact combinations, since I was basically banging rocks together eventually.

I switched to the Steam beta on the host system.

I launched the game directly on the host (without stream) → performance as usual, and then started the stream for the running game client-side → frame rate goes down to 47.75.

I ran a game in windowed mode.

I set the host's 144Hz monitor to 60Hz (who knows, right?)


Is this an issue that can be fixed on my end? If so, how?
Or is this an issue on Steam's end that may or may not be addressed in the near future?
Thanks for your time if you read the whole thing.

[Sicris]

Have you tried setting the stream resolution lower? Actually try setting everything to the lowest setting but leave the GPU hardware encoding on. See if the frame rate goes up or if it stays the same.

It's definitely something wrong with he host PC. If it was the client side or the network it would drop frames or have latency but it wouldn't affect the framerate of the host PC. Maybe an outdated driver or something like that.

[MeganeDamashii]

Right, I eventually forgot about the resolution setting because that's part of the client options (why?).

Updated the Nvidia drivers on the host machine to the version from June 29th (previous version was early June).
Set the client side to "fast" with 480p resolution.
For good measure, I set the game (continued testing with Dark Souls 2 only at this point) to 800x600 as well.

Tested with both software and GPU hardware enconding and running the game in fullscreen and windowed mode.
Still cannot exceed 48 FPS.

[MeganeDamashii]

I fixed it in an unexpected way.

For some reason, the monitor refresh rate of the client laptop was set to 48Hz in the Intel HD Graphics settings. When I set it back up to 60Hz, the host is capped at 60 FPS while streaming, which is fine by me.

I was convinced the issue was host side, too, but there you have it. Still thanks for replying though.