Which client hardware for 4K / UHD @ 60 FPS ?

[Iron-Clone]

I would like to run Remote Play in 4k / UHD @ 60 FPS and client details set to "Beautiful". I have a powerful host PC and a gigabit LAN. I am looking for a small and silent client hardware which I can hook up to my TV via HDMI 2.0. It is important for me that I can game with mouse+keyboard on the client hardware.

The Steam Link apps for iOS, Android and Samsung do not officially/reliably support mouse+keyboard. The Steam Link Hardware and the app for Raspberry do not support 4K yet. Therefore I plan to build a silent Windows 10 mini PC with as my client hardware.

The Remote Play FAQ says: "The client has modest requirements, but should have a GPU that supports hardware accelerated H264 decoding. Any recent laptop or PC should meet the client requirements." It turned out that is no fully true for UHD...

I tried a Zotac Zbox with an Intel Celeron N4100 processor. Its UHD Graphics 600 chip delivers 4K @ 60 Hz over HDMI 2.0 and supports hardware accelerated H264 and H265 decoding. Unfortunately the N4100 is not powerful enough for UHD Remote Play. In 4k @ 60 FPS I get 50% frame drops and the games are unplayably laggy. If I lower the framerate to 30 FPS, then the frame drops go down to 2%, but the Display Latency on my client is still around 75 ms, and that is way too much lag for fast-paced games.

Do you have a mini PC which is capable of running Remote Play in 4k / UHD @ 60 FPS and client details set to "Beautiful" while sporting a client Display Latency of around 15 ms (which is the equivalent of what the Steam Link Hardware is capable of doing in 2K @ 60 FPS)? If yes, which model, CPU and graphics chip do you use?

[SXL]

hi

[Tassadar]

Have you considered the NVidia Shield?

[Iron-Clone]

The Steam FAQ says that mouse+keyboard input is not officially/reliably supported for remote play on Android/Shield. Does anybody have experiences with playing with mouse+keyboard on a Shield?

[ACE]

Originally posted by Iron-Clone:

I would like to run Remote Play in 4k / UHD @ 60 FPS and client details set to "Beautiful". I have a powerful host PC and a gigabit LAN. I am looking for a small and silent client hardware which I can hook up to my TV via HDMI 2.0. It is important for me that I can game with mouse+keyboard on the client hardware.

The Steam Link apps for iOS, Android and Samsung do not officially/reliably support mouse+keyboard. The Steam Link Hardware and the app for Raspberry do not support 4K yet. Therefore I plan to build a silent Windows 10 mini PC with as my client hardware.

The Remote Play FAQ says: "The client has modest requirements, but should have a GPU that supports hardware accelerated H264 decoding. Any recent laptop or PC should meet the client requirements." It turned out that is no fully true for UHD...

I tried a Zotac Zbox with an Intel Celeron N4100 processor. Its UHD Graphics 600 chip delivers 4K @ 60 Hz over HDMI 2.0 and supports hardware accelerated H264 and H265 decoding. Unfortunately the N4100 is not powerful enough for UHD Remote Play. In 4k @ 60 FPS I get 50% frame drops and the games are unplayably laggy. If I lower the framerate to 30 FPS, then the frame drops go down to 2%, but the Display Latency on my client is still around 75 ms, and that is way too much lag for fast-paced games.

Do you have a mini PC which is capable of running Remote Play in 4k / UHD @ 60 FPS and client details set to "Beautiful" while sporting a client Display Latency of around 15 ms (which is the equivalent of what the Steam Link Hardware is capable of doing in 2K @ 60 FPS)? If yes, which model, CPU and graphics chip do you use?

try getting a cheap HDMI 2.0 capable card,even slowest low profile cards like 745/1030 should do well. my advise: get a 950/960, 1030/1050. all support hdmi 2.0 and hevc decoding. maybe you can get older and/or smaller nivida cards to run with an active displayport/hdmi 2.0 adaptor, but this is tinkering plus those cards most likely doesn't support h264/265 encoding.
maybe you should concider buying a laptop matching your requirements and wire it to your TV when you wanna play there

[Davud Sandstrom]

Originally posted by Iron-Clone:

I would like to run Remote Play in 4k / UHD @ 60 FPS and client details set to "Beautiful". I have a powerful host PC and a gigabit LAN. I am looking for a small and silent client hardware which I can hook up to my TV via HDMI 2.0. It is important for me that I can game with mouse+keyboard on the client hardware.

The Steam Link apps for iOS, Android and Samsung do not officially/reliably support mouse+keyboard. The Steam Link Hardware and the app for Raspberry do not support 4K yet. Therefore I plan to build a silent Windows 10 mini PC with as my client hardware.

The Remote Play FAQ says: "The client has modest requirements, but should have a GPU that supports hardware accelerated H264 decoding. Any recent laptop or PC should meet the client requirements." It turned out that is no fully true for UHD...

I tried a Zotac Zbox with an Intel Celeron N4100 processor. Its UHD Graphics 600 chip delivers 4K @ 60 Hz over HDMI 2.0 and supports hardware accelerated H264 and H265 decoding. Unfortunately the N4100 is not powerful enough for UHD Remote Play. In 4k @ 60 FPS I get 50% frame drops and the games are unplayably laggy. If I lower the framerate to 30 FPS, then the frame drops go down to 2%, but the Display Latency on my client is still around 75 ms, and that is way too much lag for fast-paced games.

Do you have a mini PC which is capable of running Remote Play in 4k / UHD @ 60 FPS and client details set to "Beautiful" while sporting a client Display Latency of around 15 ms (which is the equivalent of what the Steam Link Hardware is capable of doing in 2K @ 60 FPS)? If yes, which model, CPU and graphics chip do you use?

What did you end up doing? I'm considering the same thing and can't find much info out there...

[Iron-Clone]

I ended up buying a Zotac Zbox Magnus with a built-in Nvidia 1070 chip. It is a bit less small than I would have preferred, and it does have an active fan, but it can run Remote Play in 4K flawlessly. It smoothly streams Epic/Origin/UPlay games via Moonlight in 4K, too. And the 1070 chip is powerful enough for me to play simple games directly on the Zbox without needing to power up my main gaming rig. The fan is very slient during Remote Play. I can recommend this solution!

[Davud Sandstrom]

Brilliant - thanks very much for getting back to me!