Washed out colours when in-home streaming to Steam Link

[Sack Blabbath]

I've had two steam links connected to two different TV's for years. Now since a few days (I think after a Windows (10) update) the streamed image quality is absolutely trash. It's very washed out, there are hardly any colours and the contrast is very weird, almost like the gamma is too high.

The image on my monitors, connected to my pc, is fine. The image on the Steam Link menu's on the tv's seems to be fine too, so it's only the stream itself that looks bad.

I've moved around some settings in Steam (like disabling and enabling hardware acceleration), but that didn't fix it. In Windows, as far as I can tell, HDR isn't enabled anywhere. (None of my monitors or tv's have HDR capabilities). I also can't find anything in AMD's software that could cause the problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[ShadowShifterMarlith]

Windows 10 struggles with 4K HDR, & if you don't have enough colors of nitz,
your Computer will produce Washed Out Colors...

Now, here we are again with Steam Link, another problem is
that Steam Link has a known problem with Internet capabilities...

It doesn't have a strong enough signal to reach the Computer,
which is yet another problem where Washed Out Colors are
being produced...

The best overall way to fix this on the TV:

Get a TV with at least I think 4000 Color Nits,
for a Vizio TV, you need at least M Series or
Higher for more Color Nits, for other brands
you might need to do some research...

Then you Enable HDR, if it looks Washed Out,
try adjusting the Colors, or Graphix Settings
while HDR is still Enabled till it's fixed, &
make sure that Windows allows access to it,
or Linux, or whatever your on...

The Best overall way to fix this on the Steam Link is:

Make all your Settings put on the lowest Settings,
then tackle on 2160 Resolution, or whatever your
Monitor supports, as for the Internet? Try setting
it to Eathernet, if you can't do Eathernet, then
WiFi will be fine, but do everything you possibly
can to make Steam Link run at it's top Speed
by minimizing functionality & lowering Graphix
to bare minimum... Resolution should be the
only thing that you can adjust, & if you don't
like that? Lowering your Resolution should
help a bit more...

Eventually, the last issue is that i'm not sure about
Eathernet, but on WiFi your Picture Quality is fine
at first, but the signal degrades the Picture Quality
over time, & it doesn't seem like there is any way
to fix that, Eathernet is the most suggested Option
to prevent this from happening, however I haven't
found any real improvement of it over the WiFi Option,
so I Ultimately used WiFi instead for myself...

Good Luck...

[Sack Blabbath]

Thanks for your detailed reply.

The thing is, my TV doesn't have HDR-capabilities, nor do any of my other screens. I also never enabled HDR in any settings or anything like that.

The only reason I mentioned HDR is because the problem seems to somehow be related to it. Like my PC is sending an HDR-stream to a non-HDR device/screen, but I have no clue why that would be or how to fix it.

I also stream to the Steam links in 1080p and everything is connected by ethernet, nothing goes over Wifi so bandwith shouldn't be a problem either.

[ShadowShifterMarlith]

Did you try to minimize all your settings in Steam Link?

On both your Computer & your TV?

Again, I was able to fix maybe 60% of my issue with the Steam Link,
but I was never able to fix it 100%, I think the Steam Link just has
a weak Signal going to the Computer, & for the most part, there just
isn't anyway to resolve it... It's just a good product with bad execution...
A good idea on Paper, but once you try it, you realize what is wrong...

I wish I could help more, but that is the best I can come up with...

I read something once... You could try limiting the bandwith on it,
putting in a specific ammount, but I never really noticed a big
difference that it made on my Steam Link, but it's something you
can try...

4500, 5000, or try 5500

Maybe?