Steam Link Alternative

SoAdCrAzY · 31 Jul 2021 at 12:55

Hi,

I have a desktop PC that I use for gaming but want to play my Steam games (such as Fall Guys, car racing games etc.) on my TV in the other room.

I have got the latest Steam Link app on my Amazon Fire Stick 4k and everything has gone well. It has found my computer and says that it has a good connection (even though it is wireless). However, the screen is black (the audio plays) and the connection is a few seconds behind and it completely disconnects every few seconds.

I ran a speed test on my PC and got 110MB/s. I ran a test on my Fire Stick and also got 110MB/s.

My PC is connected via home plug in the other room which isn't ideal but the router has to be in the living room.

My PC has an AMD graphics card so I cannot get the Nvidia Shield.

Are there are alternative ways that people can suggest which do not involve moving my PC into the living room every time I want to play?

Thanks.

Pigeon_Killer · 31 Jul 2021 at 12:58

Does your TV have an Android OS? If so, there's a Steam Link app you could try on that.

SoAdCrAzY · 31 Jul 2021 at 13:38

Pigeon_Killer said:
Does your TV have an Android OS? If so, there's a Steam Link app you could try on that.

My TV is just a 43" monitor so doesn't have any apps on it.

Haggisman · 31 Jul 2021 at 13:42

SoAdCrAzY said:
My PC has an AMD graphics card so I cannot get the Nvidia Shield.

A common misconception

Nvidia shield will work fine with an AMD card, it just means you have to use the Steam Link app instead of Gamestream. It will not support HDR, but otherwise it works perfectly.

I've been running steam link via shield with my RX 6800 for the last ~8 months, and before that a 5700xt

Gimpymoo · 31 Jul 2021 at 15:17

AMD Link.

SoAdCrAzY · 31 Jul 2021 at 16:00

Would it be worth getting an actual Steam Link to see if that'll help?

Haggisman · 31 Jul 2021 at 21:26

Is the firestick connected wirelessly? If so that's likely the problem. A physical steam link will probably be better than that, but the shield is far superior

bayo000 · 31 Jul 2021 at 22:24

I used this a few years back and worked great
https://moonlight-stream.org/

LabR@t · 1 Aug 2021 at 18:14

Raspberry pi

Gimpymoo · 1 Aug 2021 at 21:51

I built a Ryzen APU PC for this reason, works a treat and none of the hassles of "streaming" and I get ad free Youtube in the lounge

Haggisman · 2 Aug 2021 at 13:14

Gimpymoo said:
I built a Ryzen APU PC for this reason, works a treat and none of the hassles of "streaming" and I get ad free Youtube in the lounge

That's not going to run at 4k though?

Gimpymoo · 2 Aug 2021 at 16:27

Haggisman said:
That's not going to run at 4k though?

Neither is game streaming.

SoAdCrAzY · 2 Aug 2021 at 16:55

Gimpymoo said:
I built a Ryzen APU PC for this reason, works a treat and none of the hassles of "streaming" and I get ad free Youtube in the lounge

I have a 4k stick. I have sideloaded an ad-free YouTube app on it which is good. I do have the YouTube ad-free app on my computer too though (well, got the www.youtube.com/tv website working as navigating via the actual website is very frustrating). I also run my computer as a Plex media server so I can watch my films and TV shows.

I have ordered a Steam Link device so will see how that is at streaming my games. I will plug the Steam Link directly into my router but my PC is connected to a home plug which we'll see if that is sufficient.

Haggisman · 2 Aug 2021 at 17:54

Gimpymoo said:
Neither is game streaming.

My experience suggests otherwise

Orcvader · 3 Aug 2021 at 12:12

Try Parsec, assuming it's available for the Fire stick, but I believe you can sideload it: https://parsec.app

I found it works better than Steam Link when I'm streaming from the PC to the TV.

Firejack · 3 Aug 2021 at 12:21

SoAdCrAzY said:
.

I have got the latest Steam Link app on my Amazon Fire Stick 4k and everything has gone well. It has found my computer and says that it has a good connection (even though it is wireless). However, the screen is black (the audio plays) and the connection is a few seconds behind and it completely disconnects every few seconds.

.....

This is a known issue when using an AMD graphics card. I reported it ~18 months ago and a Valve employee said it was down to an incompatibility with the AMD Hardware Encoder and Android Decoder on certain devices i.e Firestick 4k.
Your best option is to go to Settings >> Remote Play >> Advanced Host Options and uncheck "Enable hardware encoding on AMD". If you have an Intel CPU with an integrated GPU with Quicksync. I'd use Intel Hardware encoding instead as in my experience its been the best solution for Steam Link. Otherwise using software encoding isn't the end of the world. But you will need to lower the resolution to get the latency down to something that feels responsive in fast games.

SoAdCrAzY · 7 Aug 2021 at 16:31

To update this ticket: I have got a second hand Steam Link and everything works perfectly now. Well, apart from the occasional black screen for a few seconds sometimes. I'll do the above fix though. Thank you.

TurtleTwo · 7 Aug 2021 at 21:10

Parsec ftw.

SoAdCrAzY · 11 Aug 2021 at 09:57

The reason I went with a Steam Link was because it has USB slots for connecting my peripherals. It has been a pain though. If I was to get an app for my fire stick, I'd have to get an ethernet adapter and then I wouldn't be able to plug in any USB devices.

Firstly, my XBox 360 controller has a problem where the right joy stick doesn't work. It only lets you click it and I can't move it in any game. I have tried all of the troubleshooting techniques to fix this but nothing has worked.

The frequent black screen for a couple of seconds can't be fixed either even after turning off hardware encoding.

Lastly, RDR2 runs super slow at a very low resolution.

SoAdCrAzY · 16 Aug 2021 at 20:50

A friend came round today and his official controller worked fine so I'm buying the bike and getting an official one.

Rdr2 runs okay on low settings which I can get used to.

I would still appreciate if anyone has any suggestions for the frequent black screen? Turning hardware encoding off doesn't work not does running steam.exe as an administrator.