Steam in-home streaming ... maybe I'm missing something

norseman4

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Mar 8, 2012
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OK, Steam says to do this simply have two computers in your home network signed into Steam under the same account, and on the machine that you want to use, launch the game.

I just got a NUC, and have a good gaming machine with, for example, a highly modded Skyrim. Steam is on both of them signed on with my ID. There is an alert saying that the other computer is ready for streaming.

Now, how do I get the power of my gaming rig to display on the NUC? Do I have to load the games on my tiny, and relatively small NUC? There is nothing saying that the games need to actually be installed on both machines.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.
 
Solution
As long as the game is installed on your main gaming PC and that PC is online you should be able to stream it without installing it on the weaker PC.

Open Steam on the PC you actually want to play on. Go to the game you want to play and there should be an option to stream it from the host PC. If it is installed on both PCs there should be a drop down next to the play button that gives you the option to play it from the local machine or stream it.
As long as the game is installed on your main gaming PC and that PC is online you should be able to stream it without installing it on the weaker PC.

Open Steam on the PC you actually want to play on. Go to the game you want to play and there should be an option to stream it from the host PC. If it is installed on both PCs there should be a drop down next to the play button that gives you the option to play it from the local machine or stream it.
 
Solution
Thanks for your answers. They were actually correct for somebody who was familiar with going to the Big Picture, then the library to launch the games. (BP the launching from the library was the steps I was missing)

I've only used steam to look for new games, or other content, to download, and launched the games from a desktop icon or from the start menu, which is finally how I got it to work.

I didn't check and it's getting late now but, can you stream it straight from the library and not have to go into that 'Big Picture' UI?
 
You definitely could in the past when streaming to a computer. I never used Big Picture when streaming from one computer to another computer.

I have a Steam Link now so I never stream directly to a computer anymore. The Steam Link always boots directly into Big Picture.

When I play games I go into my Steam Library and click the name of the game I want. I don't make desktop icons for my games because I have tons of them and I don't want my desktop that cluttered.