Steam In-Home Streaming Requirements

[Victor_3]

I'm having trouble to stream from my Laptop to my Desktop PC, due to this last one being a bit old but even then I don't think Steam Link isn't that powerful so here are all the specs and info:

Everything is within the same room, I have my laptop connected to my TV so I could play with controller but there are some games where keyboard+mouse are the best so I want to play them on the desktop PC.
I can only stream with "fast" option which looks ugly and even then sometimes it hangs. Am I limited to PC hardware or wi-fi connection?

(I hope I don't have the terms "host" and "client" mistaken)

Laptop where I run my games(host):
Intel Core i7 3630QM 2.40GHZ
Nvidia GT635M 2GB
6GB RAM

Desktop (client):

Steam settings equal at both PC's:

Internet connection:
Hotspot 4G 20/10 Mbps

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

If you are running the SteamLink wirelessly you are going to have a bad time. To get the best performance you need to be on a wired network from PC to router to laptop. If your wi-fi isn't REALLY fast you'll suffer from quality issues and lag.

 

[Supernova1138]

If you are running the SteamLink wirelessly you are going to have a bad time. To get the best performance you need to be on a wired network from PC to router to laptop. If your wi-fi isn't REALLY fast you'll suffer from quality issues and lag.

I definitely agree with this having tried in home streaming myself a couple of years ago. Wireless can be very dicey unless you have the computer running your games on the wired network, and you have your laptop or Steam Link sitting right next to the wireless router getting the best signal possible. I just wound up running an ethernet cable down to where I wanted to stream games to so I could use that and get consistent performance without lag spikes or outright freezes due to poor wi-fi signal.

 

[toshibitsu]

For the heck of it I tried using Steam Link from my desktop (Ryzen 7 2700x, 32GB DDR4-3200, GTX 1080 Ti OC) to an old laptop(i7-4720HQ, 16GB DDR3-12800, GTX 960 2GB) over Wireless AC-2600. It's a 300 Mbps cable internet connection. I noticed even playing an older game like Left 4 Dead 2, I'd get occasionally "lag spikes". Of course if I connect both PC's via LAN, then the issue goes away. I just wanted to see how good this "AC" is. I'm guessing I need AC-5300?

 

[Victor_3]

There's an high chance of me don't get it right. So, In-Home Streaming/SteamLink allows you to play on another room division but the best performance is achieved with wired connection, then what's the point of it? I mean, usually I have my laptop on my room, if I want to play with some friends on living room to get best results I need an ethernet cable?

It kinda kills the objective of it, I think....

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

There's an high chance of me don't get it right. So, In-Home Streaming/SteamLink allows you to play on another room division but the best performance is achieved with wired connection, then what's the point of it? I mean, usually I have my laptop on my room, if I want to play with some friends on living room to get best results I need an ethernet cable?

It kinda kills the objective of it, I think....

No one ever accused Valve of being smart.

That said, it is trying to stream a high quality 1080p signal using a minimal amount of compression so that it doesn't affect game play. If they had gone with heavy compression you'd be using more CPU to compress the stream and needing more CPU to decompress it, hurting performance on a lot of systems.

Not to mention that there is also network overhead to consider. If you are playing a game online as well as streaming, you have the internet connection's data flowing through the same pipe. The average wireless connection just can't handle that kind of constant throughput. Add to that, even the fastest wi-fi connections produce heat in their radio circuits and sometimes have to throttle to cool down, and the case for wired connections becomes even better. Wi-fi is great for every day usage, ie. streaming compressed video, browsing the web, playing some games but, when you get into serious network usage, wired is still the way to go.

You are right that for a laptop it doesn't make sense, but for another desktop or a SteamLink, neither of which move, it makes perfect sense. That or you could invest in a 5 GHz wireless network. It SHOULD have enough bandwidth to handle it, but all your devices have to have the ability to use a 5 GHz network, and the signal has to be strong enough.