Understanding Steam Link

[JohnnyW2001]

I own a Steam Link and it works great, but there's still things I'd like to do in order to improve it (eg. boost FPS or image quality). The problem is that I don't fully understand how it works, so I don't understand where the bottlenecks might be.

Would a second graphics card just for streaming be a good investment to help make the most out of it? If so, would the integrated GPU inside many Intel CPUs be of use (spoiler, this does work, and many people suggest doing it, I understand there can be some drawbacks -- although I don't understand these, either).

Here's a real world example: I have a computer with a 1680x1050 monitor attached. My TV downstairs is full HD (1920x1080). Unless I run games at my TV's resolution, they look very blurry, so I use NVidia's control panel to add a custom resolution of 1920x1080 that can be used in games... but now those games (eg. The Phantom Pain) don't run as smoothly as they did.

Is this because of the encoding of my Steam Link? Or is it because my graphics card isn't powerful enough to run MGSV at full HD?

If there is an overhead in running Steam Link, what is it and how can it be reduced?

(Just to fully flesh out the picture, my PC is: Core i7 3770K @ 3.5Ghz, GTX 760 3GB, Windows 10 Pro, 16GB RAM)

 

[JohnnyW2001]

Ok, so I have an answer, which I'll share for any future visitors who are interested:

Basically Steam Link is a streaming device -- taking a video stream and putting it up on your TV (along with a simple OS to control everything). It doesn't actually do any of the encoding, however, that's all done your PC. That's the major overhead, although it's not too bad for most hardware it seems.

You have two options for your encoding: Hardware and Software.

Hardware means using a piece of hardware designed for video processes -- in this case your graphics card (GPU).

Software means using hardware not designed for video processes -- in this case your main processor (CPU).

Hardware = Low CPU load
Software = High CPU load

Some Intel CPUs come with GPUs built into them, which is where things can get confusing. Some people think this sounds like a great tradeoff: Making use of a GPU that's normally sitting there idle. The downside is that this GPU is actually much worse than your normal GPU for such jobs as it requires input from your CPU and copies everything to and from your system RAM -- the type of thing that creates the exact type of lag you're trying to avoid.

So ultimately your best option is to just use the default config: Your GPU. If you want to improve your experience, it's pretty much all about upgrading your GPU.