Will a PC with ethernet work well with a Steam Link on wireless?

[jgustin7b]

As the title describes, my pc is using a wired connection, and I am planning on getting a Steam Link during the sale that is going on currently. Problem is, none of the Ethernet ports throughout the house work. (My pc is directly wired to the router). My PC usually runs around 1080p and the Steam Link is supposedly the same resolution. On my PC, I usually get around 100-110 FPS on what one may call "eSports" games for the lack of words. Would the link work well with such games? Thanks in advance.

 

[Solandri]

It will work, but not as smoothly as over ethernet. With my gaming laptop about 5 feet from the router, if I play on the Steam Link over 802.11ac, it mostly works, but there's a slight hiccup every 10 seconds or so, sort of like stutter. If I run it over ethernet, playback is perfectly smooth.

The gaming PC has to do the encoding (the Steam Link just sees a video stream like playing a movie). So this may be partly dependent on your system specs and how much load the game puts on your system. There are a bunch of settings you can try tweaking, which I haven't since it works fine for me over ethernet.

You're not gonna get 100-110 FPS on your Steam Link. I suspect it's limited to 1080p @ 60 Hz by the HDMI port.

 

[jgustin7b]

Thanks for the quick reply. Yeah, forgot to mention that I knew of the 60 hz max on the link. If I were to lower the resolution on the link, say, to 720p (if that is even possible), do you think I might get slightly better performance? And secondly, if I were to use it wirelessly, should I set it on the 5 ghz band (again, if possible)? One last thing, my PC is a self-built desktop, has a gtx 1050 and Pentium g4560 with 8 gigs of ram...if you even need that info.

 

[jgustin7b]

Well...thanks.

 

[Solandri]

The ethernet port on the Steam Link is Fast Ethernet - 100 Mbps or 12.5 MB/s. I normally get 25-35 MB/s over my 802.11ac link. So I doubt bandwidth is the problem since my WiFi is actually faster than ethernet on the Steam Link. I think the problem is just wireless itself. The encryption and error correction overhead makes it really difficult to smoothly stream stuff in real time, as the slightest glitch will cause a hiccup. Normal streamed video doesn't have to be real-time, so it buffers the stream to hide these glitches. So I doubt dropping to 720p to reduce bandwidth will help.

As for 2.4 GHz, I believe the Steam Link only supports 802.11ac, which is 5 GHz-only.

 

[jgustin7b]

Thanks for the extra info. Looks like it may not be in my favor at the moment. I'll try it out anyways as the link is stupidly cheap at the moment ($2.50 plus the $7 ish shipping) compared to normal price. If all fails, well, at least I can do every other relatively minor thing Steam can do...or return it...