Steam In-Home Streaming

http://store.steampowered.com/streaming

by MetallicCloud • 12 years ago

115 50 12 years ago

store.steampowered.com

To anyone running headless systems, it's worth mentioning that this works extremely well for remote control of network systems. I've played with it a bit so far and I'm quite impressed with the low latency/high quality.

DanOWar• 12 years ago

By remote control, do you mean as a VNC/RDP alternative for non-gaming purposes?

tbergeron2• 12 years ago

I guess so, I've been using it to run Chrome just for the lolz and it works really well. Just add an app to your Steam library, then run it and good chances are that it'll actually start. Sometimes it doesn't but in most cases it works well!

trvz• 12 years ago

Also consider that software other than games is sold on Steam as well: http://store.steampowered.com/software/

rblatz• 12 years ago

So I can add Visual Studio to my steam library, and potentially develop in it from my mac? This is huge, I can now run my PC at home headless since I only used it for games/visual studio.

Omniusaspirer2• 12 years ago

Yep! It works great too, just add it as a non-steam game or do one of the workarounds to stream the desktop and then start it from there.

yaeger2• 12 years ago

I would be interested in the other way around, as well.

Could I add XCode to Steam on a Mac and then stream that on my main Desktop?

I know I can hook up my MacBook to an external keyboard and monitors but I have a very... integrated setup for my main Windows Desktop and hooking up my MacBook with those monitors, keyboard would be quite a hassle.

This way, I could keep it on my couch table and still be able to work on XCode on my big Desktop monitor.

Goronmon2• 12 years ago

I've been using this more and more lately. Most recently to play Dark Souls 2 on a laptop in the living room rather than having to be sequestered upstairs in the office.

It's pretty amazing how well it runs, with the input lag being minimal and the quality of visuals far surpassing what the laptop could actually handle on it's own.

evo_9• 12 years ago

Being a pretty hardcore Dark Souls guy I have to ask - is even that minimal lag acceptable?

I'm just thinking how many invader duels end up being super close, even a fraction of a second here and there adds up. Plus there is already some lag when playing online with friends and/or against an invader to begin with.

Goronmon2• 12 years ago

Best comparison I can make is that playing Dark Souls 2 on the PC over in-home streaming is comparable to playing it on a PS3.

Plus there is already some lag when playing online with friends and/or against an invader to begin with.

Any network lag you experience during multiplayer is going to far surpass any noticeable input lag IMO.

kenrikm• 12 years ago

I played the entire original Dark Souls on my Nvidia Shield - which is more or less the same concept. I never ran into an issue.

tbergeron2• 12 years ago

It's really working great, I've been using it for about the past six months (beta) and it always went great, way better than expected. I wasted hours and days trying to come with a similar solution and it always sucked. Glad they came up with something actually enjoyable.

ratscabies• 12 years ago

Tried it a couple of months ago, and it ran like ass. Could be due to older hardware? Serving PC is core 2 duo 6850, and htpc it was playing on is core 2 duo 6400. Wired fast ethernet connection.

spartango• 12 years ago

You want the serving pc to have hardware accelerated video encoding (e.g. Intel Quick Sync), otherwise it runs terribly. Similarly, the client should have hardware accelerated decode, but that is very common.

smacktoward• 12 years ago

So if I want to stream Steam games to my TV, what sort of client hardware do I need on the TV end? Is there an inexpensive box I can buy and use for this purpose? The support articles are kind of vague on what the system requirements for clients are...

mcb3k• 12 years ago

Many of the lower-end Steam Machines should be capable of doing this, as well as some HTPC implementations (assuming they can run Steam, so not a Roku or AppleTV or such). I'm betting the SteamOS system requirements[1] would be a decent proxy until more information is released, although I doubt that you would require a hard drive that big and a graphics card that powerful.

[1] http://store.steampowered.com/steamos/buildyourown

wonderyak2• 12 years ago

I just got up and running with a temporary HTPC that is attached to my second TV. Its a crappy Nettop with an Atom and 1x PCI-e ION2.

I'm getting 30FPS @ 720p on the TV streaming a number of games (Civ V, Stick of Truth); I also tried a number of non-Steam games which worked great as well.

Requirements seem very, very modest.

sliverstorm4• 12 years ago

It seems like basically the machine needs to be able to push the equivalent video resolution (presumably software codec; In-Home Streaming probably doesn't leverage hardware MPEG decoders) and that's about it.

On my TV I use a 65W A10 in a mini ITX case with a 90W PSU. It has on-chip graphics, HD7660, and it handles streaming at 1080p without getting warm (my network on the other hand...)

I've also used my laptop, an A6 with HD8250 on-chip graphics. It does 720p with no problem (don't know about 1080p, 720p is the native res)

I expect you can go even lower, but if you are building an HTPC the cost difference between an A6 and an A4 is pretty small.

Edit: if you wanted to go tight budget, you might even be able to use one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113...

Edit2: Apparently it does use hardware encode/decode. I think the most recent 2-3 generations of chips from both vendors all have that, but don't quote me.

matt_morgan• 12 years ago

I tried to do this with VNC a long time ago, so I could play Wizardry 8 on a laptop in the backyard. My wifi couldn't reach to the shady spot of the yard.

izzydata2• 12 years ago

"With good hardware and a fast home network, you’ll forget the game is running remotely." But with bad or moderate hardware you'll experience wonderful 5000 ms latency and have a horrible time.

It seems like you would need an HTPC anyway to load up steam and send the video from that 2nd computer to your TV. The whole process seems pointlessly convoluted.

I'd rather have wireless hdmi or even a really long hdmi cable from my good computer to wherever the tv is.

RobotCaleb• 12 years ago

I have wireless HDMI at work. It's not even close to low enough latency to play games on.

izzydata2• 12 years ago

Ah, I wasn't even aware that was a real thing. I guess there goes that idea.

sliverstorm4• 12 years ago

The upsides to a remote rendering rig are not obscene, but they are nice. Basically a top-end machine is big, ugly, noisy, and hot. So remote rendering lets you put it out of sight in a dark corner of a cool room in your house. In my case, the basement laundry.

It also means the rendering rig can still have normal monitors to be used as a normal computer if you choose.

Lastly, even my $400 laptop can now play Skyrim at max settings, so I can play on the porch if I like.

As your other reply mentions, as far as competing remote rendering protocols, there aren't really any others good for games.

mey3• 12 years ago

I have been using this on and off in beta. If possible I highly recommend a wired network connection. I have been testing it on a WRT54GL and that was not always sufficient. When my AC router is not misbehaving (ASUS RT-AC66U) I've been able to play online FPS shooters surprisingly well. Fighting games or FPS that are heavily twitch based won't work, but pretty much anything that can suffer the occasional frame drop or isn't precision works well.

tl;dr You may need an N wifi router or better that is rock solid to make things run smooth.

rb2k_2• 12 years ago

You ARE using a 9 year old router, considering that probably all other hardware (PC, Laptop, Consoles, Phones, Tablets, ...) was replaced since then and most cable connections can't be maxed out with that wifi speed (After forward error correction you'll end up with about 30 mbit/s), a lot of things might be happier if you switched that one out :)

mey3• 12 years ago

I'm actually running two access points right now. One of things I've valued the WRT54G on has been it's stability, where my AC router tends to crap all over itself depending on how demanding the active video streams are. Additionally, I barely get 15mbit down from Comcast currently.

StavrosK2• 12 years ago

Which modern router do you propose? I am currently running Tomato, it's a great balance of ease-of-use and customizability. I'm not interested in having to do everything on the command line on the router as well, so if a modern router can run some great version of Tomato, it would be fantastic.

sliverstorm4• 12 years ago

My RT-N66U handles 720p just as well as my powerline network does, at least with a good signal, and that's on 2.4GHz with 2-3 interfering channels.

If you can't get WiFi to perform, don't be surprised, but it isn't impossible.

Just remember to turn off your bluetooth stuff, my connection was terrible at first and I'm pretty sure shutting down my active bluetooth connections are what fixed it. (Alas, if only my client was 5GHz)

P.S. My rendering machine is always wired through powerline, so my setup does have an advantage in that the rendering machine isn't competing for wireless bandwidth with the client!

ps4fanboy• 12 years ago

I wish there was a stream only hardware box we could get that I can plug into my TV. Maybe they could port the stream receiver to Android?

CodeMunky• 12 years ago

Not sure if your comment is tongue in cheek, but if not, or for others that do actually have the same thought there are options.

SteamOS http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/ and http://store.steampowered.com/steamos/ will allow for building your own box and they've got third parties working on a "broad range" of hardware options that will come pre-installed with the OS.

yaeger2• 12 years ago

True, but on order to be really useful, an ARM option would be needed. Just think, a 30 dollar RaspberryPi with a bluetooth dongle popped in the back of your TV and you will be able to play any of your Windows games.

hughes• 12 years ago

If you add Chrome as a non-steam game, you can stream netflix to your linux laptop. The audio actually syncs better than it does watching in wine!

Vespasian• 12 years ago

Can't you use pipelight(http://fds-team.de/cms/pipelight-installation.html) for this?

I tested it with some silverlight based services available here (not netflix though) and it worked like a charm.

grrowl• 12 years ago

This is amazing.

turshija• 12 years ago

Whoa, I will have to try this with Raspberry Pi - "How to make 35$ SteamBox".

Btw, just tested it on my MacBook Pro, its awesome to start some CPU/GPU intensive game and play it without fan noise and heat :) Also interesting thing - you can add nonsteam games (battlefield, guild wars, heck even applications - WinSCP etc) and stream them ! This is awesome !

arg01• 12 years ago

I've seen some of the discussion related to SteamOS and the Raspberry Pi. Looks like SteamOS has no ARM support, so that is likely to be a hurdle. Something similar is Limelight which streams your computer to a PI including keyboard and mouse support, but is only compatible with a Nvidia 600 or 700 card.

rasz_pl• 12 years ago

What is under the hood? Turbo/*VNC? custom mpeg2 encoder? mpeg4 would be too much for low latency fullhd stuff I guess.

shurcooL• 12 years ago

iOS client app would be great.

Steam In-Home Streaming

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