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Wow, when they were practically giving those away, I figured they were washing their hands of it. It’s amazing that it’s still being supported.
Mine was $1! I love it. I just bought a wireless mouse and keyboard for it, because it’s honestly just a great way to stream stuff. Now my computer can be in my living room, and my office at the same time!
I’ve got one I never hooked up. Can you just control the computer in general or do you only get access to steam? I wanted to jellyfin with it maybe
You can do both. The default is Big Picture mode, but you can back out if it and get a desktop.
But, you’ll basically have to be a foot or two from the PC to read anything unless you have a desktop environment set up for a large screen (KDE plasma has a TV version)
You can control the computer but it boots in big picture so you need to escape it to get to the desktop
Isn’t that a setting, and you can make it connect without launching big picture, so it’s basically just pc streaming?
Yes, I have one and remember doing just that.
Oh cool I didnt know that. That’s handy
Can control it in general, but the first few times you’ll have to run over and look at the monitor to do stuff.
It generally assumes it’s being used “close” to the computer, so instead of complex pairing, it just shows a code on one you type into the other.
Sometimes windows will get antsy and pop up a dialogue that can only be interacted with locally, but it’s only one or twice ever.So, would you say, shit just works?
Think about it though. Probably some overlap with the deck. And hiring one dev very part time to keep this thing alive is nothing for them. Which makes the steam deck way more lucrative
Tell me you don’t know how valve works without telling me you don’t know how valve works.
How do they work?
Flat structure. If you want to work on something, work on it; if it’s not interesting to you, find something else. If you have an idea find people that also seem passionate for it and start making it, if you can’t find people then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s why valve rarely makes anything, but when they do it’s super high quality
Means that there is this one dev who still likes to use his steam link and so he keeps maintaining the project
That’s actually really awesome.
I bought one during the clearance sale for the price of shipping, assuming that it would be abandoned but maybe still useful as a low-power linux server. I guess I ought to set it up and take advantage of it.
Thanks, Valve, for not letting these things become instant e-waste.
8 years later and I still haven’t used it once
Every time I’ve tried to use it, I’ve either had to head downstairs to the PC to fix something or had terrible lag and artifacting making it unusable for even turn based games like Xcom…
But I still love that little box. I’ve got two of them and I have Steam Controllers to pair with them but I’ve never had luck with them. Wired, wireless, no luck.
Have you tried Moonlight? It’s an open source streaming alternative software that you can install on Steam Links, streams using Nvidia’s GeForce Experience as the broadcasting part and Moonlight receives it.
https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine works for AMD/Intel/Nvidia :-)
Unfortunately the NVIDIA part isn’t open-source. With that said, for what they are, products like Moonlight and Parsec actually are really good.
Agreed. I prefer Parsec where available but Moonlight gets better performance on my Android TV box.
Moonlight was a better alternative a few years ago when I tried it but I just built more computers. I’ve got three towers in the same room at this point, not to mention the Switch and Steam Deck. If I’m ever far enough away from video games to make me consider streaming them, I’m usually too lazy to bother.
Every time I’ve tried to use it, I’ve either had to head downstairs to the PC to fix something or had terrible lag and artifacting making it unusable for even turn based games like Xcom…
That’s not normal. While Steam Link is a bit older by now and as a result there are constrains like streamed resolution, your problems look more likely connected to your network than Steam Link itself. Digital Foundry talked about PlayStation Portal recently which also includes a two minutes chapter about best practices that apply to other game streaming devices as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEoo_gbOBYo
I use mine all the time. It’s a great peice of hardware
Maybe the Steam Link and Controller weren’t as popular as Valve hoped they would be, but damn everyone who still has them seems to love them. Maybe I’m biased because I still have my controller and love it, and I gave away my Steam link because my Deck can do that too, but my friend who received the link is loving it.
The Steam Controller is one of the best pieces of hardware I ever bought. There’s something incredibly chill about playing strategy games not originally meant for controller on the couch. I also genuinely like fiddling with cool setups and radial menus for it.
I never really liked the Steam Controller when it first came out. My Dad was actually the one that had gotten them and even he seemed to have set them aside after awhile, as they just collected dust for ages after that. I picked them up from him a few years back and I’ve started using them with my Steam Deck and they’re actually pretty nice, I get it now, though I kind of wish they still had analog sticks. They still work fine though after all these years, while every set of Xbox-style controllers I keep getting for my kids last for maybe 6 months before they’re useless.
I loved my stream controller so much I recently bought a second on eBay
Bruh steam controller goes for 200$ idk what you talking bout
Valve was selling their controllers for $5 to blow out the stock (one per account).
but today is 2024 my good sir
So a good year to use a static avatar and a readable user name is what you’re saying?
100$ pay pal and you can choose my font and image
I’m talking about how Valve dumped them for $5 a piece because they clearly weren’t selling enough.
It’s technically a collectors item now
I love mine. It does one thing, and it does it well. That’s exactly what I wanted from it
Eh, I’ve had issues with mine being able to stream 1080p@60fps with my pc on wifi without it lagging like crazy, and my desktop had a strong AX connection to the AP (and speed/latency/jitter tests to and from the router were perfectly normal).
It’s definitely starting to show its age, but it’s great if you’re streaming at 30fps.
I would definitely not recommend a wifi connection for this
That’s the thing about Valve. They really know and do software as good as anyone else in the business.
Let’s not pretend alt tabbing a source game was possible pre 2013
True, but the Steam overlay is a good workaround
Steam Overlay is laggy and cluttered and unintuitive. Valve does a lot well, but every piece of its software, aside from Proton, is almost hostilely worse than competitors’.
Have you not seen updated Ubisoft store?
Not like anyone else, they’re unique.
This post reminded me that I have a Steam Link. Somewhere.
Somewhere, someplace, steam link is there
I put mine in the original packaging and donated to one of these gifts for kids collections… in hind sight that product was so niche especially being pc gaming is probably quite rare in low income families I can’t imagine any kid being happy with it so I feel a bit guilty!
I teach lower income students and they love technology as much as the rest of us. They usually opt for used electronics and a lot of them are getting scammed into buying secondhand enterprise rigs that are converted into shitty gaming PCs, but don’t worry, you made some nerd’s day.
This post reminded me that it’s supposed to be used for gaming. I’ve had mine since it was first released and have always used it to turn my TV into a PC monitor to watch YouTube and Movies from my bed
Feels like a nice symptom of Valve’s flat structure.
Feels like a nice symptom of Valve’s flat structure.
Elaborate?
I was curious about it too and there was a paper about it with the following summary:
Valve is a “flat” company without a management hierarchy or traditional boss roles: instead of top-down organization and management, Valve employees are free to work on whatever projects they choose and to convince other employees to join collaborative groups. Decision-making is thus “democratized” rather than centralized in key management positions. This peculiar structure, or lack thereof, seems to challenge conventional ideas about organization not only in the video game business but also business in general.
Uhhh, that sounds really nice! I think that also explain why I personally dont have the feeling that it is completely derailing, like a lot other companies. In the end, while I’m not the biggest fan of Valve, I’m more than willing to recognise the impact they made, especially for Linux gaming. Without them, we would be in a completely different spot now. I’m sure that these kind of decisions, which oftentimes turn out to be industry-changing, are facilitates by this organisational structure.
So yeah, thank you Gabe for not making the company accountable to shareholders and actually not completely driving your user base against the wall. It is highly appreciated.
It’s not all nice unfortunately, but definitely one of the better models.
They have pretty sad problems with being a male dominated cutthroat environment. The workers can fire each other over stupid things and get status from harsh mutual overseeing and that, so it’s not very humane in there
Thanks for sharing that, but I was already aware of their flat structure.
What I was asking specifically was for elaboration on the comment of the analysis of the ‘symptom’ of the flat structure, and not the existence of the flat structure.
Not that the flat structure causes the symptom, but how it causes the symptom.
Maybe, but it’s far more likely it’s just dependancies and other 3rd party library packages being updated.
The Steam Link Linux package also still gets the rare update now and then on my old Ras Pi, but mostly these days it’s just the Android app being given bug fixes (even though the last one is from October).
If you have proper full continuous deployment infrastructure setup then you can do minor updates of things like dependencies automatically. I’d guess that’s what’s happening here.
Amazing how many products just don’t.
But…but…vAlve doEsNt suPpoRt iTs haRdWare
I’ve never seen people say this, but if they do, fuck em
It depends what you mean by support. They made the Steam Link for 3 years and have not made it for 5 years.
I just wish it worked on modern linux.
spent an entire weekend trying to get steam link to work only to find out it doesnt work on wayland.
Removed by mod
Well, there’s always the possibility of a Wayland compatibility upgrade. I know it’s a lot, but these guys are nerds hard-core about this, and thank God for that, too.
Works great on AMD as well. I moved from a 2800 Super to an AMD 7900xt, and its almost latency free even at 4k on gigabit wired. Reasonable on WiFi, even across the house.Wrong reply my bad
Give Sunshine (host) and Moonlight (client) a try.
Haaaaaands down better quality and latency.
I would love to see Valve embrace these projects and integrate them for streaming in app at least, maybe even run on Links?
Does Sunshine/Moonlight only work on PCs that have Nvidia cards, or also those with AMD video cards?Read further down to this comment that had a link to the product page and what it supported.
Thank you to those who had already responded.
Works great on AMD as well. I moved from a 2800 Super to an AMD 7900xt, and its almost latency free even at 4k on gigabit wired. Reasonable on WiFi, even across the house.
Ooh! I’ve been looking for something like this, but didn’t know the right words to google.
Steam Link is a piece of hardware in this case, not the software you are discussing (I would guess?).
neither work with wayland.
One of the primary reasons for moving to Wayland is it’s native security when it comes to screen sharing. To properly screen share you need xdg-desktop-portal installed. You should then get a selection window on the server side asking which window you want to share over the steam link session with the client.
A lot of people just use moonlight/sunshine now though instead of steamlink.
It probably doesn’t work on your wayland compositor. Screencasting still is not part of protocol.
This post got me to dig mine out after all these years.
After literally 99 updates, I got it running and again and played some games from the couch. It was a good time! I don’t know why I packed it away.
Valve needs to update this little dude, but they never will, of course.
Most smart devices have steam link streaming built in now…which is sadly why they retired the hardware
I wouldn’t say ‘Most’.
Neither of my 3 different brand Smart TVs nor either of my Roku models have Steam Streaming.
Yeah, support for it was cut for my TV sadly. I’ve got the device, but apps are convenient and don’t involve running wires.
Oh yeah, that’s a fair point.
I love the concept of them, but I’ve never had an enjoyable experience on mine. Always lag, host client crashing, or some other crap stopping me from playing.
This is on a Cat 6a network too. Never had it on wifi.
Try installing https://moonlight-stream.org/ on the Steam Link. Uses Nvidia’s GeForce Experience to stream from your PC; works a lot better in my experience.
Can concur. The hdmi cable to my living room broke, and I tried steam link on my shield but it was way too much input lag. With moonlight however I cannot tell the difference anymore, it honestly feels as direct as having it connected via hdmi. This is with direct pc - cat6 - router - cat6 - shield though.
It’s fine for games that don’t require super fast reflexes. I played 99% of Final Fantasy X on mine. The only things I needed to move to my PC for were the (infamously difficult to begin with) races. The Persona games also ran fine on it. But it’s worth noting that all of those are turn-based, so I’m not worried about a noticeable slight input lag. I absolutely wouldn’t use it for something like a shooter or fighting game where reflexes matter.
My fiancée actually prefers when I use my Steam Link, because it means we can cuddle on the couch while I play. So she doesn’t feel like gaming is coming “between” us like it does when I’m at my PC and she can’t snuggle up next to me.
I used to have really fucking bad sporadic lag, (I would dip to less than 1FPS for probably 15-30 seconds at a time, every 5-10 minutes) but a recent-ish update (in the past few months, though I can’t remember exactly when) fixed that. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t any weird network traffic on my end that was causing it; It was just the Steam Link failing to keep up every now and then. But whatever they did in that update resolved things, because it’s rock solid these days.
I was able to play crash Bandicoot 1-3 on my steam link with steam controller and I was having no problem to run diamond times on hardest maps. I wouldn’t play counterstrike or dota on steam link, but I almost never had delay problem with my steam link… it’s interesting how many people had different experiences. I was even raiding classic wow on steam link.
I actually got very mixed results with mine. Ultimately the app version is just more stable for some reason. I did get periodic lag, but interestingly I had the most problems with graphically intense games. Steam link has absolutely no problem, if my PC can run it smoothly it looks great on the app too. But on the hardware version it struggled to keep up and I got periodic crashes. Weird.
