Help: Streaming Steam to a Mini-PC

[SpaceBooger]

Has anyone tried to stream a Steam game from their main computer to another?
If so how did it work?

Also if I wanted to do this would this bare-bones system with a 40gb HD and 4gb of ram work?
I also found this product (another mini-pc) that is in the same price range and am wondering if it would be better?

I just want something that I can add my the ram and HD I already have for under $150 that will allow me to stream my PC games to my TV in a console like form.
Thanks for any suggestions and advice in advance.

[isiolia]

I've tried it, going from my main PC to a couple others (so far) - a late 2012 Mac Mini running OS X 10.9, and a Surface Pro 128GB running Windows 8.1. Both have some hurdles that may have impacted the experience.

OS X doesn't yet seem to have hardware decoding enabled, and the Surface Pro only has wireless (and this takes a fair bit of bandwidth). I still figure I'll mess with clients more, probably boot camp the Mac (or my 2007 Macbook) or something.

The system itself is very simple to get running, and can work well. I've run into stuttering with stuff that's running at 1080p/60fps though, which has been annoying (Tomb Raider, Crysis 2 offhand). Other games ran quite well, even 1080p/30 like Dark Souls. Could be that a different client would fix this, or it's just something that'll get improved over time.

Another potential downside is that most stuff isn't virtualized. Input devices are, but the host computer is starting up the game and muting the sound. If you want/need different video settings, you're changing them for the host computer too.

Either way, looks very promising. It does introduce a little latency, but not enough to create problems for most games. Fighters and such maybe.


I'm not sure on those mini PCs. In theory, with h.264 hardware decoding they should be fine - but they'd likely only have that with Windows right now. Linux/SteamOS only seems to have it with nVidia GPUs currently.

[noiseredux]

yeah no minimum specs of the receiving PC has been listed anywhere, huh?

I'm working on converting my Win8 Lenovo into a streaming Steambox now myself. I think I'm gonna set it up to autoboot into Steam Big Pic Mode for a more console-y experience.

[isiolia]

yeah no minimum specs of the receiving PC has been listed anywhere, huh?

They recommend one with hardware H.264 decoding is about all, since that's most of what it needs to do.

Realistically, it probably benefits a lot from a wired connection or 802.11n as well. Having support for your gamepad of choice is also necessary, but probably a given if you're on Windows.

[noiseredux]

[quote="isiolia"]
They recommend one with hardware H.264 decoding is about all, since that's most of what it needs to do.[quote]

how would you determine if you have this?

[isiolia]

It's very common at this point. Most things you can think of that use streaming or compressed video are probably using it, so near any half-modern GPU has hardware acceleration built in. In Windows, drivers should support it, and Steam can likely use it. In Linux/SteamOS, not all can, and in OS X, Apple seems to have implemented things in a way that Steam can't use yet, even if other applications can.

If you want to check to see if Steam is using it, you can check the streaming log on the host machine:

%Steam%\logs\streaming_log.txt

Each streaming session has a block describing various parts of it. There's a section called SessionStats.

It has a timestamp, then resolution settings, then details about the encoder and decoder.

For example, Tomb Raider streaming to my Mac (software decoder):

"CaptureName" "Game async D3D11 NV12 + libx264 main (4 threads)"
"DecoderName" "libavcodec software decoding with 3 threads"

versus Tomb Raider streaming to my Surface (hardware decoding):

"Game async D3D11 NV12 + libx264 main (4 threads)"
"DecoderName" "DXVA: H.264 variable-length decoder, no film grain technology"

...keeping in mind that they both have Intel HD Graphics 4000, so it's purely a matter of driver support.

Another thing you can do if you want to diagnose things (or just want to look at numbers) is checkbox the Display Performance Information option under Advanced Client Options. That'll put a little bit of info in the bottom left, but if you hit F6, it'll give a bit more, and put a running graph for video and audio latency in the bottom right (like in Digital Foundry's screenshot here).

[noiseredux]

You're the best, man.

[SpaceBooger]

So if I did build a mini-pc would it be better to install Windows 7 and boot directly to Steam or use Steam OS (Both that I linked in the earlier post have H.264 ability and I will have a 40gb HD and using a 360 controller)?

[isiolia]

I think, long term, those or similar machines running SteamOS would likely work well.

For the time being, SteamOS is still in beta, and may or may not (it's hard to tell) support the hardware in them fully. It'll also complain about the 40GB drive as it wants a 250GB (though people are using smaller SSDs). So if building tomorrow, Windows is probably your better bet.

You could always ask on the SteamOS discussions (I didn't see anything skimming them). That said, if you aren't in a rush, I think the low tier Steam Machines will probably be something similar, and it'd probably ensure better support to just copy whatever configuration they wind up using.

[noiseredux]

so I did set up the home streaming on my Lenovo POS Win8 machine. It's hooked up to the CRT in my game room. This machine is nothing special, 4GB RAM, off-the-shelf. I set it up (after quite a bit of Googling how to accomplish this in Win8) so that when I turn the box on, it fires up Steam in Big Picture Mode and logs me in. It's pretty cool, because other than seeing the loading screens in the beginning, it feels like a more console style experience.

So far, I'm impressed w/ the streaming. I played about an hour of Metal Slug 3 and had no issues w/ lag, slowdown or stuttering.

I'm also liking some of the possibilities of this that maybe haven't been highlighted. For instance: As long as you add non-Steam games to your Steam library's launcher, you can easily stream those as well. I just tested it with Madden 08.