Steam Link and Controller what are your thoughts (POLL)

Will you buy Steam Link and or Controller?

  • I will buy a Steam Link but not a Controller

    Votes: 18 17.8%

  • I will buy a Steam Controller but not the Link

    Votes: 28 27.7%

  • I will buy BOTH 'cause I am awesome

    Votes: 20 19.8%

  • Neither I spent all my money on weed

    Votes: 35 34.7%
  • Total voters
    101
Ocellaris said:
They added support for audio settings into the latest beta in preparation for 5.1 support.
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And they updated the steam beta client to support it. And I can confirm.. 5.1 works on Steamlink now..
 
I can't get the dang 360 controller to stop blinking again. It has nothing to do with the batteries unfortunately, I've been through a pile of batteries and nothing helps. Even tried E2 Lithiums and a Play and Charge kit. From what I can tell, the 360 wireless controller for Windows connects to the dongle and works, however the Steam Link isn't assigning it to Player 1. Not only is the blinking annoying, if I try turning off my Steam Link, it turns right back on because the controller reconnects to the dongle and the dongle turns the Link on :eek:

If I use the same controller and dongle it works fine on Windows 100% of the time. The controller gets assigned player one. The Settings -> Controller -> Add/Test page on the Link always show that I have 4 XInput controllers plugged in, when I've only ever had the one single 360 controller ever. Can someone with a Link and a non blinking 360 Wireless for Windows controller go check that Controller -> Add/Test page and see if you have four controllers listed? Thanks!
 
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Dion said:
And they updated the steam beta client to support it. And I can confirm.. 5.1 works on Steamlink now..
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Can you elaborate how you got it working? I have a 2.1 setup on my PC, but want to stream at 5.1 to my Home Theatre, but every game just gives me 2.1 options.
 
No way to test it for you, but try using the Steam Beta. Hit Steam at the homepage. Click Settings. Choose Account. Participate in the Steam Beta.
 
pigwalk said:
Can you elaborate how you got it working? I have a 2.1 setup on my PC, but want to stream at 5.1 to my Home Theatre, but every game just gives me 2.1 options.
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You have to set it to 5.1 on the Steam link device.

And you need the Beta firmware and Steam client. It should work automatically even with 2.0 set in game. ( mine did )
 
Didn't have the Client set to Beta. Works like a charm now! Super thanks!!!
 
Just thought I'd chime in with my experience of the Steam controller...

Overall I've found it to be very disappointing, unfortunately.

Also, had I known that I necessarily MUST run steam to be able to use it I wouldn't have bothered. Worse still, you have to run steam in big picture mode in order to configure it, which I just find fucking annoying tbh. I know this requirement is bullshit because you can close steam and the pad carries on working in Windows. But, of course, you can't configure it, so it becomes useless.

My primary usage was to be Guild Wars 2 so I could play it in the living room, but it just doesn't work very well to be honest, and I gave up trying to make it work after a few hours and haven't even touched the pad since Christmas. Works great with Portal, that's about it imho.

Great idea, but not ready for prime time yet I'd say. And for god sake remove the bloody steam requirement! :mad:


Would anyone buy a mouse that only works with Steam?
 
I have a flight sim HOTAS rig. To program functions or load profiles you have to use third party software. If I want to tweak settings, I have to completely exit the game enter the controller manager, make my edits, save the profile, re-load the profile and re-start the game.

Instead of doing that silly dance, all the controller configs are held in Steam. For each individual game, without you having to manually load a thing. And you can tweak configs on the fly without closing the game out. And you can try other user configs without having to search around and download files. And all of this is saved in the cloud in your steam profile. Whether I play on the Link, my desktop or laptop- it's the same experience- without me having to do anything. Integration with Steam is the Steam Controller's greatest strength.

I used to hate Big Picture mode- can't say that anymore. When I'm shopping for games, I actually prefer it.
 
Really starting to appreciate the link/controller now. Working through the Witcher 3 currently and playing from my couch with the link is a better experience than playing at my desk. Modified some settings and am now getting 60 fps with no noticeable lag on the "beautiful" setting over powerline ethernet. The right touchpad feels seemless for controlling the camera now, not at all awkward.
 
I bought a used Steam Controller off EBAY for $21 + $4 shipping. What I received was a prototype Steam Controller that inside the battery compartment says "Sample Use Only". It registered with my Steam account just fine. Only differences that I'm seeing so far are cosmetic changes between it and the retail product where the sample has smooth plastic in some places and it is textured on the retail product. Need to find some batteries to make sure the wireless works; it works great plugged in via USB though.

Thought I'd share in case someone saw used ones on EBAY and were interested in saving a few bucks.
 
Also I'd like to add that I deep sixed my XBOX 360 controller. The Steam Controller is so much easier on my hands. I just love it. Of course I always use my keyboard and mouse as it is the best form of input in 99% of the games out there. I do need to get better with the Gyro in racing titles and others. I'm not sure if I can muster the coordination for it. :) Worst case scenario I just change the controller to a more standard config. I like experimenting with the Gyro movements though.
 
I dumped my Logitech gamepad too, and am considering a 2nd Steam Controller for the main gaming rig. I can't imagine going back to a conventional game pad now.

It is a shame that most of the gaming press and YT wags have written the Steam Controller off.
 
Furystrike said:
Really starting to appreciate the link/controller now. Working through the Witcher 3 currently and playing from my couch with the link is a better experience than playing at my desk. Modified some settings and am now getting 60 fps with no noticeable lag on the "beautiful" setting over powerline ethernet. The right touchpad feels seemless for controlling the camera now, not at all awkward.
Click to expand...

Same here. I'm about 95% done the main quest line now and am thinking about what to play next on the Steam Link. Mirror's Edge is the next big game I'm looking forward to, but it's EA so dunno how the Steam Controller will work for it.

Witcher 3 DLC it is :)
 
I have a steam link and recently purchased my 2nd steam controller.

They are great!

First of all though... while the steam link can work over WIFI... its not the greatest, just like playing games via wifi isn't great..
Steam have released a beta that should make things better but I went and bought some powerlinks to connect the link WIRED to my router (via my mains ring). PERFECT!!! I can now bump the games from 720 to 1080p with zero stutter!!!

The controllers are great but I am coming from little to no controller usage... those that use Xbox controllers are all going meh... but thats because the xbox controller is good & then the steam controller is DIFFERENT. it is really good. The two trackpads take a bit to get use to but still :)
 
Hofy said:
Game pads sucks ass. KBM is the only way I roll.
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I agree that game pads aren't as easy as a mouse and keyboard to use most of the time. But game pads do work well in situations like sitting on the couch and playing games.
 
spine said:
Just thought I'd chime in with my experience of the Steam controller...

Overall I've found it to be very disappointing, unfortunately.

Also, had I known that I necessarily MUST run steam to be able to use it I wouldn't have bothered. Worse still, you have to run steam in big picture mode in order to configure it, which I just find fucking annoying tbh. I know this requirement is bullshit because you can close steam and the pad carries on working in Windows. But, of course, you can't configure it, so it becomes useless.

My primary usage was to be Guild Wars 2 so I could play it in the living room, but it just doesn't work very well to be honest, and I gave up trying to make it work after a few hours and haven't even touched the pad since Christmas. Works great with Portal, that's about it imho.

Great idea, but not ready for prime time yet I'd say. And for god sake remove the bloody steam requirement! :mad:


Would anyone buy a mouse that only works with Steam?
Click to expand...

You can configure the controller from the regular Steam menu now. What you probably want to do is make a trip to the Steam forums for the controller and make some well thought out suggestions. They are adding in features based on community feedback.
 
I assume that LINK is similiar to the "stream" feature in Steam with two instances running on the same log-in on the same network. My experience is this:
1. My TV is 1080p, my monitor (of which the 'computer is doing the computing') is not, therefore I got a lower resolution--Pretty annoying.
2. Lag. I don't have gigabit, (one day) but man it felt really laggy. I had to lower graphics just to make some games playable, and things that required split second response didn't do well since you had a few more millaseconds between you, your TV's response time, the network, and the game response time.
3. I absolutely hate the idea of having a game up on two screens. I find it annoying. Mostly for me since if I'm gaming, its because young children are in bed--I'd hate for kids to be on their way to the bathroom and watch me completely destroying alien's faces without my knowledge.

So, it has potential, but unless I can grab computing power without taking up another monitor, it doesn't make any sense to me.
 
skeeder said:
1. My TV is 1080p, my monitor (of which the 'computer is doing the computing') is not, therefore I got a lower resolution--Pretty annoying.
Click to expand...

The workaround to this is really simple. Set the in-game video settings to 1920x1080 instead of your monitor's native resolution. You can do that either at host machine or via the Link while streaming the game. Yes, you have to switch teh game back to your desktop's native res when you play at the desktop- a minor annoyance. There's only one game in my collection where this method doesn't work- Shadows of Mordor. For some reason, SoM can't ignore the desktop resolution.

I run an ultrawide monitor (2560x1080) so it was streaming @ 1280x540 to my Link until I figured it out.

skeeder said:
2. Lag. I don't have gigabit, (one day) but man it felt really laggy. I had to lower graphics just to make some games playable, and things that required split second response didn't do well since you had a few more millaseconds between you, your TV's response time, the network, and the game response time.
Click to expand...

FYI, the port on the Steam Link is only 100Mb/s, not gigabit. And the Link tops out at 30Mb/s by default. There are hacks to remove this limit- but I've never felt the need to try it out.

skeeder said:
3. I absolutely hate the idea of having a game up on two screens. I find it annoying. Mostly for me since if I'm gaming, its because young children are in bed--I'd hate for kids to be on their way to the bathroom and watch me completely destroying alien's faces without my knowledge.
Click to expand...

The Link won't stream if the host computer monitor's off. But you may want to try it with the monitor switched to another input so your kids won't see daddy get pwned.
 
skeeder said:
2. Lag. I don't have gigabit, (one day) but man it felt really laggy. I had to lower graphics just to make some games playable, and things that required split second response didn't do well since you had a few more millaseconds between you, your TV's response time, the network, and the game response time.
Click to expand...

I don't think the Steamlink had gigE ports anyway.
 
I bought these Sunlabz rechargeable batteries and they seem to eject from my controllers a lot easier than my old Tenergy batteries. With that said it still required more force than should be necessary. The Tenergy batteries required that I use a knife to wedge them out where these just required some really strong thumbs. Females with long fingernails need not try this as I'm afraid that I would have broken a nail if I actually owned one. Also when adding a new Steam controller to a PC there is a setup screen within the Big Picture mode that makes it really easy to pair it to your account in the settings.
 
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Saturn_V said:
The workaround to this is really simple. Set the in-game video settings to 1920x1080 instead of your monitor's native resolution. You can do that either at host machine or via the Link while streaming the game. Yes, you have to switch teh game back to your desktop's native res when you play at the desktop- a minor annoyance. There's only one game in my collection where this method doesn't work- Shadows of Mordor. For some reason, SoM can't ignore the desktop resolution.

I run an ultrawide monitor (2560x1080) so it was streaming @ 1280x540 to my Link until I figured it out.



FYI, the port on the Steam Link is only 100Mb/s, not gigabit. And the Link tops out at 30Mb/s by default. There are hacks to remove this limit- but I've never felt the need to try it out.



The Link won't stream if the host computer monitor's off. But you may want to try it with the monitor switched to another input so your kids won't see daddy get pwned.
Click to expand...
I did try to change my settings in the game to 1080p. It would work. Even simple games were laggy at 720p. It worked. Just not in a playable way.
 
spine said:
Just thought I'd chime in with my experience of the Steam controller...

Overall I've found it to be very disappointing, unfortunately.

Also, had I known that I necessarily MUST run steam to be able to use it I wouldn't have bothered. Worse still, you have to run steam in big picture mode in order to configure it, which I just find fucking annoying tbh. I know this requirement is bullshit because you can close steam and the pad carries on working in Windows. But, of course, you can't configure it, so it becomes useless.

My primary usage was to be Guild Wars 2 so I could play it in the living room, but it just doesn't work very well to be honest, and I gave up trying to make it work after a few hours and haven't even touched the pad since Christmas. Works great with Portal, that's about it imho.

Great idea, but not ready for prime time yet I'd say. And for god sake remove the bloody steam requirement! :mad:


Would anyone buy a mouse that only works with Steam?
Click to expand...

Replying to an older post here, but it just caught my eye. I could be wrong, but I thought it was XInput compliant. That would mean it would work fine outside of Steam. I would think it would still need a Windows HID driver. (assuming Windows OS)
 
I can navigate Windows 10 with mine even when Steam is off. I do think I need Steam to be on to type with it though and some of the functions are disabled until Steam launches.
 
Ah, ok. That makes sense. So the basic gamepad functionality should work with any XInput supporting game I imagine, just no advanced features. In theory... I don't see why that would be a problem.
 
The Steam Link has been working great for me in most games since I bought it last year. I occasionally like to throw games up on the big screen to share or play with others when I have visitors. Turning the in-game resolution down to 1920x1080 eliminates most lag, but I still only get sporadic hiccups that are usually not an issue. I was actually able to play Dark Souls III for a couple hours last night over the link, and none of my deaths were due to network lag. My desktop is connected to the router physically with a Cat 5e cable while the Link is connected wirelessly using 802.11g.
 
I've tested the equivalent of Steam Link (using HTPC) and everything must be wired in using gigabit Ethernet. WiFi just doesn't cut it. It's also difficult if your host computer runs Eyefinity/Surround. In the end, I gave up on the streaming and just stuck a 7950 in the HTPC; call me old fashioned...

The Steam controller, on the other hand, is worth a try IMO.
 
Steam Controller is really great at surfing the internet or Twitch from the comfort of my bed at night. The community makes some nice configs for most any game on the market even if they aren't found on Steam.
 
Not sure if this qualifies as a HotDeal, so I'm a posting it here.

Steam Link $34.99
Steam Controller $34.99

Steam store:
I think there's a $8 shipping charge per item (it was 15.98 when I ordered both last fall)

Amazon (Link only @ $34.99)
prime eligible

GameStop
They'll hold one for you for local pickup if you go through their website.

Yes, it probably means new Steam Controller/Link models in the fall.
 
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Steam Community :: Group :: Steam Controller

The latest Steam Beta Client update includes a new feature for the Steam Controller called Activators.

Activators sit between inputs (such as a button on the controller) and binding outputs (such as a keypress). They control how the input is turned into output and provide a number of settings to control this. Some simple examples are long press, double press, binding cycling, toggles, and delays.

There is no limit to the number of activators that can be placed on a single input, so a button can have a normal press, a long press, and a double tap on a single button, each firing off different actions in a game.

Each activator can have its own haptic settings as well.

Here's a few simple ways that activators can make your existing configurations better :

  • You can use a Start Press activator and a Release Press activator to turn a toggle crouch into a hold crouch. Conversely, the toggle option will allow you to turn any action, such as a hold crouch, into a toggle.

  • Turbo can be set on Activators, meaning any button can have customized rapid fire. This can be combined with multiple activators, so single press for single fire, while a long press will engage turbo mode.

  • Use a Start Press Activator to switch to a new action set, with a Release Press on the same button to switch back to the original set. Using this technique Action Sets can act like an entire-controller mode shift. Also included in this update is the ability to copy any existing Action Set into the new set, making customization a lot faster.

  • Mode Shifts now also use Activators, so a mode-shift can be toggled on and off without continuously holding a button.

  • Activators can also cycle through a set of bindings. Put Stand, Crouch, and Prone on a single button and cycle through them with each press.

This update also includes better visualizations for settings such as deadzones, with more coming soon.

Note that due to the nature of this change, configurations that are altered under the new setup are not backwards compatible, so modified configurations made in the beta client will not be visible to the stable client.
 
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