Steam Link Anywhere Enables Game Streaming over the Internet

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Valve has announced Steam Link Anywhere which allows Steam users to stream their games from their PC to their other computers over the internet or Wi-Fi, as long as their computer has good upload speed and their Steam Link device has a good network connection. I confirmed that I could stream from my gaming PC to my mobile phone using mobile data. This service is free and the Steam Link (BETA) app can be downloaded from Google Play. Steam users will need to update their Steam Client to the beta build to enable the functionality.

To use Steam Link Anywhere: Update your Steam Client to the beta build, dated March 13 or newer. Add a computer and select "Other Computer." Follow the pairing instructions on screen. This service is in early beta, and we appreciate your patience as we continue to improve the service.
 
great but ,,, why?
Comcast limits me to 1 TB a month, this just seems like a waste of data to me.
 
Interesting in theory. With this and a plex server, you can beam your entertainment to wherever you may be. Data caps be damned!

Although, keep a bag of salt nearby. I've done a lot of testing with Steam link on wired gig in my own home and found it... not excellent.
 
Burticus said:
Interesting in theory. With this and a plex server, you can beam your entertainment to wherever you may be. Data caps be damned!

Although, keep a bag of salt nearby. I've done a lot of testing with Steam link on wired gig in my own home and found it... not excellent.
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stuff like fallout (nv and fo4) and stuff less than that are the games that mine work okay with... but the faster things start going and the more there is going on the worse it gets and forget anything like FPS multiplayer
 
harbingerofdoom said:
stuff like fallout (nv and fo4) and stuff less than that are the games that mine work okay with... but the faster things start going and the more there is going on the worse it gets and forget anything like FPS multiplayer
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Yup. Strategy stuff (XCOM / Civ) was ok, FPS even older ones were not so much (I did a bunch of Borderlands 2 testing).
 
Hmm, can't see a way to do PC to PC (outside of local network) with this. Anyone know if it's possible?
 
Loose Nut said:
great but ,,, why?
Comcast limits me to 1 TB a month, this just seems like a waste of data to me.
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Do you really have a limit? I have yet to have them say anything and I'm a prolific data user. What package do you use if I may ask?
 
I suppose it's just another easy thing to do to pad the list of "things we do."

It's just a "yeah, but why?" moment for me.
 
oldmanbal said:
Do you really have a limit? I have yet to have them say anything and I'm a prolific data user. What package do you use if I may ask?
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Live in Virginia, I have their "Blast Tier" 119 Mbps with X1 TV plan for about $210 per month.
After using 1024 Gigs they "grant" me 50 extra gigs for $10.00
Or I can "upgrade" to unlimited for an extra 50$ per month
 
STEM said:
What good will this do? What's the point?
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With this you could access your PC with your phone while waiting in the doctor's office. You can surf your desktop remotely. You can place a virtual PS4 / Xbox controller overlay on your phone with completely custom controls. Love the D-pad on controllers but hate the analog sticks? You can set it up the way you want. This customization process took me 3 - 5 seconds to figure out and 15 seconds to implement. The "hard part" was typing the codes into Steam on my phone and PC to pair them. That took a few seconds more as I read and followed the instructions.

After setup, your PC at home can be used to stream your games to your smartphone. The faster the connection your PC and phone have dictates how beautiful the streamed game looks on your phone. The picture quality can be controlled in the app on the PC and phone. I believe that I could stream at 4K from my PC to my phone using mobile data. :)

Hope that helps! It isn't for everyone as some will appreciate the functionality more than others. But it is there if you want to use it.
 
500mbit should suffice I guess :p
Still gonna miss a good chair, monitor, keyboard and mouse so I'll probably never use it :)
 
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Fifliffl said:
Will have to llay qith it. The steam library is already on the shield but only a few games actually work
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Really? I don"t use it much, but I wasn't aware of any compatibility problems.
 
Anyone used this on a Chromebook? I'm curious how well it would work. I've been considering one for mobile productivity for a while now, and this might seal the deal.
 
TheMadHatterXxX said:
This is stupid and pointless. Valve is just irrelevant now.
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Why is this stupid and pointless? What if I want to play my games on my lunch break at work? Just take a bluetooth keyboard or controller and play it on my phone. Got a spare laptop? Now it's a mobile gaming rig anywhere you have wifi. I personally probably won't use it much, if at all, but that doesn't make it stupid or pointless.

Now? As opposed to that card game they put out when all people want to see from them is HL3 or at least L4D3.
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As a massive fan of DotA (3600 hours played over 9 years), I was excited for Artifact. I played it for 5 hours, and haven't launched it since. The game is fun and has unique and fun mechanics for a TCG, but it doesn't have enough deck variety. I also suck at deck building, so there's that.
 
ryno9100 said:
As a massive fan of DotA (3600 hours played over 9 years), I was excited for Artifact. I played it for 5 hours, and haven't launched it since. The game is fun and has unique and fun mechanics for a TCG, but it doesn't have enough deck variety. I also suck at deck building, so there's that.
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You are missing the point.
 
Aireoth said:
You are missing the point.
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You mean that it wasn't HL3 or L4D3? I want both of those as much as anyone else, but I don't get mad when a new game launches that isn't what I want. I also meant to imply that Artifact wasn't a fantastic game, though I did a terrible job of it. I, too, would much rather have had either of those games than Artifact, but we got what we got. Not a whole lot you or I can do about it.
 
I think calling this pointless is a bit of a stretch. Not all of us will use this but I can see this being handy for some people. I've made use to Steam's streaming on my local network and it worked really well.
 
I wonder if this would work with my actual steam link device? They stopped selling those so I’m skeptical about support for it going forward
 
ryno9100 said:
You mean that it wasn't HL3 or L4D3? I want both of those as much as anyone else, but I don't get mad when a new game launches that isn't what I want. I also meant to imply that Artifact wasn't a fantastic game, though I did a terrible job of it. I, too, would much rather have had either of those games than Artifact, but we got what we got. Not a whole lot you or I can do about it.
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The point is that artifact is the prime example of Valve being disinterested and out of touch with the marketplace. Steam is the only thing they care about these days.
 
cageymaru said:
I believe that I could stream at 4K from my PC to my phone using mobile data. :)
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Given how greedy wireless providers are, that sort of streaming will get expensive. And if you're on one of those "gotcha, you're limited" Unlimited plans, you're still going to pay through the nose.
 
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mr_zen256 said:
Hmm, can't see a way to do PC to PC (outside of local network) with this. Anyone know if it's possible?
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If you have nvidia you can use the streaming service meant for shield users with a 3rd party program called Moonlight. I have only tested in lan settings but it works pretty well IMHO
 
Morphes said:
If you have nvidia you can use the streaming service meant for shield users with a 3rd party program called Moonlight. I have only tested in lan settings but it works pretty well IMHO
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Thanks for the info, something new to try when I have some free time :D
 
STEM said:
Given how greedy wireless providers are, that sort of streaming will get expensive. And if you're on one of those "gotcha, you're limited" Unlimited plans, you're still going to pay through the nose.
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I have to pay for every bit of data I use. I performed the experiment for science and to test it for you'll. :)
 
Cool to see a legit option but as other have said, Moonlight coupled with an Nvidia GPU was doing this for a while.

In a practical scenario, I don't have a need but streaming Destiny 2 to my phone at work where I could play with a controller worked great for basic running around and PvE stuff.
 
ryno9100 said:
Why is this stupid and pointless? What if I want to play my games on my lunch break at work? Just take a bluetooth keyboard or controller and play it on my phone. Got a spare laptop? Now it's a mobile gaming rig anywhere you have wifi. I personally probably won't use it much, if at all, but that doesn't make it stupid or pointless.
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I know this tugs violently at the hearts of valve fanboys but....

They focus on stupid and pointless things that no one wants and just copy things already out...like a card games 3 years too late, a controller that sucked ass, Steam machines, Steam Link trying to copy Nvidia Shield tablet streaming, Steam OS that no one uses.

Sure, now lets see the segment of people that are both still on unlimited wireless or have access to company wifi that isn't locked down and blocks media streaming and use steam and want to use steam to stream games. Yeah you and like 2 other people.
Just like the rest of their products
 
TheMadHatterXxX said:
I know this tugs violently at the hearts of valve fanboys but....

They focus on stupid and pointless things that no one wants and just copy things already out...like a card games 3 years too late, a controller that sucked ass, Steam machines, Steam Link trying to copy Nvidia Shield tablet streaming, Steam OS that no one uses.

Sure, now lets see the segment of people that are both still on unlimited wireless or have access to company wifi that isn't locked down and blocks media streaming and use steam and want to use steam to stream games. Yeah you and like 2 other people.
Just like the rest of their products
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I had a long winded reply typed out, but I'll just suffice it to say I'm not a fanboy. There's plenty I dislike about Valve. I just don't think that offering a free service available to all users (AMD has no options right now) is necessarily a bad thing, regardless of how few people use it. Gabe Newell has said they're working on at least 3 games right now. Who knows what they are or when they'll happen. Knowing Valve, it'll be another 10 years.
That said, you and I agree that their time could've been better spent on something the community wants, but that's not really how Valve operates. They do what they want, when they want, and make enough money to support that.
 
TheMadHatterXxX said:
I know this tugs violently at the hearts of valve fanboys but....

They focus on stupid and pointless things that no one wants and just copy things already out...like a card games 3 years too late, a controller that sucked ass, Steam machines, Steam Link trying to copy Nvidia Shield tablet streaming, Steam OS that no one uses.

Sure, now lets see the segment of people that are both still on unlimited wireless or have access to company wifi that isn't locked down and blocks media streaming and use steam and want to use steam to stream games. Yeah you and like 2 other people.
Just like the rest of their products
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You sure seem angry about it. This is far from pointless. My son is going over to a friends house tonight. He has to lug a computer over there. Imagine if he could just take a chromebook over there and stream his Steam library games to his friends house. Probably not there yet, but having your own home grown game streaming is a huge deal. Does an Nvidia card let me do that with just an application install? I honestly don't know, but feel like I would have heard if it really worked that way.

All those Valve "failures" were for a reason. Show me a company that is doing more to give consumers the option of moving away from the MS OS gaming stranglehold? No one wanted Steam to begin with yet here it is now the de facto standard of pc gaming stores. Doubt Gabe is concerned that MadHatter is not on board with his vision.

This is not the 90's any more and PC game development is now just a small part of the Valve company, some would say it is disappearing forever. Outside of HL3 what should Valve be spending their R&D budget on?
 
TheMadHatterXxX said:
I know this tugs violently at the hearts of valve fanboys but....

They focus on stupid and pointless things that no one wants and just copy things already out...like a card games 3 years too late, a controller that sucked ass, Steam machines, Steam Link trying to copy Nvidia Shield tablet streaming, Steam OS that no one uses.

Sure, now lets see the segment of people that are both still on unlimited wireless or have access to company wifi that isn't locked down and blocks media streaming and use steam and want to use steam to stream games. Yeah you and like 2 other people.
Just like the rest of their products
Click to expand...

Well, Valve helped to jump start VR and people said that was irrelevant. Yesterday I reported on Beat Saber selling over 1 million copies. It is a VR game.

I'm probably going to write again about how Microsoft wants you to stream Xbox Live games to Android, other consoles, etc. So this Valve announcement is essentially the same as what Microsoft is doing in the PC and console arena. But Valve's solution is free where MS might charge for Xbox Live and more stuff.

The Steam Controller might not be what all PC gamers like, but it helped to create a platform for support of other controllers like the Xbox, PS4, etc. Now PC gamers can remap their games to support most any controller on the market even if the game NEVER intended for a controller to be used with it. So Valve might have wasted time on the Steam Controller in your opinion, but many PC gamers really love using those Xbox and PS4 controllers in games like Dark Souls and Civilization. Plus the Steam Controller is really awesome as a remote control for Windows and Linux. It was worth the $20 I paid for it just for that functionality.

Valve is serious about Linux gaming and they are tossing money at the issue. Nowadays you can just build a SFF PC and for free; install Linux and game on it. I guess if you used SteamOS that would make it a Steam Machine. :) Not long ago playing AAA games on Linux was a pipe dream and now people are playing the latest AAA games on day one without jumping through too many hoops.


My only wish is that MORE companies supported the PC like Valve does. I hope that other companies compete with Valve and race to make better PC experiences. I don't think your opinion is wrong. Some people just don't want or care about having certain functionalities with their PCs. But some do and enjoy trying and using new ideas.

Yes, streaming games uses a lot of mobile data!
 
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cageymaru said:
Well, Valve helped to jump start VR and people said that was irrelevant. Yesterday I reported on Beat Saber selling over 1 million copies. It is a VR game.

I'm probably going to write again about how Microsoft wants you to stream Xbox Live games to Android, other consoles, etc. So this Valve announcement is essentially the same as what Microsoft is doing in the PC and console arena. But Valve's solution is free where MS might charge for Xbox Live and more stuff.

The Steam Controller might not be what all PC gamers like, but it helped to create a platform for support of other controllers like the Xbox, PS4, etc. Now PC gamers can remap their games to support most any controller on the market even if the game NEVER intended for a controller to be used with it. So Valve might have wasted time on the Steam Controller in your opinion, but many PC gamers really loves using those Xbox and PS4 controllers in games like Dark Souls and Civilization. Plus the Steam Controller is really awesome as a remote control for Windows and Linux. It was worth the $20 I paid for it just for that functionality.

Valve is serious about Linux gaming and they are tossing money at the issue. Nowadays you can just build a SFF PC and for free; install Linux and game on it. I guess if you used SteamOS that would make it a Steam Machine. :) Not long ago playing AAA games on Linux was a pipe dream and now people are playing the latest AAA games on day one without jumping through too many hoops.


My only wish is that MORE companies supported the PC like Valve does. I hope that other companies compete with Valve and race to make better PC experiences. I don't think your opinion is wrong. Some people just don't want or care about having certain functionalities with their PCs. But some do and enjoy trying and using new ideas.

Yes, streaming games uses a lot of mobile data!
Click to expand...


100% this! I don't love Valve, but they deserve credit for some of the things there are doing.
 
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