Steam Link

[Kesta]

Hey guys.

 

I got some extra money for my last birthday (grandpa really have no idea what gift he should make... ^^), so I was thinking about buying some steam dedicated hardware. I'll get the controller for sure because my ps2 burned down so I now have all my final fantasy on Steam, but I was wondering if I wouldn't go for the bundle with the Steam Link.

 

Anyone have it / use it ? Any feedbacks ? 

 

 

(For those who don't know, the steam link detect PC running Steam and display it on your TV, so you can use it as a console).

Edited August 12, 2016 by Kesta

[TechAngel85]

Sorry, I don't have any experience with Steam Link or the Steam hardware. I've seen some consoles for sale here and there. I also know Alienware makes one too. But I've not had the pleasure of testing anything out. I would probably build my own if I ever went that route, but I'm not planning on it. In fact, I'm planning on upgrading my current system a bit this coming Spring.

[Kesta]

So, I finally (3 months alter... xD) bought the bundle with controller + link.

 

Controller:

Avoid a steam controller if you intend to play Skyrim. Really, it's definitely not meant to be used together. Go for an xb1 instead. No matter how much you configure the controller, it always feel a bit of, and the lack of dissociation between menu and gameplay controls doesn't help. I'm currently looking into some more in-depth tweaks to the hardcoded configuration files for Skyrim controls. Whenever I'm done with it, if I ever manage to get something comfortable to play with, I'll put a small guide with relevant files on STEP though. Might help a few other lost souls.

 

Steam Link:

This is wayyy better than I expected it to be. What you need is a hub (most, if not all, of today's internet box and similar device have one built-in) or a wifi network, and a TV. You don't have to plug anything to your PC, you just put the steam link somewhere near your TV and connect it with HDMI. Then you connect to the same network as the PC (either through wifi or ethernet, doesn't matter), plug your steam controller to the steam link, and you're good to go.

It work pretty well. You can still feel the irregular wifi signal if you're using wifi, but with an ethernet connection it's smooth and near instantaneous for RPG purposes (don't go competitive gaming with it though, there is a delay in the range of 10-80ms).

The best part is that you can turn off the steam's big picture, and just use it to stream whatever is on your PC as long as steam is running in the background. This include full-screen movies from any software, or even streaming videos from your browser. I tested a few sites (hum hum =D ), and all worked perfectly.

The downside is that it seem to force the steam's big picture in the background of the game (though I think you can manage to force it to be disabled), so you're loosing some performances for playing. 

 

Skyrim specific: While the game run fairly smoothly (as much as your PC can), the menus are however a bit more clunky. Not sure why yet, might be due to the fact that they're limited in FPS directly through scaleform.