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My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

blog.matthewbrunelle.com

81–90 of 220 posts

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#81

Speaking of Steam and controllers - is anyone else annoyed by piss poor compatibility of PC games with Steam onscreen keyboard. I can count on one hand games with seamless integration, where it popups after moving to input field. The manual Steam/XBox + "X" shortcut always shows the keyboard, but games like to ignore submitted value. My favorite example is Dark Souls character creation screen, it is the only place in…

I plug a wireless keyboard into my client device for these situations though it does add clutter to the room.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the benchmark has the words "RT" on it, like a lot did, you can safely throw them in the trash. That's people benchmarking the device in the same spirit as people who thought the Steam Deck and the Switch 1 could do 4K. Worthless.

>If the benchmark has the words "RT" on it, like a lot did, you can safely throw them in the trash More like you can throw the console in the trash if you can't run current day games on it well, when those games mandate RT. A lot of AAA games have started mandating RT since 2025, like Doom the dark ages for example, and the number of games doing that will only increase moving forward as devs just take the easy way wi…

Not disagreeing with you about lighting, but there is a differnce in older games that make RT optional. They use RT as a "ultra high quality" shadows/reflection graphical option. So there's no point of having a high performant, low quality RT option.

This isn't the case with games that require RT. Doom Dark Ages can even run the RT entirely in software, implemented in AMD's Linux drivers: https://youtu.be/R5G2bYiA1hk

So I think it's fine to ignore benchmarks that mention RT, meaning it's basically testing the game at "ultra quality" settings.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#83
post #39

If you already have Ethernet at both ends I cannot recommend enough game streaming. With the right setup it is almost identical to having my computer plugged in physically, and I am very sensitive to input latency. I can get 4K HDR 120Hz running over gigabit Ethernet without visually sacrificing too much on bitrate, but you can squeeze more bitrate at lower fps or 1440p (obviously) if that is your preference. You can…

I have a gaming PC and a steam deck. My goal was to use my steam deck as a steam link (their old streaming hardware) w/ a Xbox controller

Both are connected via Ethernet and actually the video quality was very very good, and input lag was completely fine.

Unfortunately there were so many issues. I want a console like experience where I can just decide that i want to pick up a controller and play.

With this setup I have to unlock windows which is annoying. Also often times something gets stuck so I have to walk to the desktop to fix/click around, or it plays audio via PC, or I have to disable HDR, etc.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#84
post #58

Ive been using Moonlight on my Apple TV, with a 8bitdo controller connected to the Apple TV. My gaming computer is running bazzite and runs Sunshine as streaming server and it handles basically any game. I did use Steam Remote Control earlier but i found it quite unstable and slow compared to Sunshine which basically just works out of the box. Ive beaten Silk song and Elden ring on the setup. Its just wired 1gb netwo…

cool, I didn't know Apple TV could be a Sunshine/Moonlight client!

It's perfect for gaming: silent, reliable network and Bluetooth, and supports basically any TV or projector. Works great with Xbox Elite controllers.

Only downside is that keyboard/mouse can't connect to Apple TV, so it's controller-only.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam Remote Play sadly breaks down if anything involving Admin comes up. Task manager, admin prompt, etc. Sunshine / moonlight can work but you need to run them as admin. Sunshine / moonshine also have problems with the full DualSense features, you need to be wired, have VirtualHere set up, and even then it might not all work with all clients. So yes both can work, but both have downsides that can be alleviated with…

Dualsense's main advantage is the built in trackpad and gyroscope but if you want to play wirelessly you are probably better off switching to the Steam Controller at this point which also has a trackpad and gyroscope. Or if using Windows standard Xbox controller if you don't need a trackpad or gyroscope, as Xbox controllers have first class support.

Not really looking to spend another $150 while losing a headphone jack, adaptive triggers, and microphone tho.

My point is, streaming introduces compromises, while I chose PC gaming to avoid a lot of compromises.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#86
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong but those aren't insurmountable. Of course the Steam Box is a better experience, but I built a remote starter for my PC and a dumb little Go program to switch the displays and disable some devices. End result is I tap maybe two shortcuts on my phone and the computer is on and switched to the TV.

Do you have a script which bypasses login screen and switches input on TV too? I don't think so. Anyways my problem is that it takes a programmer to solve this even partially.

Nah it's still a dance to get the TV input switched that's a good point.

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#87
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Steam Link I just press the "enhanced 1080p" or "4K" preset then tweak whatever else. The latest update allows up to 250mbps bitrate I think.

I'll give it another go maybe there is some routing issue thats messing things up

FWIW due to the other quirks of streaming me and other people have mentioned I too have switched to a very long HDMI cable + Ethernet usb hub

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#88

You cannot play two different games at the same time with your 50ft hdmi cable. Can't people see any usecase for the steam machine? I understand, you are not in the market for it. I am, I have a good usecase which possibly will make the cost drop below a ps5 over the years (if you include games cost)

> You cannot play two different games at the same time with your 50ft hdmi cable.

Why not? The use case of the Steam Machine is that it gives a great out of the box PC gaming experience for the living room (which is great for most people), not that it enables things impossible to configure on a PC (it's just a PC itself).

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#89

You cannot play two different games at the same time with your 50ft hdmi cable. Can't people see any usecase for the steam machine? I understand, you are not in the market for it. I am, I have a good usecase which possibly will make the cost drop below a ps5 over the years (if you include games cost)

> You cannot play two different games at the same time with your 50ft hdmi cable. Why not? The use case of the Steam Machine is that it gives a great out of the box PC gaming experience for the living room (which is great for most people), not that it enables things impossible to configure on a PC (it's just a PC itself).

I might not be understanding what you are saying.

I am suggesting that having a PC + a Steam Machine, you can play 2 different games at the same time from 2 different people.

With a 50ft cable from one pc, you can play at most 2 instances of the same game using Nucleus coop on Windows (so, not SteamOS), but you cannot play 2 different games without an enormous effort (it is technically possible to do the same of what Nucleus coop does, but that doesn't exist yet)

Re: My Steam Machine is a 50ft HDMI cable

#90
post #39

If you already have Ethernet at both ends I cannot recommend enough game streaming. With the right setup it is almost identical to having my computer plugged in physically, and I am very sensitive to input latency. I can get 4K HDR 120Hz running over gigabit Ethernet without visually sacrificing too much on bitrate, but you can squeeze more bitrate at lower fps or 1440p (obviously) if that is your preference. You can…

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