Best way, in an apartment, to get PC data to the living room?

[Elarion]

I've been wanting to get my PC to stream games to the living room, where our TV is. In the past, I used a Steam Link (WIRED CONNECTION), but it makes dark areas in games extremely pixelated, full of artifacts. Plus, connecting controllers to it was a nightmare, and it often locked up and had other issues. Eventually, I just started moving the PC out to the living room whenever I wanted to play a game on the couch. I've been doing that for a few months now, moving the PC 4-5 times a week, to whichever area my wife and I want to game in. It's getting really old, really fast.

 

I figured I could just get a console, but I already own a ton of games on PC. I don't want to buy them again on PS5, especially not until they can do 60 FPS on all of those games.

 

Is there any good option for this, short of building a second PC? The Nvidia Shield is $200, which would be an expensive thing to test out and then have just as many issues as the Steam Link, so I'm wanting to get some feedback here first.

 

Here is the layout of my apartment. Green is the router and ethernet cable that runs out there.

 

[LIGISTX]

2 minutes ago, Elarion said:

I've been wanting to get my PC to stream games to the living room, where our TV is. In the past, I used a Steam Link (WIRED CONNECTION), but it makes dark areas in games extremely pixelated, full of artifacts. Plus, connecting controllers to it was a nightmare, and it often locked up and had other issues. Eventually, I just started moving the PC out to the living room whenever I wanted to play a game on the couch. I've been doing that for a few months now, moving the PC 4-5 times a week, to whichever area my wife and I want to game in. It's getting really old, really fast.

 

I figured I could just get a console, but I already own a ton of games on PC. I don't want to buy them again on PS5, especially not until they can do 60 FPS on all of those games.

 

Is there any good option for this, short of building a second PC? The Nvidia Shield is $200, which would be an expensive thing to test out and then have just as many issues as the Steam Link, so I'm wanting to get some feedback here first.

 

Here is the layout of my apartment. Green is the router and ethernet cable that runs out there.

 

I have a shield and have never done this…. Maybe I should try it out simply so I can give folks feedback on this use case. I just never really game on my TV. 

[Elarion]

4 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

I have a shield and have never done this…. Maybe I should try it out simply so I can give folks feedback on this use case. I just never really game on my TV. 

Yeah, I'd be super interested to see how well it goes. If I could save a couple hundred (or thousand) bucks, that would be pretty nice.

[Sjaakie]

I tried it on the 2017 and on the 2019 model shield  (all wired / no wifi) but unfortunately never got it working smoothly.

 

Running a decent (optical) HDMI cable from pc to tv will probably save you some headache. You may even be able to connect bluetooth controller / keyboard-mouse directly to the pc as its such a short distance.

[Elarion]

6 minutes ago, Sjaakie said:

I tried it on the 2017 and on the 2019 model shield  (all wired / no wifi) but unfortunately never got it working smoothly.

 

Running a decent (optical) HDMI cable from pc to tv will probably save you some headache. You may even be able to connect bluetooth controller / keyboard-mouse directly to the pc as its such a short distance.

I did think about doing that, as I primarily use an Xbox One controller that has bluetooth when playing, but I was under the impression that HDMI cables beyond 6' or so in length were likely to fail. I'd need one nearly 50 feet long to reach the TV from the PC.

[Sjaakie]

Look into optical fiber hdmi cables, 50 feet is no issue for these. They used to be quite expensive but can be found for decent prices now.

[Elarion]

21 hours ago, Sjaakie said:

Look into optical fiber hdmi cables, 50 feet is no issue for these. They used to be quite expensive but can be found for decent prices now.

I see, I didn't know these were a thing. One directional is pretty interesting!

 

Are they fragile like optical cables for audio, for example? Also, how well does Bluetooth actually work through a wall like that? My little antenna can reach a little ways out from my PC, but not that far.