Steam Link/Controller Questions

[saladcrack]

Hello fellow techies,

 

I am looking at buying a Steam Link and Steam controller to use in my basement so I don't have to sit at my PC up on the second floor of my house.  And I have a few questions before diving in...

 

1: How is the wireless vs. wired performance?  Is it really a huge difference or can I get bye using wireless? Are power-line adapters good as a wired Ethernet solution? My house was built in the 1980s if that matters. 

 

2: Can I access the desktop or run non-Steam games via the Link? I have seen some reviews claiming that they just minimized Big Picture view on the Link and could use the desktop normally with the Steam controller.

 

3: Can I use one of the three USB ports to run audio out of?  My surround sound system has a USB port on it that I assume can be used to transmit audio into.

 

Also for the Link users out there, what are good games to play via the Link and controller?  I hear that Rocket League, Portal and RPG games like Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor are good on the controller.  Any other recommendations?

 

Thank you all for your help.

[manikyath]

1: the more bandwidth the better, how you achieve that is up to you, but know that powerlines are hugely dependant on your house wiring, and wireless is hugely dependant on a quality access point, and the thickness of the walls.

 

2: i'm not sure if they ever got around to implementing a "desktop mode", but there's a large amount of tricks to get your desktop trough the link.

 

3: that depends on if they bothered to implement that (properly) or not. i couldnt answer that.

 

as for games.. the link is inherently not a low latency enviroment, so i kinda suggest to stay away from high speed games (shooters, some race games, etc.)

anything that's a nice experience with a controller and not inherently dependant on very low latency is up for grabs here.

[onlybuilt4cubanxlinx]

I haven't used my link in a long time, but from what I could tell anything you can add to your steam library will open. I have Mine Craft and my emulators added through the library and they launch. I gave up when I couldn't get a 2nd controller working on Super Mario Cart. That was the last time I used it lol. I bet you can even add Mozilla and launch it.