Need help with Steam Link

[jinscho]

Just bought a steam link and I'm getting HORRIBLE latency and frame drop through the device.  I'd like to think its something I did wrong and not that the device itself is flawed, but I'm at my wits end with trying to diagnose this thing...

 

So far I've tried-

 

wired

wireless 2.4Ghz

wireless 5Ghz

two different routers (both newer AC models)

 

regardless of of network setup, I'm getting anywhere from 76-82% frame drop when I run the network tests and can't even begin to start trying to play a game the lag is so bad.

 

any ideas what might be going on?  I'd hate to think Steam would ship a product this flawed...

[Deagon]

Computer specs please? (not the steam Link box your actual pc you are streaming from, also always try to go wired, everything you try from here out should stay wired it's almost always faster)

 

Nevermind i see your computer specs in your profile. Your card is an EVGA GeForce GTX 550 TI, correct?

Edited August 6, 2016 by Deagon
found requested information, elaboration

[Deagon]

Your graphics card is the workhorse in this situation, and the link simply decodes the video (and the control inputs and sends them back to the PC which the CPU handles i think), what is happening is your gpu has to render everything, send it to your steam link which decodes and displays it. 

What game are you trying to play? (may be relevant) 

[jinscho]

9 minutes ago, Deagon said:

Computer specs please? (not the steam Link box your actual pc you are streaming from, also always try to go wired, everything you try from here out should stay wired it's almost always faster)

 

Nevermind i see your computer specs in your profile. Your card is an EVGA GeForce GTX 550 TI, correct?

I need to update my profile....

 

xeon x3450

asus p7p55d-e

16GB gskill sniper DDR3-2133

evga GTX 650ti boost

 

[jinscho]

5 minutes ago, Deagon said:

Your graphics card is the workhorse in this situation, and the link simply decodes the video (and the control inputs and sends them back to the PC which the CPU handles i think), what is happening is your gpu has to render everything, send it to your steam link which decodes and displays it. 

What game are you trying to play? (may be relevant) 

I haven't even tried launching a game yet as I can't even get big picture mode to stream properly.

 

i have the Steam Link wired via Ethernet directly to the router that my pc is also connected to (Asus RT-AC66U).

 

If I run a network test via the link I get the following message:

 

"Network test complete, frame loss: 92%, network time: 53.26ms, variance: 40.50ms, Your network may not work well with the Steam Link, please use a wired network for the best experience."

[Deagon]

do you have a firewall in either your router or computer? is your pc also wired?

[jinscho]

2 minutes ago, Deagon said:

do you have a firewall in either your router or computer? is your pc also wired?

Yes to all of the above.

 

Windows firewall... Nothing special

Router has a built in firewall, that was one of the first things I checked.

PC is plugged in one port down from the Steam Link, not like that matters... Lol

[Deagon]

I would say disable windows firewall and see what happens, also add exceptions (like port forwarding) for the ports that steam link uses in the router. If that doesn't help you may just need a more powerful gpu. Steam forums may have better solutions for your specific problem. 

[Scruffy90]

Foward some ports for steam and in home streaming on the host machine. https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8571-GLVN-8711

 

Adjust the bandwidth settings on the host and keep playing with them until you get a steady fps (mine is at 15mbps on balanced for 1080/60).Also make sure the host is wired (took me 2 days to figure out the host running wireless was the biggest source of my frame drops). Running both wirelessly caused nothing but issues. My steam link is now running wireless though.  Your GPU may currently your bottle neck.

[jinscho]

10 hours ago, Scruffy90 said:

Foward some ports for steam and in home streaming on the host machine. https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8571-GLVN-8711

 

Adjust the bandwidth settings on the host and keep playing with them until you get a steady fps (mine is at 15mbps on balanced for 1080/60).Also make sure the host is wired (took me 2 days to figure out the host running wireless was the biggest source of my frame drops). Running both wirelessly caused nothing but issues. My steam link is now running wireless though.  Your GPU may currently your bottle neck.

I'll give that a try today.

 

any chance Steam has a "minimum hardware requirements" sheet around?  My 650ti Boost performs rather well on most modern games so I didn't think it'd be a bottleneck, but I can't find anything from Steam regarding this.

[Scruffy90]

5 hours ago, jinscho said:

I'll give that a try today.

 

any chance Steam has a "minimum hardware requirements" sheet around?  My 650ti Boost performs rather well on most modern games so I didn't think it'd be a bottleneck, but I can't find anything from Steam regarding this.

I actually think the 650 was the minimum. Also be sure to check hardware encoding/ decoding on the host and client side and there's Specific setting for Nvidia gpus.  don't remember what, but check that too. here's more support documentation.

 

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3629-RIAV-1617

[jinscho]

21 hours ago, Scruffy90 said:

I actually think the 650 was the minimum. Also be sure to check hardware encoding/ decoding on the host and client side and there's Specific setting for Nvidia gpus.  don't remember what, but check that too. here's more support documentation.

 

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3629-RIAV-1617

Update: Have absolutely no idea what fixed it.. but I restarted my computer and voila, runs PERFECT.  Spent a few hours last night playing Rocket League as I heard great things about the game with the Steam Controller and it ran flawlessly.  Zero input lag, Zero frame drop.  Considering I made absolutely no changes, I find it extremely odd that a simple restart fixed everything but hey... I'll take it.

 

Now I'm trying to find a nice set of peripherals for my recliner gaming sessions.  As much as I love my 7G and G700s, I need a completely wireless solution for the couch.