Steam In-Home Game Streaming uses the power and compatibility of a Windows gaming PC, somewhere in the house, to deliver a great gaming experience on other devices and operating systems.
Basically anything that can run the Steam client - Windows, OS X or Linux, can use it as long as the hardware is powerful enough. It works on inexpensive desktop PCs, notebook PCs or even tablets.
What does it do?
Steam In-Home Game Streaming uses your gaming machine with a powerful graphics card to act as the server to run a demanding game. Then with as little latency as possible converts that to an H.264 compressed video stream.
It then sends that video stream over your home network to another machine, for example, your HTPC hooked up to your T.V., which acts as a client that can, without working very hard, decode that video and display it on the screen.
At the same time, the client PC takes input commands from your game controller or keyboard and mouse and sends them back to the server to actually control the game.
The idea is that any PC with adequate network and CPU performance can let you play your games, i.e., the games installed on your gaming rig, remotely.
Not only this, you can also try streaming non steam games. Click Games > Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library on the PC and add a PC game you have installed elsewhere on your system. Valve says this
may work but is not officially supported.
What does it NOT do?
Steam In-Home Streaming does not allow streaming over the internet.
It does not allow the use of the server or gaming machine while streaming. It would actually be running the game on-screen at the same time. Just like NVIDIA’s game stream technology.
It does not allow logging in from multiple (more than two) devices on the same network to the same account and play different games at the same time. We’ll need Steam’s family sharing for that which is hopefully coming soon.
It does not allow higher resolutions than the connected monitor of the server PC. The game must run on both PCs at the same time. So, if your desktop computer has 720p monitor and your T.V. has 1080p then your stream will be limited to 720p.
The good news is that the opposite is not true. As long as your gaming PC has same or higher resolution as the other PC your remote PC can scale that image down appropriately.
Also, you can’t stream from Mac OS X, Linux and Steam OS. You can only stream from Windows to any other OS capable of running the Steam client.
Hardware Requirements:
The computer running the game should at least have a quad-core CPU. The PC needs enough processor power to run the game, compress the video and audio, and send it over the network with low latency at whatever frame rate and resolution you are running. Officially valve supports 720p and 1080p at either 30 or 60 fps.
On the client PC, you’ll need a GPU that supports hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding. This hardware is included on all recent laptops and PCs. If you have an older PC or netbook, it may not be able to decode the video stream quickly enough.
Network performance also matters. But how many megabits or gigabits it can achieve is not the most important. Connection latency and reliability are much more critical than throughput. A theoretically faster and/or even AC wireless connection will inherently drop more frames than a normal Ethernet or even a slow power line network connection because hard line networking performance is much less susceptible to interference. So, forget about 2.4GHz N-wireless. Even if the throughput is fast enough there is so much interference on that frequency that 720p at 30fps isn’t a great experience.
Connection latency and reliability are much more critical than throughput.
If you are actually trying in home streaming and wondering how your configuration is doing, pressing F6 on the client PC provides a somewhat useful little analysis that pops up and tells you – latency, drop frames and stuff like that.
How to Get Started:
Steam In-Home Streaming is really simple to use. It doesn’t require any complex configuration.
- Log into your Steam program on a Windows PC.
- Install the game you want to stream, if you haven’t already – you’ll be streaming from your PC, not from Valve’s servers.
- Log into Steam on another PC on the same network with the same Steam username. Both computers have to be on the same subnet of the same local network.
- You’ll see the games installed on your other PC in the Steam client’s library. Click the Stream button to start streaming a game from your other PC. The game will launch on your host PC, and it will send its audio and video to the PC in front of you. Your input on the client machine will be sent back to the server. If you don’t see this feature, update Steam on both computers.
See Also
How to Install SteamOS on Your PC
Sure, Steam-In-Home Streaming is meant to pave the way for living room ready Steam Machines, but it truly feels magical even though it’s not perfect yet. It’s great being able to game on your laptop while you’re lounging on the couch or lying in bed.
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