SteamOS. Steam Controller. Steam Machines. First Steam controller delivered to Xeno!

Man, this controller just keeps getting better and better. There's a new feature in the beta called Mouse Region which, when active, constricts the mouse cursor to a circle of a defined location and size (both horizontal and vertical, so ellipses and even completely flat lines are possible as well). That was yesterday. Today the feature was improved and added to.
Could be very useful for RTSs I think. Put one of those over the minimap and moving around the map quickly would be super easy. I thought it would work well for Far Cry 4's weapon selection menu, but that doesn't appear to be driven by the mouse cursor's location.

Someone on the Steam Controller subreddit suggested keeping the gyro on at all times for FPSs, rather than having it only on when touching the pad or while using iron sights. It fealt kind of weird at first, but now I find it to be a much better way to aim.

I don't know if anyone is interested but I've just installed Steam OS as I'm having some problems installing Windows. Installing Shadow of Mordor.

Initial impressions it was fairly easy to install. It's actually really easy to use with a controller and looks like fairly nice. It would be work well with a TV setup. I feel kind of sad that this whole project looks to be dead on arrival.

lex-man wrote:I don't know if anyone is interested but I've just installed Steam OS as I'm having some problems installing Windows. Installing Shadow of Mordor.

Initial impressions it was fairly easy to install. It's actually really easy to use with a controller and looks like fairly nice. It would be work well with a TV setup. I feel kind of sad that this whole project looks to be dead on arrival.

As an outgrowth of Steam on Linux, It's not as dead as it seems. It basically exists for Valve to have something to power the Steam Link I suspect.

I don't think it's going to be anyone's main OS. But, it's a handy little beast to have if you just want to use an old PC to play Steam games in a different room, or something.

Might be worth buying a cheap SSD to dedicate to it, I think. The speed of SSD really suits it since you could swap between OS's in next to no time, and keep your gaming stuff safely compartmentalised away from your work stuff.

I've punted my Steam Link back to Valve. For a device that only has to do one thing, it's pretty shocking how many own goals it scores in doing it. I've instead switched it for an NVIDIA Shield, which I imagine does a much better job utilizing the built in features of my GPU than Steam In-Home Streaming. But even if it doesn't, at least I'm left with the best Android TV box on the market.

I'm thinking of getting one as well but I don't think Android TV has officially launched in the South so I'm not sure what the app situation is like.
I believe you have to side load Dolphin and the PlayStation remote play app anyway so it might not be such a big deal but it is enough to give me pause.

£120 for the box, remote and gamepad is tempting though. It even comes with a HDMI cable. Take that AppleTV.

Because HDMI cables are so prohibitively expensive.

I finally got round to playing on steam os. It seems fine. I had a bit of a problem with getting the sound working. It refused to give me a list of my sound devices until I logged out. Played round about a pretty basic indie game.

Got a steam link delivered today. Get a lot of dropped frames on wifi sadly but I think in the new year I'll get a power line adapter + LAN switch so all the consoles can get Ethernet and I can make a mess with cables behind my TV .

Besides even when I wasn't dropping frames I was disappointed at unsupported games. I had a ps4 pad paired rather than buying the valve controller and two games I was sure would work - undertale and nuclear throne - don't respond to any inputs.

Definitely a work in progress sadly.

Both Undertale and Nuclear Throne were made in Gamemaker. Last time I knew DirectInput support was very bad in GM. Maybe try running a program like InputMapper on the host PC to translate the PS4 controller input into XInput? Don't know if it'll work, depends on what the Steam Link actually does with the controller input.

Steam link definitely does something funky with controllers because the same controllers connected to the host PC instead of the linkb work fine on those games.

Maybe HDMI over Ethernet is the way forward.

Street Fighter V has just announced that it will support Steam OS, I find that really surprising, but looks like they are still getting people on board

So, I got myself a Steamlink yesterday (I wanted a controller, too, but the pathetic GAMES store in Bedford didn't have any Steam Controllers - of course). Anyway, here's my review of the Steamlink (using a 360 controller)...

I just put the thing back in its box. Very disappointed - p*sspoor performance, won't recognise some of my Origin games and forget totally about playing anything online (SW Battlefront was dropping frames like they were going out fashion).

My PC is an i7@2.80Ghz with 12GB DDR RAM and a GTX760 (2GB). The Steamlink was wired, not wifi. I set the Steam link to run 'balanced' (and also tested 'fast') on my BT Infinity hi-speed BB box. I am the only one using this internet so there was no competition for bandwidth.

The best performance I could get was in FFXIII where the visuals were noticeably compromised from the PC original, and framerates were at best uncertain. Forget driving games, forget anything online.

Spent a good hour this morning trying to get Dead Space 3 to run via Origin (within Steam) on the Steamlink. Could get the sound, but picture? Nil. Controller detected? Nil. F*cking useless. It ran SW Battlefront just fine from Origin, but framerates were laughably bad.

So that's me out. Waste of money. Lesson learned. Turns out it was just as well I didn't blow the full £100 on this crap. Fate - and GAME's ineptitude - saved me at least £60.

I haven't had a go of my Steam Link yet, but it's not sounding good from some of the reports of people on here.
Might have to end up flogging it to CeX and buying an Nvidia Shield, which apparently does a much much better job of game streaming without compromising quality.

Be glad you didn't get the controller though, the touch pad just isn't as good as an analogue stick. I've gone back to my Xbox pad so I can actually get some accuracy in games.

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-sleighamorph wrote:Might have to end up flogging it to CeX and buying an Nvidia Shield, which apparently does a much much better job of game streaming without compromising quality.

A better job..perhaps. Good enough? I wouldn't bet on it.

Almost tempted myself to buy one this morning, but I read a few reviews of the thing and to be honest it didn't sound particularly great either.

HSH28 wrote:

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-sleighamorph wrote:Might have to end up flogging it to CeX and buying an Nvidia Shield, which apparently does a much much better job of game streaming without compromising quality.

A better job..perhaps. Good enough? I wouldn't bet on it.

Almost tempted myself to buy one this morning, but I read a few reviews of the thing and to be honest it didn't sound particularly great either.

Was it Rog who was absolutely raving about the shield not long ago after returning or ditching the Link? Didn't he note that the Link had some massive limitations with Nvidia graphics hardware?

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-sleighamorph wrote:The touch pad just isn't as good as an analogue stick. I've gone back to my Xbox pad so I can actually get some accuracy in games.

The touch pad is much more accurate than an analog stick, you just need to set it up properly. Both the Steam Controller and Link require a bit of tinkering from the user but it's very much a worthwhile endeavour. I was playing Disney Infinity 3.0 with both devices while sitting on the Comfy Couch™ in my living room and it was easy to forget that the whole thing was being streamed from the PC in my bedroom.

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-sleighamorph wrote:

HSH28 wrote:

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-sleighamorph wrote:Might have to end up flogging it to CeX and buying an Nvidia Shield, which apparently does a much much better job of game streaming without compromising quality.

A better job..perhaps. Good enough? I wouldn't bet on it.

Almost tempted myself to buy one this morning, but I read a few reviews of the thing and to be honest it didn't sound particularly great either.

Was it Rog who was absolutely raving about the shield not long ago after returning or ditching the Link? Didn't he note that the Link had some massive limitations with Nvidia graphics hardware?

Not sure and it does make sense that the Shield would be lots better than the Link, its just that I've read stuff about the Shield that didn't put it in the best light either.

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-sleighamorph wrote:I haven't had a go of my Steam Link yet, but it's not sounding good from some of the reports of people on here.
Might have to end up flogging it to CeX and buying an Nvidia Shield, which apparently does a much much better job of game streaming without compromising quality.

Be glad you didn't get the controller though, the touch pad just isn't as good as an analogue stick. I've gone back to my Xbox pad so I can actually get some accuracy in games.

Yep, I'm very relieved I didn't waste any money on the full link/controller bundle. I think games magazines and sites have been incredibly misleading and just plain inaccurate about the Steamlink's performance. I have - surely - a target set-up (a fairly decent gaming PC and nobody else hogging my hi-speed BB connection) but it was truly a huge let-down in action.

I hope my mistake can serve to warn others to save their money and go buy something that's actually worth it.

The link seems to me like it's probably a case of first gen technology just not living up to expectations. It's hardly unique to Valve or the Steam Link though.

Ordering a Pizza wrote:

The touch pad is much more accurate than an analog stick, you just need to set it up properly. Both the Steam Controller and Link require a bit of tinkering from the user but it's very much a worthwhile endeavour. I was playing Disney Infinity 3.0 with both devices while sitting on the Comfy Couch™ in my living room and it was easy to forget that the whole thing was being streamed from the PC in my bedroom.

It really isn't. I've tried config after config, spent hours tweaking, tried community profiles, and the touchpad just still doesn't compare to an analogue stick, even when throwing Gyro controls into the mix. The other issue is that not all games support the most accurate input methods, so you either end up having to bodge a control method together, or just 'settle' for something not as good because it's the best it can get. I appreciate that it's so customisable to suit different people's tastes, but if the end experience isn't as good as something that's just plug and play, and that games have actually been designed around, then it seems like a change purely for changes sake. Unless you're planning on playing games like Civilisation on your TV, then the Steam Controller is as pointless as the SteamOS and you'd be better off spending your money on an Xbox pad.

Also, the A/B/X/Y buttons are too small.


Looking at the CeX website, they'll buy the Steam Controller for £29 and the Steam Link for £23, so £52 cash for the pair. I suppose a loss of £28 isn't too bad.

jiggles wrote:I've punted my Steam Link back to Valve. For a device that only has to do one thing, it's pretty shocking how many own goals it scores in doing it. I've instead switched it for an NVIDIA Shield, which I imagine does a much better job utilizing the built in features of my GPU than Steam In-Home Streaming. But even if it doesn't, at least I'm left with the best Android TV box on the market.

I'm pretty sure Steam streaming uses exactly the same Nvidia hardware encoding as the Shield stuff, assuming you use an Nvidia card with hardware encoding selected. I guess it's possible that the Link isn't very good at decoding Nvidia's encoding though, in which case the Shield could make a difference.

Cal wrote:So, I got myself a Steamlink yesterday (I wanted a controller, too, but the pathetic GAMES store in Bedford didn't have any Steam Controllers - of course). Anyway, here's my review of the Steamlink (using a 360 controller)...

I just put the thing back in its box. Very disappointed - p*sspoor performance, won't recognise some of my Origin games and forget totally about playing anything online (SW Battlefront was dropping frames like they were going out fashion).

My PC is an i7@2.80Ghz with 12GB DDR RAM and a GTX760 (2GB). The Steamlink was wired, not wifi. I set the Steam link to run 'balanced' (and also tested 'fast') on my BT Infinity hi-speed BB box. I am the only one using this internet so there was no competition for bandwidth.

The best performance I could get was in FFXIII where the visuals were noticeably compromised from the PC original, and framerates were at best uncertain. Forget driving games, forget anything online.

Spent a good hour this morning trying to get Dead Space 3 to run via Origin (within Steam) on the Steamlink. Could get the sound, but picture? Nil. Controller detected? Nil. F*cking useless. It ran SW Battlefront just fine from Origin, but framerates were laughably bad.

So that's me out. Waste of money. Lesson learned. Turns out it was just as well I didn't blow the full £100 on this crap. Fate - and GAME's ineptitude - saved me at least £60.

I think it's set by default now, but it's worth checking that you have hardware encoding enabled for your host PC, and that Shadowplay's off. I use a NUC running Windows as my client rather than a Link, but it's always done a great job for me. I'm replaying Mass Effect at the moment and 99% of the time there's no way you could tell it wasn't running natively. I've played beat 'em ups and twitch action games without issues too, and indeed three player split-screen Rocket League against online opponents (and won ).

I imagine your 760 might not be up to the task in some cases though. I used to use a 780 for streaming which was great for most stuff, but it struggled a bit with intensive games. I just brute forced my way through with a 980 ti in the end, which handles just about everything without any issues. If the controller's not being detected for anything, try running Steam as an administrator on the host PC. I have to do that for Mass Effect as it happens.

It's not perfect for sure, and not always as seamless as it should be. Having to run Steam as an admin for ME is one example, and there are occasional instances where I have to twiddle with the host PC after starting a game up, but the results are worth it.

The Steam controller is another matter. It's amazing for certain games, and pretty much the only way to play mouse driven games on the couch, but I'd still favour regular pads where they're supported in most cases. Fallout 4 is a rare example where the Steam controller beats a pad for me. Switch the right touchpad to mouse joystick mode and crank up the in game sensitivity and it's perfect.