App Profile: Steam Link

small hobbit

Rating: 3/5

When it does work. It keeps defaulting to a drag and click method, which isn’t terrible, but also isn’t really that intuitive with a touch interface. You can change this in the settings (the icon with the touchpad/mouse buttons; there’s a couple different options in there) The real problems come when you try to play games with this. I’ve run into WAY to many where their virtual controller has the wrong key mapping for the game, yet there’s no options in their settings (and none for the game being played) to change it to the correct setup. Now, the controls CAN be moved around the screen, which helps slightly, but doesn’t change the fact that the key mapping is messed up. Your internet pretty much has to be really great for it to work (or you have to be like me and play pretty much only JRPGs or vns) because it lags CONSTANTLY. I have pretty decent internet and it still hits lag spots every time, even when I’m only doing basic stuff (not even playing video games, either. Just sitting on my computer’s desktop can cause lag somehow when there’s nothing else open or going on)

Cu$tomerN01

Rating: 4/5

So in the last year I have found myself hopelessly addicted to a little pc game called Kenshi, it quickly surpassed all other titles in total play hours. I came across the steam link app and thought “why not let this game run my life completely, even when I can’t be around my laptop? I surely have nothing better to do.” So I set out to get this working. For those who don’t know Kenshi is a game you can essentially play on pause so perfectly suited to this very high latency format. It was about two days of being impressed by how nicely their editor lets you set up a control scheme, triple checking that I had saved it in every way I could think, and finding my setup gone on returning to the app before… Some glorious serendipity of overlapping bugs allowed me to recall my settings! I was off! Also thrilled to find that it is workable even streaming across town over cell. In fact performance seems inconsistent no mater what network setup I've tried, even with a cable in the computer sitting next to the router. However, it has always worked well enough to get my fix in various levels of blurriness. Unfortunately the app also crashes when taken out of focus and sometimes randomly. But still, pretty wild the ways we can waste our time these days, this must be meta. .? Keep trying valve, you are somewhat appreciated. Ken heads check my layout, I think it’s the only one

Portland286

Rating: 2/5

This has come a long way from what it was but for all intents and purposes its still a broken mess. Ive redownloaded this multiple times over the course of Valves devolopment becasue im a sucker for having things just be native (not having to use Parsec/moonlight and just stream games with one single app)...and I was excited to see how this performed with my new Steam Deck....and although it has made some improvements, this app is still basically unfinished. My host machine is a dedicated game streaming server with literally zero other processes running other than whats needed to run games. Connected to a gigabite wired network and streaming via wifi (less than 5 yards away from my router) to an M1 Macbook Pro. Even with resolution scaled way back (720p)games constantly drop frames, stutter lag and audio poping is horrible. Controller support (Xbox one series controller) will just stop working all together and will constantly hit me with "slow network speeds" despite its own network tool recommending 100mbs network speed. I suppose its worth mentioning that I tend to stream higher end "AAA" games and not indie games or smaller/lighter weight games, so maybe it will work better for that... Parsec and Moonlight both run flawlessly...save yourself some time and just use either one of those.