Amazon selling Steam Link for $19.99

[nathanddrews]

In case you were on the fence about getting one, I see today that they are blowing them out, but without the horrendously slow and expensive shipping cost from Valve.

http://a.co/bCPCFkd

My guess is that Steam Link 2.0 will be teased at CES... or will never come out... like HL3.

OMG CONFIRMED!

 

[nathanddrews]

Crap, meant to put this in the gaming forum, but it's sorta VCG-related...

 

[Face2Face]

I picked up one for $20 a couple weeks ago from Amazon. I gotta say, it's pretty great. I have mine wired and setup to wake up (WOL) my gaming PC on the next floor so I can play games in my bed if I want. To be honest, I wish it would do 4K/60, but if the next model does I'll gladly plop down $50 for one.

 

[nathanddrews]

...I wish it would do 4K/60, but if the next model does I'll gladly plop down $50 for one.

I have to assume that Valve are trying to clear out inventory for v2.0. Next-gen HDMI or even DP support would be nice too. More built-in memory for more apps, maybe? Or maybe they're just abandoning it altogether...

 

[tviceman]

I picked up one for $20 a couple weeks ago from Amazon. I gotta say, it's pretty great. I have mine wired and setup to wake up my gaming PC on the next floor so I can play games in my bed if I want. To be honest, I wish it would do 4K/60, but if the next model does I'll gladly plop down $50 for one.

So the PC is in a different room from both the steam link and router, correct? Is your PC ethernet wired or wifi? If it's wifi, how is the latency?

I've got a steam link sitting the box on my desk....

 

[cronos]

So the PC is in a different room from both the steam link and router, correct? Is your PC ethernet wired or wifi? If it's wifi, how is the latency?

I've got a steam link sitting the box on my desk....

He mentioned that it's wired.

I'm one of those old fashioned, Ethernet jack in every room type of guy, so I have zero need or reason to wirelessly connect anything that's not a portable device. I just plug everything in. I found that this saves me a lot of irritation.

Finally pulled the trigger on the Steam Link after thinking hard about it on Black Friday and passed. Let's see how it'll work for me.

 

[Face2Face]

So the PC is in a different room from both the steam link and router, correct? Is your PC ethernet wired or wifi? If it's wifi, how is the latency?

I've got a steam link sitting the box on my desk....

Yes, my gaming PC is on another floor, but I have Cat5e pulled to many rooms in my house. I have my Router and networking equipment in another location. I haven't tried it wireless yet, but my access point is less than 10ft away on the ceiling so it should be okay over AC. I'll give it a try at some point.

 

[Nashemon]

Just bought one. I'm going to have to run it wirelessly for now, as I don't have a wired connection in any room with a TV.

 

[JSt0rm]

Just bought one. I'm going to have to run it wirelessly for now, as I don't have a wired connection in any room with a TV.

Let us know how it works. I can wire it but my gaming pc is on wireless extender (wired to wireless extender)

 

[shortylickens]

i got one last year. Didnt like it.
Image quality is crap. I turned it in and bought a super long HDMI cable instead. Looks MUCH better. Wireless gamepad completes the setup.

 

[JSt0rm]

i got one last year. Didnt like it.
Image quality is crap. I turned it in and bought a super long HDMI cable instead. Looks MUCH better. Wireless gamepad completes the setup.

thats not an option for a lot of people. hdm/dvi over ethernet is $$$$

 

[Craig234]

Says in the description, "Wired network is strongly recommended"

Don't have that.

 

[WhiteNoise]

For twenty I picked one up. I am currently using a HDMI switch box to send a signal to my projector but I figure why not try this out and see how well it works. If it works well hardwired into my network then I will eventually move it to my living room. I just need to run a cat6 from my kitchen to the living room. But for now I will use it in my home theater room and see how it works. Should be on my doorstep when i get off work.

 

[Face2Face]

i got one last year. Didnt like it.
Image quality is crap. I turned it in and bought a super long HDMI cable instead. Looks MUCH better. Wireless gamepad completes the setup.

I haven't notice quality degradation from encoding and decoding. Admittedly, I'm about 10-12 ft away and looking at a 55" 4K TV @ 1080p 60Hz. Games like RE 7 (Demo) and Ethan Carter Redux look great. I can't tell they are being encoded/decoded on the fly. As far as screen or controller latency, I really can't feel it with the games I'm playing.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Neat. Thanks for the heads up. Hoping I can hack it to be a generic RDP client too.

 

[Nashemon]

Let us know how it works. I can wire it but my gaming pc is on wireless extender (wired to wireless extender)

Finally got around to hooking it up. I couldn't get it to connect to my PC. It saw it, and knew that Steam wasn't open, and that the computer screen was locked when I was remoted into it with my other computer, but when I resolved those issues and tried to connect, it would say "connecting to network" then time out after 5-10 seconds. Not sure if it's because of the wireless network or something else.

My gaming PC is upstairs and since remoting into it from my laptop "locks" it and prevents Steam Link from connecting completely, I didn't feel like bouncing up and down stairs to troubleshoot. I may have to move the Steam Link upstairs to the smaller TV, though that would defeat the purpose of it, but would make troubleshooting easier.

 

[Face2Face]

Finally got around to hooking it up. I couldn't get it to connect to my PC. It saw it, and knew that Steam wasn't open, and that the computer screen was locked when I was remoted into it with my other computer, but when I resolved those issues and tried to connect, it would say "connecting to network" then time out after 5-10 seconds. Not sure if it's because of the wireless network or something else.

My gaming PC is upstairs and since remoting into it from my laptop "locks" it and prevents Steam Link from connecting completely, I didn't feel like bouncing up and down stairs to troubleshoot. I may have to move the Steam Link upstairs to the smaller TV, though that would defeat the purpose of it, but would make troubleshooting easier.

Do you have a password setup on your gaming PC? If so, you'll need to remove it to get it to work. Also, if you want to wake up your PC upstairs with WOL, then you'll need to disable "Fast Startup" in the power options.

On top of that, you'll need to enable WOL in your BIOS and then go into Device manager and enable WOL on your NIC. It should work after that.

I have my wireless Xbox 360 controller connected to the steam link using the wireless dongle, so all I need to do is press the xbox button and it wakes up the Steam link. After that, the Steam link sends a packet to my Gaming PC, take a little bit, but it depends on how fast your PC boots up. Then it will go straight into Big Picture. When you are done gaming, then you can turn your PC off from Steam Big Picture as well. It's working flawless and I'm really enjoying it.

 

[Craig234]

I missed the Amazon pricing, because I didn't know steam charged shipping and am spending as little as possible on Amazon for their being jerks on something.

We'll see if it goes on sale again.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Finally got around to hooking it up. I couldn't get it to connect to my PC. It saw it, and knew that Steam wasn't open, and that the computer screen was locked when I was remoted into it with my other computer, but when I resolved those issues and tried to connect, it would say "connecting to network" then time out after 5-10 seconds. Not sure if it's because of the wireless network or something else.

My gaming PC is upstairs and since remoting into it from my laptop "locks" it and prevents Steam Link from connecting completely, I didn't feel like bouncing up and down stairs to troubleshoot. I may have to move the Steam Link upstairs to the smaller TV, though that would defeat the purpose of it, but would make troubleshooting easier.

Your computer pretty much needs to be sitting at the desktop with steam running (minimized, or whatever) for the link to connect to it correctly. If it's locked, link will yell at you about that, and if anything locks the screen it'll punt you (most notably, are UAC popups).

I'd also note for anyone else considering a link, is do not expect to run it wirelessly, just don't. Not worth the loss of quality. Wired it's basically the same as sitting in front of my computer, minus the occasional flicker.

 

[Rifter]

Tried one of these at a buddies place, he was running it wireless as he has no wired network in his apartment. The IQ was horrible, waste of money IMO unless you can wire it.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Tried one of these at a buddies place, he was running it wireless as he has no wired network in his apartment. The IQ was horrible, waste of money IMO unless you can wire it.

Yes, this. Wire it only.

 

[preslove]

I recently got a 1,200 Mbps powerline set on sale to connect my gaming computer. I tried steam in-home streaming with my fanless tv computer and it works brilliantly.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I recently got a 1,200 Mbps powerline set on sale to connect my gaming computer. I tried steam in-home streaming with my fanless tv computer and it works brilliantly.

I had heard mixed reports about powerlines working w/link, glad to hear it works out at least for some models/mfgs.

 

[cronos]

I never really did report back after I said I pulled the trigger, but this has been getting constant use in my home. My 12 y/o son (who has his own desktop computer and Steam account) ended up hogging our main living room TV to play his games, which isn't exactly ideal because I'm getting much less use of the SteamLink than me (and sometimes I want to watch my sports stuff, damn it). The SteamLink recognized both Steam accounts running on separate computers flawlessly, and you simply choose which one you'd like to connect to.

I've been having a lot of fun playing/replaying things like Serious Sam 3 BFE, Bioshock Infinity, and a few others on the big screen. It's pretty damn amazing.

(and yes, all my devices are wired to the network, scroll up to my previous post on what I think about streaming any kind of media content wirelessly. in general, they're more trouble than their worth and in general leads to a lot of complaints. I don't have time to deal with that kind of nonsense)