Steam In-Home Streaming Closed Beta Begins

[WYP]

Today Valve has sent out the first wave of steam streaming beta invites.

Beta Status Update

We've sent out invitations to development partners to try out the streaming beta. As we iterate we'll add more and more people to the beta, so if you haven't gotten your invite, stay tuned!

For those who have gotten your invite, I'd love to hear how things are working for you!

I look forward to hearing how the beta goes for these users and hope there will be a public beta soon.

The In-Home Streaming options will be one of the key features on which to market the console to current PC gamers, allowing those with powerful rigs to play from anywhere in your home. For me personally it is the only reason I would buy a Steam Machine (or rather a super cheap "Stream Machine").

What are your opinions on Steam game streaming? Are any of you as interested to try it out as me? Please comment below.

source - Valve

 

[Snortan]

So basically you need two rigs to play one game...personally I don't see the point of it but I can definitely understand why some people would use it.
Better go develop HL3 Valve!

 

[scorchedbee]

i cannot wait for this, use my decent gaming pc downstairs!

will get a gigabyte brixx or the zotac one.. which ever is cheapest!

 

[WYP]

i cannot wait for this, use my decent gaming pc downstairs!

will get a gigabyte brixx or the zotac one.. which ever is cheapest!

Remember mate you can always build your own! It will likely be the cheapest option.

Throw in a mid end kaveri APU with a cheap motherboard and your flying.

 

[Gekko12482]

So basically you need two rigs to play one game...personally I don't see the point of it but I can definitely understand why some people would use it.
Better go develop HL3 Valve!

Just cheap out on your main rig, noise doesn't matter as it is hidden away in your meter cupboard (is that a thing? Just used an online translator on that one), and build some very cheap rig near your tv in the living room, basement and your desktop setup, and be able to play where ever you want without compromises. Later on, I this used in some nvidia shield way where you ghetto mod your phone on your xbox controller and can play some rollercoaster tycoon before you go to sleep. Playstation 5 and Xbox >9000 will probably never see the light if this works out well.

 

[driftingforlife]

Time I got on with a teamed network set-up

 

[Contendo]

Looks interesting but it certainly isn't for people on the budget. Unless you can build steam machine for really really cheap that money, that money for many gamers would be better spent on upgrading your main rig.

I wonder what kind of connection is needed for streaming. Can your "average" wi-fi equipment handle it? Afraid I don't nearly have enough tech knowledge to even speculate about it

 

[paullongy326]

for those with top end machine I don't see the point really now for the console market I think they will give xbox and ps3 a good run for there money I have top end pc and I wouldn't swap it for anything

 

[Jack02]

At present there at 14 Different Steam Machines from 14 different manufacturers. Many of these machines have hardware configuration and retail prices unveiled but many are still unknown.

 

[BradleyW-H]

Think it will be cool to get a few mates round and sit down and stream games. Probably knock up a little steam machine in silverstones new case.

 

[looz]

I got in couple of hours ago. Performance was disappointing across the board, adjusting settings didn't really matter. Perhaps the problem is that all my computers run Linux?

 

[Edge]

I got in, but no SteamBox to stream to! xD

 

[Snortan]

I got in couple of hours ago. Performance was disappointing across the board, adjusting settings didn't really matter. Perhaps the problem is that all my computers run Linux?

Are you using wifi?

 

[SWDescent]

So far I'm thinking one, my laptop is a little too old to stream it (going to try my wife's newer i5 laptop tonight), and second I'm thinking because my apt complex has about 30+ AP's around here and I struggle to get a good solid signal half the time it may be causing my 120ms ping average, games like Rouge Legacy and Batman Arkham Asylum seemed ok (though having strange sound issues, can hear sound effects/music, but no voices over stream...) but shooters were completely out of the question, that 120ms ping kept making me over turn and drove me nuts. Hoping they stream line it a bit more and I think my wife's will be able to do 1080p unlike my Core2Duo ancient laptop struggling with the 720p (have to watch TTL's videos in 720p on this laptop, prefer doing 1080p on the desktop normally) stream. Anyways I'll let you know how it goes

 

[WYP]

Just got accepted into the beta .

I'll try to give it a test at some point this week.

 

[dladdin]

this is where a little steam machine comes in with loads of hard drives ramed it it...

 

[maniac]

Just got accepted in the Beta, so as a happy child on Christmas I wanted to test it, like asap. First couldn't get my laptop to show in the supported devices list, then after a couple of minutes it just came up. First tested some Batman Arkham city, didn't exactly lag, more like stuttering. Controls seem fine, I could actually play using the mouse and keyboard from the laptop on my PC and wouldn't notice the delay.

Now my Desktop monitor is 1080p while the laptop is 1366x768 so I streamed at 720p, quality seems to take a hit though. I was seeing a 40MBit connection between the devices and still stuttered quite badly. Also while playing Tomb Raider I noticed the cursor wasn't showing on the device I was playing on, it showed on the desktop though, it was kind of frustrating when using the map.

I know I am being picky and I know its still in beta, but they wont fix it if we don't tell them about it will they?

Ps. my laptop monitor sucks, I know

 

[Kosio]

This is awesome, the end of consoles is nigh. You just need 1000$ PC, some technical expertise and let's hope the controller is good too.

 

[SmOkM]

Ive been testing it for a few weeks now, unless you have some kinda business standard WIFI it's a no go at all really to any state beyond 15 frames.

running off a 780 and 4770k i see full 60 fps stream when over Ethernet though...and was able to play Planetside 2 for a few hours on a laptop. The delay is to me negligible but from game to game you will notice it more. I can say that it wasn't affecting my aim in mass fights at all really, something I thought I'd never say before getting into the beta, especially playing online over the top of the stream delay also. I Was streaming on maxed settings 1080 down to 1600x900 lappy. I also outputted from the lappy to a Large HD TV and still retained great performance.

any magical dreams of wifi game streaming for the masses though is a ways off to me.

 

[Snortan]

You probably need an AC router in order to do it over wifi.