Hi all, I've been thinking about setting things up so I can play Steam games on my TV but I'm a little confused on the setup. So here's what I was planning:
main laptop in office will stream the game
TV in living room connected to Nvida shield
Nvidia shield runs Steam Link to connect to laptop
Controllers connect to Nvidia shield??
I think the main thing that confuses me is if I can connect my controllers to the Nvidia shield or do they need to connect to the laptop?
This is pretty similar to my setup except for using a Valve Steam Link over the nVidia Shield. PS5 controllers connected to Steam Link. Steam Link connects to my desktop (over lan, previously PoE worked well). It works quite well overall. A small number of games seem to have issues with being streamed, but they're pretty few and far between.
I have a steam link box in the bedroom and another in the lounge - controllers just to connect to the link, and the link handles sending the button presses to the computer running the game.
The steam link app on the Shield would work in a similar way. I would suggest to use ethernet if you can, or even a powerline ethernet plug, for a smooth streaming experience
I use this exact setup, heavily. I've used both XBox controlllers and Switch Pro Controllers (the pros unfortunately have a weird driver issue, where you don't get full analog range out of the sticks). The controller connects directly to the Shield via Bluetooth, and the Steam Link app recognizes them, no problem.
The Steam Link app is occasionally quirky, but overall, I'm very happy with the setup. Have played Elden Ring, Hollow Knight, Celeste, Armored Core 6, Mass Effect, all this way. My wife has done a bunch as well. We've even done multiplayer with Tales of Symphonia and Plate Up, and I've done emulated games with Dolphin, although that was a fair bit trickier to setup.
I wish we could get Steam Link on Xbox. That’d be the ideal solution for me since I’ve got the controller already setup. The Shield is probably a decent solution, but it’s an extra device in the chain.
The controllers connect to the Shield. You can also connect keyboard and mouse to it.
I find Steam Link to be slow and low framerate though. Sunshine running on the PC and Moonlight running on the Shield seen to do the trick. I also disabled the image sharpening on the Shield because it looks really odd.
Nvidia GameStream being disabled now is a really fucking shitty thing for them to do. Sunshine lacks the ability to change the PC resolution to match the streaming resolution.
Has anyone figured an easy way out to be able to play other launchers games through this fashion? Xbox game pass games and other launchers won’t accept the controller input.