Return of the Steam Box!

[Badfinger]

I've been using a wired 360 controller with the steam link and it's been great. I went ahead and ordered a USB dongle for the wireless 360 controller so I can switch to that.

 

This is the situation I would be most likely to use to make use of the new Steam stuff. I have no real need for a thing that's kinda like a mouse but not really, but I am interested in the Steam Link proper. I have a PS4 that I'm not even going to try do bluetooth to try and pair, and a wired 360 controller

 

How were you using the controller? Were you just in a situation where the wire stretched long enough from your PC to your TV-facing space?

[Twig]

The steam controller is way more than "kinda like a mouse".

[tabacco]

This is the situation I would be most likely to use to make use of the new Steam stuff. I have no real need for a thing that's kinda like a mouse but not really, but I am interested in the Steam Link proper. I have a PS4 that I'm not even going to try do bluetooth to try and pair, and a wired 360 controller

 

How were you using the controller? Were you just in a situation where the wire stretched long enough from your PC to your TV-facing space?

 

The Steam Link has 3 USB ports that get forwarded to the PC you're streaming from. I'm actually using a wireless 360 controller now, though, with the USB dongle plugged into the Steam Link.

[Badfinger]

The steam controller is way more than "kinda like a mouse".

 

I'm sorry for denigrating the mighty steam controller.

 

The point is I don't want or need one but would use the Steam Link.

[Twig]

You should be sorry!

[BigJKO]

In exciting news, playing The Dig on my couch using the Steam Controller was a blast!

 

Make sure you setup the controller properly, though.. There's no Steam Overlay, so you have to use the F5 button and press keyboard 'Y' to exit, none of which is of course in the default Keyboard/Mouse controller config.

[syntheticgerbil]

Did you fix the turtle bones?

[Erkki]

The Steam Link has 3 USB ports that get forwarded to the PC you're streaming from. I'm actually using a wireless 360 controller now, though, with the USB dongle plugged into the Steam Link.

Hmm... then a Bluetooth dongle would also be forwarded? Which means I could use the Dual Shock 3 via Bluetooth as easily as I do now?

[tabacco]

Hmm... then a Bluetooth dongle would also be forwarded? Which means I could use the Dual Shock 3 via Bluetooth as easily as I do now?

 

I'd assume so. It also has builtin bluetooth, so possibly no dongle required.

[SecretAsianMan]

Ah, interesting.

 

Well cool that I'm in for future games (believe)! Finally have CS:GO, too. I thought I did already, but apparently not. Hurray!

 

I just checked my library and I do indeed own all Valve's current (and future!) games.

[undermind9]

Hmm... then a Bluetooth dongle would also be forwarded? Which means I could use the Dual Shock 3 via Bluetooth as easily as I do now?

I've been trying to investigate more about ds3 usage, preliminary info points to wired only for the time being. If ds3's were wireless without heavy work and lag id be all in

[Erkki]

Heh, I just uninstalled Steam from a Mac (I guess I hadn't logged in for a couple of years there) and I haven't gotten no e-mail or the complete pack. So no free Half-Life 3 for me

[Lu]

Just an FYI that if you're using the controller, join the beta build branch of Steam. They're updating and fixing stuff on an almost daily basis there.

[Twig]

Hoping my friend will come over this weekend with his controller so I can test his and confirm once and for all my technical issues (which I'm 99% sure are real and not imagined!). Then I'll immediately figure out what annoying process I have to go through to get a replacement.

[BigJKO]

Just an FYI that if you're using the controller, join the beta build branch of Steam. They're updating and fixing stuff on an almost daily basis there.

Hadn't thought of that!

[SecretAsianMan]

I'm slowly coming around on the controller.  If you're accustomed to a "normal" controller it takes some getting used to and I still don't think the pad is all that great for things like camera control.  But the rest is pretty good.  I especially like the community key mapping thing.  Being able to save your configurations as well as getting ones from others is really quite handy.  So far the only games I've found that I don't really like it with are the ones I wouldn't play using a controller anyway (mostly FPS games).

[Erkki]

Woohoo, I received my Steam Link & Controller today and was now able to move my huge PC tower out of the living room! I have a 100MB wired network and it works almost perfectly so far (some issues with some games so far).

 

However, I have to wait a few days before I can fully enjoy it, as my PC now has an old 19" 4:3 monitor attached and this means games will not work properly in 1080p. I ordered a new monitor (the 1080p that PC gamer recommends), was overdue anyway.

 

Some issues I noticed so far:

 

* Steam Link doesn't seem to have master volume control, at least the keyboard volume controls do nothing, the audio is too loud by default, I don't want to go and adjust the volume on my speakers.

 

* if I hook up my Logitech Harmony Smart Keyboard to the Steam Link and then launch e.g. Kodi, I won't be able to use the Pause/Play/etc. buttons to control Kodi for some reason. It might work if I hookeed it up to the actual PC (should have range), but I haven't tried.

 

* logitech's mouse acceleration seems to be non-functional (for both K400 & Smart Keyboard).

[Erkki]

Damn, no range from couch to PC with logitech dongles. But at least I discovered that changing the volume on the PC end does affect the output from Steam Link. So now I'm wondering why it doesn't forward the volume key presses to the PC -- could it be that it's a driver-specific function and won't be forwarded?

[TheLastBaron]

I got my Steam Link on Saturday and so far I'm really digging it. I still need to find a small wireless keyboard, but so far I've been playing a lot of old point and click adventure games (which is basically what I bought it for) and it's great. It's been cold and rainy where I live the past couple days and curling up on the sofa next to the fire place and playing with just a trackball has been pretty sweet.

[tabacco]

I got my Steam Link on Saturday and so far I'm really digging it. I still need to find a small wireless keyboard, but so far I've been playing a lot of old point and click adventure games (which is basically what I bought it for) and it's great. It's been cold and rainy where I live the past couple days and curling up on the sofa next to the fire place and playing with just a trackball has been pretty sweet.

 

The Apple bluetooth keyboard works really well.

[Erkki]

I still need to find a small wireless keyboard

I can't recommend the Logitech K400 enough. Well, besides that the trackpad does't work well. I think the K400 Plus is supposed to fix that. The battery life on those things is insane - easily more than a year.

 

[edit] I just got my screen unexpectedly quickly! Now time to try if the Steam Link can handle movies as well.

[Justin Leego]

I've got a Logi K410 kicking about, it's decent, has the built in track pad.

Think I might have preferred a Microsoft Arc from before that though?

It's smaller, the differentiation between key shapes means it's easier to touchtype, and even though it didn't have an integrated pad, I still find myself using a wireless mouse over the Logitech trackpad where possible anyway.

[TheLastBaron]

So it's probably really obvious and I'm an idiot, but how do you actually pair a Bluetooth device to the Steam Link? I don't see an option anywhere in the options/menu.

My local Fry's had the K400 for $18 so I picked one up and it serves its purpose great.

[BusbyBerkeley]

There's a blutooth option on the main menu, before you pick which PC your going to stream from. I think that's where you'd go? I've not used it myself.

[Erkki]

(I copied this from a post I made elsewhere so sorry if this repeats something in this thread)

 

So I've been trying the Steam Link and  Steam Controller. The link works pretty well (wired net), but I do see some compression artifacts in GTA V. Not enough to really bother me, though. I've tried a few other games as well and on the whole the experience can feel a bit beta (but I already prefer it to having a huge tower in my living room). If there are crashes or weirdness, I sometimes have to run to the computer room.

 

There aren't as good controller schemes for all games as has become standard practice with the console controllers. For those, developers have had time to perfect the schemes since the DualShock was introduced in 1997. Steam Controller can make that scheme work, but the haptic touch-pad isn't perfect for emulating the right thumb-stick.

 

It definitely feels like the Steam Controller has potential to work better than two-stick controllers, though. The shape is just perfect for my hands, and the triggers with the final click are an excellent idea, as are the bottom buttons under middle/ring finger. The haptic feedback seems to work well enough in some cases, but I haven't tried any games that have special support for it.

 

When the controller has a mixed Gamepad+kb/mouse emu, what can happen is that games switch between which scheme is active, and this can produce some weirdness (in GTA V seems to start recording video quite often after some button press combos, even if I didn't iniciate that particular function)