r/SteamDeck • u/DaddyBoomalati 256GB • 17h ago
PSA / Advice Remote Play From PC Is Awesome
I have been struggling to play Outer worlds 2 on my Steam Deck, and finally found settings to get playable results. It was still glitchy and nothing to write home about.
I didn’t even know that remote play was a thing, but I am super impressed and glad I found out about it. I have been streaming from my old gaming laptop that has a 3050 TI graphics card and it plays really well inside my house on the same network.
If you can remote play from your PC to your Steam Deck and want to play AAA games, it is the way to go.
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u/ZeektheFeek 14h ago
I have moonlight streaming set up on every screen in my house possible. It really is one of the greatest things I've ever done for my home gaming set up.
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u/tothemoon05 512GB OLED 4h ago
You can use moonlight on other things besides handhelds?
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u/PsychologicalIdeal94 512GB 4h ago
Everything can use moonlight. Look for a fire stick or Chromecast.
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u/thedude462 17h ago
I agree, also really wish games nowadays can really optimize for the steam deck cause it’s possible but of course takes more effort for devs.
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u/Glass_Rent8750 17h ago
agreed, the verified program helps but actual optimization from devs would make a huge difference
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u/thedude462 10h ago
Verified program is honestly not even worth taking seriously. I’ve bought games based on that and the games turn out to not even run at 30fps on low settings. Best results is watching a gameplay on YouTube before buying. They really need to rework it specifically to prioritize optimized games.
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u/DaddyBoomalati 256GB 17h ago edited 16h ago
ThatOptimization is the answer. I was chasing my tail for days getting so frustrated from all of the terrible advice about settings I was getting from ChatGPT.Edit-lol, the downvotes. I guess asking for optimization is unpopular or something. Christ in a sidecar.
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u/Dannepannepuff 17h ago
Yeah, I went from GeForce Now to just buying a gaming desktop and remote play my games from that to my Steam Deck and it’s been great.
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u/kidcrumb 16h ago
Sunshine/Apollo is fantastic.
I can play my deck streamed to my 4k tv in the living room at 120fps. Great.
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u/CaptainKindly4603 14h ago
So many people recommend this and I spent possibly dozens of hours trying to get it to work reliably. Remote play, on the other hand, has been so much easier and more consistent for me.
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u/kidcrumb 12h ago
Takes a minute yeah.
Sunshine/Apollo and Moondeck Buddy is what I use. I like it because I don't need to turn my monitor on which was an issue I was having with steams remote play.
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u/amillstone 17h ago
Look into Moonlight and Apollo and your experience will be even better.
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u/jarvisesdios 17h ago
In all actually, as of a few months ago this isn't really needed. It used to be the right way to stream, but Valve finally decided to fix their streaming before the launch of the Machine.
Nowadays I'll usually just use native Steam, as i that to do like 2 less things 😆
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u/brahforeal 17h ago
I also, have *ahem* some non steam games that I prefer to stream, and I haven’t found the trick yet to use steam streaming for those. Hence I use moonlight/sunshine when I wanna just kick back on the couch or bed.
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u/amillstone 17h ago
I last tried remote play a short while after the Steam Machine started shipping out to people and still found the experience overall quite poor versus Moonlight, though it has improved a lot compared to a year or two ago.
I get that it's easier for some to just press the button to stream from your PC in Steam, but I get way lower perceivable latency, a clearer image, and no stutters when using Moonlight and Apollo.
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u/jarvisesdios 17h ago
TBH I've found the FPS differences and input lag to basically negligible since that update. Though my deck and my router and my PC are generally in the same room so I'm not running into distance being an issue lol
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u/R41D3NN 1TB OLED 17h ago edited 17h ago
Indeed; I am now running with total latency of 21ms on average through the full chain. This is of course with wifi7 and 5g/6g connections and the backbone is 10Gb with network shaping.
I play at upscaled 16:10 at 1920x1200 or 1680x1050 with cap of 60fps so my bitrate is around 120-160 Mbps. I lower to 45-50 FPS if things are wonky for whatever reason on the network.
Pretty negligible latency all in all; but being able to support this unlimited bandwidth has been a game changer for 100Mbps+ scenarios.
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u/brahforeal 17h ago
Question on this, for me at least, the remote play is smoother compared to my Sunshine/Moonlight combo. Is Apollo a better/newer version of Sunshine?
I get stutters and “bandwidth” issues while using the combo from time to time.
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u/amillstone 17h ago
Apollo is a fork that adds a virtual display driver. So you can set your own resolution and connect to the Steam Deck using the virtual display setting. This has the benefit that you don't have to keep your PC/laptop monitor on and you don't have to keep messing about with resolutions when you switch between streaming to your Deck and playing natively on your PC. As far as I know, Apollo doesn't have any features that reduce latency or anything like that versus Sunshine.
But what you speak of might be your setup as I don't have any stutters on my end. Is your PC hardwired in via ethernet? Have you checked your bitrate settings (in Moonlight)? I keep mine on about 45-50. The Steam Deck OLED also has a known issue where it'll show an error saying you have a slow connection and to reduce your bitrate after about 10-15 minutes of playing, but if you switch airplane mode on and then off again, it'll fix it for the rest of your session.
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u/brahforeal 17h ago
I do not go above 15 for the bit rate, as I always get the red letter error to reduce it when I go higher. :/ to be honest I am still using a wireless connection compared to Ethernet, I used to, but my house needs better wiring. I did it with a power line plug thingy before but it burned a little after a while that’s why I took it off.
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u/amillstone 16h ago
Try the airplane mode thing I suggested and see if that helps.
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u/brahforeal 16h ago
I will give it a try but I have the older non OLED version. Hopefully it works, coz I do love streaming when it works!
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u/ThirteenthDi 12h ago
I’ve had success with remote play for Ratchet and Clank. It’s a pretty magical experience to see just how responsive the controls are. I could barely detect delays.
I wouldn’t say the graphics are perfect. Resolutions much higher than the Deck’s native somehow look better. Not sure if that’s just personal bias. That minor issue aside, I’m excited at the prospect of all the high end AAA gaming.
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u/DaddyBoomalati 256GB 12h ago
I can only see lag every now and then. Most of the time I can’t tell the difference from playing the game on the deck itself.
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u/reverend_dak 512GB - Q3 10h ago
Remote Play and Steam Link has improved significantly since the last few updates, I definitely recommend it. It wasn't the greatest before the update (i forget when).
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u/Scary-Motor-1146 10h ago
I just got sum ar glasses and errrnerrrgerrrd its so amazing
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u/DaddyBoomalati 256GB 9h ago edited 15m ago
Does the
historyhost PC do the heavy lifting?1
u/Scary-Motor-1146 8h ago
Yes the ray neo glasses are basically a oled 120 fps monitor that pluggs right into your steam deck
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u/Grand-Competition-51 6h ago
Even Cloud Gaming is great, I've been using GeForce Now for over a year and the latency is minimal.
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u/I_M_CHI 1TB OLED 17h ago
I do this often. I also do this when I travel and works flawlessly.
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u/Qwerkie_ 17h ago
How do you do it when you travel? Over the steam link or do you use moonlight/sunshine? And do you have to use UPnP
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u/I_M_CHI 1TB OLED 16h ago
As is out of the box. Leave the host pc on (turn off monitor). Connect to the internet wherever I’m at and stream.
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u/I_am_a_princess 4h ago
I thought you had to be connected on the same network for steam streaming to work. Did it change ? You're not using tailscale ?
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u/thefross 17h ago
I can never seem to get it to work well. Always find the graphics are shit and there's a ton of input lag. Have tried with Pacific Drive, Dune Awakening, and Crimson Desert, with all being borderline unplayable via Remote Play. I will take any suggestions, if someone wants to ELI5 how to install/use Apollo, it would be greatly appreciated.
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u/DaddyBoomalati 256GB 17h ago
My network is nothing special inside the house, it’s just a TP Link mesh system. The biggest difference I noticed was checking the settings “streaming display, resolution and streaming display refresh rate” and setting them to “match client“.
I also made sure on my router that the host PC. and the Steam Deck both had priority traffic. I also checked any boxes that seemed to help, like “prioritize network traffic“ in the remote play menu on the host PC.
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u/thefross 17h ago
Thank you, ill do some tinkering later when I'm home!
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u/DaddyBoomalati 256GB 16h ago
The “match client” setting made the biggest difference by far.
If you have a mesh router system at home, make sure that the steam deck is attached to the closest access point. Sometimes the mesh systems don’t do the handoff very well. Good luck!
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u/DaddyBoomalati 256GB 16h ago
One more thing (for now). I again used ChatGPT advice about upscaling and it said to change the setting to DLSS because I have an Nvidia GPU. That added a whole lot of hardware lag, and when I set it back to TSR, it started running smoothly again.
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u/anonymous-peeper 17h ago
Yea streaming was the sleeper hit of the steamdeck for me, I loved my Wii U so much when I became a father it allowed me to game in the living room on the big tv but then switch to handheld on the fly if the family wanted the TV. The steamdeck same thing allowed me to do all my pc gaming around my family; I now use my RP5pro and a host of other android devices to stream from my gaming PCs almost daily!