Build Advice What is the smallest PC build to stream Steam?

I like the bit in the second video with the keyboard.

 

I've considered a Raspberry Pi as a HTPC, but it would need to be able to record up to two TV signals simultaneously while playing back a recording (although on a 1080p TV the signal would of course be TV resolution). How many 1080p video streams can it handle?

 

I've tried streaming Saints Row IV to a i3 2125 and a GTS 450 over gigabit from my main rig and it was choppy as hell. Admittedly the graphics settings were up high on my main rig but it was practically unplayable. I might give it another whirl at some point.

 

I think the key things are bandwidth and H.264/MPEG-4 decoding ability. Since the Revo under my telly only has a dual core (hyperthreaded) 1.8GHz, 1MB L2 cache processor with 2GB RAM, I suspect that the ethernet port and the Nvidia Ion 2 gubbins are doing just about all the work between them.

That's always the best part of everything I do

 

One of these for £122 is a lot of bang for buck, i3 Ivy CPU @ 1.8GHz, Intel HD4000 graphics, HDMI, USB, Thunderbolt (with Display Port capability) etc, all in a 116.6mm×112.0mm×39.0mm sized package.

http://www.ebuyer.com/409027-mb-boxdc3217by-ucff-ddr3-106-tbolt-box-boxdc3217by



However, you will still need to get it on your network with a wireless adapter plus also purchase a power brick. By the time you do that you may as well have bought this...

http://www.ebuyer.com/569725-nuc-boxd34010wyk-ucff-ddr3-1333-box-boxd34010wyk



For £210 you get a Haswell i3 @ 1.7GHz, HD 4400 graphics, built in ethernet port, USB 3.0, infrared sensor, power brick included.

 

Thanks for the post

I think the colour has more to do with the TV than the machine?

 

No, the colour is definitely a Steam streaming thing. That TV might be a few years old but it's got a fairly tasty Sony panel in it

When the streaming starts, it changes the colour handling on the slave PC completely. When you quit the game, it dumps you into a slightly "colour shifted" version of the slave PC's desktop, before reverting back to the correct colour palette after a fraction of a second. Like an overlay designed to hide compression noise or something - tough to say.

I'm sure I could fanny about with settings to make it look slightly less saturated, but to be honest it doesn't look too bad and would work well for driving games which is probably all I'll use it for tbh.

 

Then might as well go for the Asrock 420D:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/mini-pc-round-up,3697-15.html

I see. Do you think it can replace the xbox/ps anytime soon? Or is the laggy interface still not up to it. Another thing I would like to know/test is that if you have 2 people playing different games? Is it possible? A person playing FPS on the PC, kids playing some multiplayer game on the streaming account.

 

As far as I can tell, whatever is being streamed will be output on both the slave and master PCs, so you are only really viewing a remote desktop connection to your main rig, optimised for game streaming. See the second of my videos.

The graphics are obviously inherently "better" than a console, I just worry that some of the fidelity is lost. I don't think streaming is quite a permanent solution just yet, more of an interesting option that will suit certain games.

I'm not complaining mind, games always look awesome on the big screen, and it's the way things will go until we all just have a server in the loft/cellar/outhouse/garage, streaming everything we want to semi-smart terminals all around the house.

 

If you want it to replace a console then I would probably look to build a small PC capable of playing some games rather than streaming.

As far as I'm aware you can only be logged into a single account on a PC at once using the client, so you couldn't have someone playing a game on the PC and someone else playing on the streaming account. (also you'd need a pretty beefy PC to be able to play both games at once I would have thought)

 

I'm pretty sure that even if you had a datacentre full of Teslas powering your rig, the way the Steam clients work mean that you can only stream a view of the desktop.

 

Interesting, I may consider building a small system for steam streaming now. Didnt realise quite how low down the performance scale you could go!

 

The other option is picking up a laptop from ebay with a broken screen and using that plugged into your TV.

 

Kids don't mind. As long as they can play Lego on a bigger screen, they are happy