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

Hi,

I have a Sony LED TV. It has HDMI outputs. Steam just announced streaming: http://store.steampowered.com/streaming

Since most of my steam games are lego games/Trine magicka or some other game that supports a controller, I was wondering what is the smallest PC build with at least 2 USB ports, supports HDMI out, WiFi/BT and ideally I want to place it permanently behind the TV.

Any ideas?

 

A NUC ?

 

Second hand Atom based nettop. With Ion for a little extra juice.

 

Sounds like a good idea, pretty cheap. Wouldn't it perform pretty badly with streaming, i know streaming'll work on just about anything, but don't you some sort of minimum spec to make it playable?

 

The Revo R3700 I'm using can stream 1080p @ 10mbit over the network without a stutter, I assume Steam streaming requires a bit less than that?

If not then I'll plead ignorance and slowly back out of the door...

 

I think it's a bit early to see how effective the steam streaming is, I'd give it a few weeks for some feedback to come out with peoples experiences.

 

Sounds promising, lets hope it keeps getting better then.

 

A netbook isn't really a great idea, as Steam supports hardware decoding - most netbooks don't have a compatible GPU.

I'd say a NUC would be a good shout too.

 

According to the Steam home streaming guide, hardware acceleration for h.264 is what's needed.

From what Shirty said, you can get net-tops with nvidia ION, which supports h.264 decoding. It's not clear what the system requirements are at present, so it might be worth waiting to see what performance other people are getting before pulling the trigger.

 

Netflix HD uses silver light which requires 2GHz CPU I know it stutters on my HP micro with 1.6 GHz CPU + GT 520 and 8 GB ram.

 

Here is a guide by lifehacker:

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-setup-...ds=10152203106649139&fb_action_types=og.likes

Small, but not insanely hot or too slow

Why not just build something around a A10-6700T with 45W TDP?

Add a mini-itx board, and that is it?

 

Or an AM1 5350 might work? It can do the h.264 and manages 1080p video fine!

 

Wouldn't it be smarter to build a small system with a bit of overhead to start with? Seems like a better investment long term than going for the absolute bare minimum of specs.

 

Just a quick update, I tried Burnout last night using a wired connection and the Revo streamed it perfectly. The Ion 2 is obviously very adept at decoding H264.

I'm away from home until Sunday evening but I'm looking forward to playing a bit more with some different genres.

 

The 5350 is a good APU. However, in order for it to be totally wireless or play nice with the TV/ I don't think a mini-itx wifi motherboard is available yet. Correct me if I'm wrong. Having a console the size of an Antec ISK 300/310 is good enough for me. Smaller than the PS3/PS4. Has a optical drive...should I need to use it.

If it is just streaming, I don't think you need high end hardware.

Post results please

 

Raspberry Pi. Seriously, Limelight has been ported to work on the Raspberry Pi (http://www.raspberrypi.org/limelight-who-needs-a-steam-machine-when-you-have-a-pi/), which just goes to show how little power you need on the client side.

To give yourself a better experience you'd probably want something that can handle the proper Steam interface; if a Pi can do it then a Sempron 2650 should be more than enough.

 

It can playback 1080p videos without stutter?

 

I've run 1080p video through a Raspberry Pi without issue; though you will get buffering issues with high bitrate videos over a network, due to limited network bandwidth (100mbit only, no gigabit).

Not sure how well it'll cope with game streaming in 1080p though, I think the network bandwidth may be a little low for it; 720p ought to be fine tho. Going to do some streaming tests with it over the weekend, as I want to try out the 5V regulators and lipo cells I picked up a while back.

 

What about Gigabyte BRIX?

Reviews of different systems here

 

Apologies for the utterly shite video quality and sound, but evidence that the little Revo can deal with Steam streaming:




The framerate is a lot smoother than my HTC's camera makes it look - basically it's hovering around 60fps at max settings just as the main rig is.

The only things that take a bit of a hit are edges and colour quality - moving to a 1000meg connection might help this a bit, although I suspect not.

The input lag would be a problem for twitch games, but not so much for anything else.

Wireless streaming was comedy at its finest, although again with a top end router and receivers you'd probably get smooth gameplay.