Eternity RPC Board
11-24-2018, 07:45 AM
First things first: I recommend this highly...with some major caveats.
I initially bought this thing so I could play local multiplayer with my wife without one of us dragging a bar stool to my desktop, but owned it for almost two years before I finally took it out of the package some months ago. After the right application of ethernet cables and powerline adapters (our home is rather...unfriendly to reliable & fast wifi), I'm proud to say this is one of my favorite bits of extraneous hardware.
A word of warning, unless you have a great router and are working under the best possible wifi conditions in your home (or wherever) you're very likely to experience very noticable input lag at best, up to dropped/skipped frames, frozen screens and controls, or even disconnections for the steam link entirely, but having either the Steam Link or the streaming system on a wired connection helps immensely; in my case I needed both to be wired, but that wasn't a problem once I grabbed another powerline adapter (honestly, best networking invention ever made, cannot recommend more highly, but I'm getting off topic).
The good news is that, for all the initial trouble, I've felt literally no input lag on a fully wired connection despite being 100' away and on a separate floor from both my computer and router. So, that's nice. Absolutely love being able to play my games in the living room frustration-free, with family and friends, instead of tucked away in my single-seat media dungeon.
Considering the $100-ish in extra hardware I had to pick up to truly make my Steam Link shine, I'm iffy on the $70 base asking price; if you have no problems and it works on wifi straight from the box, then that's a fine enough price for this streaming box, but I picked mine up for 75% off, and all-in-all I felt that was a great bargain for what I've gotten out of it so far.
I initially bought this thing so I could play local multiplayer with my wife without one of us dragging a bar stool to my desktop, but owned it for almost two years before I finally took it out of the package some months ago. After the right application of ethernet cables and powerline adapters (our home is rather...unfriendly to reliable & fast wifi), I'm proud to say this is one of my favorite bits of extraneous hardware.
A word of warning, unless you have a great router and are working under the best possible wifi conditions in your home (or wherever) you're very likely to experience very noticable input lag at best, up to dropped/skipped frames, frozen screens and controls, or even disconnections for the steam link entirely, but having either the Steam Link or the streaming system on a wired connection helps immensely; in my case I needed both to be wired, but that wasn't a problem once I grabbed another powerline adapter (honestly, best networking invention ever made, cannot recommend more highly, but I'm getting off topic).
The good news is that, for all the initial trouble, I've felt literally no input lag on a fully wired connection despite being 100' away and on a separate floor from both my computer and router. So, that's nice. Absolutely love being able to play my games in the living room frustration-free, with family and friends, instead of tucked away in my single-seat media dungeon.
Considering the $100-ish in extra hardware I had to pick up to truly make my Steam Link shine, I'm iffy on the $70 base asking price; if you have no problems and it works on wifi straight from the box, then that's a fine enough price for this streaming box, but I picked mine up for 75% off, and all-in-all I felt that was a great bargain for what I've gotten out of it so far.