PC Best way to stream games from my PC to LG CX 77.

[Dexterryu]

Hello... hoping to get some advice here.

 

Since COVID my job has become work from home permanently. Since I work in front of a computer all day my normal gaming go-to has switched from my PC to my PS4 as I just want to sit on my couch and game vs spend more time in my home office. That said, there are some great games on PC that I'd love to play on my new LG CX 77. Since Steam link isn't an available App on LG I'm looking for a device that will offer good game streaming from my gaming PC.

I've been looking at the Nvidia Shield 4k and it looks great, but it also looks like it's going to be too large to plug directly into the TV in the extra ports it has in the back since it's 6.6" long. I'd love it if someone were able to confirm this.

 

I'd be happy to consider other options too. I'm not married to nvidia so if something else like a 4k Fire TV, Roku, or whatever else would accomplish this that would be great. My PC is plenty powerful, so I'd love something able to do 4k@60 w/ HDR.

[Spork3245]

What do you mean that the Shield is too big? It’s a small console/box that you run an HDMI cord from, not a stick, correct?

[Dexterryu]

https://www.amazon.com/NVIDIA-Streaming-Performance-Assistant-945-13430-2500-000/dp/B07YP94PBJ/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=shield+4k&qid=1604061853&sr=8-2

 

Is this not a stick? If not then my question then becomes is this the best choice? Money isn't really a major concern but $30 for a 4k Fire stick vs $150 is kinda hard to ignore?

[Spork3245]

3 minutes ago, Dexterryu said:

https://www.amazon.com/NVIDIA-Streaming-Performance-Assistant-945-13430-2500-000/dp/B07YP94PBJ/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=shield+4k&qid=1604061853&sr=8-2

 

Is this not a stick? If not then my question then becomes is this the best choice? Money isn't really a major concern but $30 for a 4k Fire stick vs $150 is kinda hard to ignore?

It’s not a stick, scroll to the fourth image. It’s a miniaturized version of the full one - it still uses an HDMI cord.

[Keyser_Soze]

Steam Link if you can find one

[cusideabelincoln]

Any Android or Apple device should do the trick, when you load the Steam Link app, and you would preferably want something that you can connect with an ethernet cable to get maximum bandwidth and minimum latency.  With a Shield 4k you have the option of either using Nvidia Gamestream or the Steam Link app.

 

Roku won't work, and I think you'd have to sideload the app on a 4k Firestick--plus the Firestick is wireless which isn't ideal.

[Spork3245]

7 minutes ago, cusideabelincoln said:

Any Android or Apple device should do the trick, when you load the Steam Link app, and you would preferably want something that you can connect with an ethernet cable to get maximum bandwidth and minimum latency.  With a Shield 4k you have the option of either using Nvidia Gamestream or the Steam Link app.

 

Roku won't work, and I think you'd have to sideload the app on a 4k Firestick--plus the Firestick is wireless which isn't ideal.

Plus with Gamestream you can stream compatible GamePass games easily. With SteamLink you have to jump through hoops to get it working.

Buuuuut, is GameStream still limited to 30fps? SteamLink allows 60 4k HDR.

[Dexterryu]

Thanks guys... I actually have some old steam links and like them but they only do 1080P correct? That's why I was looking for something 4k HDR capable. 

 

I've been researching on the side a bit... still debating between 4K shield, 4k Fire + Ethernet adapter + Moonlight.

[stepee]

Shield tv is definitely the best way to go because of 4k/hdr but since Moonlight uses gamestream just like on shield it also works very well (and supports 4k/hdr). I use it for my phone and it works great, haven’t tried it on my bedroom tv yet though. I suppose it just matters if the android moonlight app can do 4k/hdr or not.

[Spork3245]

10 minutes ago, stepee said:

Shield tv is definitely the best way to go because of 4k/hdr but since Moonlight uses gamestream just like on shield it also works very well (and supports 4k/hdr). I use it for my phone and it works great, haven’t tried it on my bedroom tv yet though. I suppose it just matters if the android moonlight app can do 4k/hdr or not.

The AppleTV one can do 4k HDR (for moonlight), but it seems spotty compared to the actual GameStream app on my Shield tablet. It’s also limited to 30fps, whereas the SteamLink app can do 60fps.

[Dexterryu]

Definitely going to go shield. Seems like it's a guarantee that it has everything I want with the least amount of hassle. Question is whether to get it now or wait and see if there is a black friday deal.

[stepee]

10 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

The AppleTV one can do 4k HDR (for moonlight), but it seems spotty compared to the actual GameStream app on my Shield tablet. It’s also limited to 30fps, whereas the SteamLink app can do 60fps.

 

That’s bizarre it can only do 30fps on apple tv when the phone app has 60fps options!

[Spork3245]

2 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

That’s bizarre it can only do 30fps on apple tv when the phone app has 60fps options!

60fps was available at 1080p but not 4k iirc

[stepee]

1 minute ago, Spork3245 said:

60fps was available at 1080p but not 4k iirc

 

Hm, I’ll have to check it now, I think at least the phone app is pretty new to have 4k/60.

[Spork3245]

2 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

60fps was available at 1080p but not 4k iirc

Looks like they updated Moonlight and it can do up to 4k120 now. You need to use their PC app, though.

I tried it back in, I think, March/April.

[TwinIon]

I mostly use Moonlight to stream to my iPad, but I wasn't in love with how it worked on my Shield. I have the 2019 tube, and while it does work, I couldn't keep a high quality stream going for too long. The PC and the Shield are both wired to ethernet, so I figured I could turn up the bitrate and resolution and have everything work perfectly.  It would for a while, looking good and perfectly playable, but then I'd run into issues. Stuttering, connection drops, or warnings about bitrates.  It became pretty stable when I lowered the settings, but I personally wouldn't want that to be the primary way I played my PC games. YMMV of course.

[Spork3245]

28 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

I mostly use Moonlight to stream to my iPad, but I wasn't in love with how it worked on my Shield. I have the 2019 tube, and while it does work, I couldn't keep a high quality stream going for too long. The PC and the Shield are both wired to ethernet, so I figured I could turn up the bitrate and resolution and have everything work perfectly.  It would for a while, looking good and perfectly playable, but then I'd run into issues. Stuttering, connection drops, or warnings about bitrates.  It became pretty stable when I lowered the settings, but I personally wouldn't want that to be the primary way I played my PC games. YMMV of course.

Why are you using Moonlight on a Shield and not nVidia’s actual app? 

[Dexterryu]

Got my Shield on Saturday and gamed practically all weekend on it. It really is impressive. 

 

In fact it's so impressive I'm now considering buying a bluetooth mouse & keyboard so I can play FPS/TPS games with them as I HATE playing those types of games with a controller. Does anyone have any suggestions for keyboards that don't require a USB dongle to connect via bluetooth (since the tube doesn't have USB)? Lots of mice like that but I haven't seen any keyboards.

[AshsToAshs]

I picked up the Shield Pro recently for exactly this reason. I really wanted to stream games from my PC to the TV.
It seems to work really really well for this. However there are some quirks that im still trying to figure out, such as:

• I originally bought it without the official Shield controller. I tried using it with an Xbox One controller and a DS4 controller. And while it worked, getting vibration it work was very hit-or-miss. I've read a lot of online fixes for this, but nothing seemed like a 100% fix. So I ended up buying the Shield Controller, which works flawlessly with vibration.
• The UI for Nvidia's app sucks. I've heard that some people setup "Playnite" as an app in Gamestream, and use that as a better library. I've tried that, however it launches in 1440p (which is my PC monitors resolution) instead of 4k (which is my TVs resolution). If I launch any game normally from the Nvidia games app, it will launch in 4k. But if i launch Playnite first, then everything is stuck at 1440p.
• I've tried using Moonlight, which seems to work fine. However vibration seems to never work for me, even with the Shield controller.

Beyond that, I just which Android TV looked better overall

 

 

 

[stepee]

So, everyone is pretty happy with their shield and would you say it is perfectly good to play for long periods streaming to it?

 

Im thinking of getting one for my bedroom because my normal tv/pc is in the living room where I’m working all day now, so I’d like to kind of separate the two a bit on work days. 

 

I definitely want to get the pro model because it’s worth $50 to me to even just play with the AI upscaling stuff.

 

I decided to finally test out moonlight on my tv and I’m a little scared that the performance for gamestream in general isn’t there though.

 

In preparation I routed an ethernet cable and switch into my room so I’m not stuck on wifi there and connected to my Apple Tv in my room with both the desktop and the apple tv on ethernet.

 

Its weird. It looks really good but there is this weird almost constant micro stutter that you can see even moving a cursor around a menu. Just an extreme gamepad lag as well actually. Leaving the stat monitor on it says I never lose any frames due to network issues though.

 

Ill have to check again on my android fire 4k but that doesn’t have ethernet so it is harder to test.

 

I don’t know what kind of opinions I’m looking for really, just trying to think if I should just go for it and figure it will resolve my problems or bother trying to find the source of the problem on apple tv to make sure the concept itself should work well.

 

It’s $200 so if I got it I would have expectations of being able to stream smooth enough that I could just chill back and play all day in bed and the experience would be really close to native with some input delay and artifacts.

 

 

[stepee]

Also when i have the stats overlay it looks like the stream is constantly going between 61-63fps which seems weird and idk if that is normal or not.

 

When I use virtual desktop on quest to stream wirelessly, and this works great for me even though it’s wifi, it’s always just about a constant 90fps shown in the stream stats.

[stepee]

So I ended up getting the shield pro over the weekend finally after never getting anything decent working with what I had.

 

It works great! The weird shitty stutter is all gone here, it’s doing 4k60/hdr and looks amazingly close besides the fact the tv itself is worse in my room.

 

I actually played with it for a few hours and had no connection warnings or stutters that I observed besides one 3 seconds stutter once. Very impressive. And it still seems to ai upscale a bit if you have it turned on for gamestream even with a 4k stream, maybe it clears out some of the compression issues. I tested going close to text using it on and off and it definitely sharpens it still. Of course if it’s a 1080p stream it makes a huge difference.

 

I should mention I mean when you get in it works great. It took some work and I still have some more to do to really make it convenient to get it going correctly all the time.

 

This is mainly due to my hdmi 2.1 source tv at 120hz and my receiving tv being 2.0 60hz and differences in supported hdr between them.

[Mr.Vic20]

I didn't realize the shield pro handled a 4L/60 stream. I guess I "need" one for the bedroom now... 

[stepee]

53 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

I didn't realize the shield pro handled a 4L/60 stream. I guess I "need" one for the bedroom now... 

 

Yep! HDR works too but I guess nvidia has done some stuff that makes it harder than it used to be? Right now I have to launch into steam big picture then load a game and hdr works but want to find a better workaround than that because steam big picture mode fucks with my other tv. And I have to have the other tv on to get hdr also, need to figure that out too. Maybe I’ll get a virtual display port adapter.

[Mr.Vic20]

48 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

Yep! HDR works too but I guess nvidia has done some stuff that makes it harder than it used to be? Right now I have to launch into steam big picture then load a game and hdr works but want to find a better workaround than that because steam big picture mode fucks with my other tv. And I have to have the other tv on to get hdr also, need to figure that out too. Maybe I’ll get a virtual display port adapter.

Good lord, I dislike big picture mode. I get the point of it, but I find it buggier and not ad data dense. Feels like the Duplo blocks of UIs. Lets hope the Steam deck overhaul promotes a superior alternative to the big picture mode. 

[stepee]

12 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

Good lord, I dislike big picture mode. I get the point of it, but I find it buggier and not ad data dense. Feels like the Duplo blocks of UIs. Lets hope the Steam deck overhaul promotes a superior alternative to the big picture mode. 

 

Yeah, I hate it. There is no reason for that to be the only way hdr works though, I just need to figure out another shortcut. I think it’s only 1080p too still??? I think that’s why my tv gets all weird because then it’s going to some 1080p/hdr/120vrr mode or whatever that it hates for some reason.

[stepee]

One thing I noticed is a bit of what seems to be lag from the gamepad itself when using the Xbone bluetooth gamepad. There was a weird delay that seemed to go away when I use the dual sense instead. I’ve had weird problems with this xbone pad on windows and other devices for some reason so it may be mine, but I have seen other people mention this.

 

Also found that it works fine if I just use big picture to launch then alt tab out and I’m in my desktop so actually that’s fine for me. I solved my other tv freaking out problem with hdr as well by setting the shield and pc both to 10bit 420 and set at 60hz. Guess you just need to find something that works well for both tvs..but I wish the source tv just had no part in it whatsoever. Which leads me to the remaining problem of figuring out how to have hdr on without needing the source tv on.

 

Once I figure that out this is going to fucking rule. Was trying it out in my room with Strive, Death Stranding, Kingdom Hearts 3, and they all ran great. Streaming at 4khdr 60fps and literally did not have a single streaming stutter or hiccup or quality change or anything during an hour or so.