Mine was $1! I love it. I just bought a wireless mouse and keyboard for it, because it's honestly just a great way to stream stuff. Now my computer can be in my living room, and my office at the same time!

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[–] speaker_hat@lemmy.one 129 points 10 months ago (9 children)

I just read in Wikipedia that Valve is privately helded.

There must be something magical in the fact that they don't need to feed their shareholders with mountains of cash every quarter, and actually focus on their customers, as happened in this post.

[–] Budd@lemmy.world 69 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Fun fact, they used to be public but Gabe took it back private after realizing how shitty it was having to answer to shareholders.

[–] speaker_hat@lemmy.one 15 points 10 months ago

That's an interesting piece of info

[–] cmhe@lemmy.world 62 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

True, private companies are generally more focused on customer satisfaction, but that can suddenly change, for instance when the owner dies, and the new owners don't share the same ideals.

Private companies have a certain single point of failure built-in by having often just one or sometimes a small number of owners.

Nobody really knows what will happen when Gabe dies.

I just hope that valve becomes a worker cooperative... That would be the most stable form of company that probaly stays focused on customer satisfaction long term, since workers tend to favor providing long-term profits via good service instead of short term gains, for high frequency traders.

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[–] cordlesslamp@lemmy.today 45 points 10 months ago (6 children)

And the fact is they still make a mountain of cash every quarter, just by focusing on their customers.

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[–] newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 109 points 10 months ago

That's actually really awesome.

[–] ono@lemmy.ca 101 points 10 months ago

I bought one during the clearance sale for the price of shipping, assuming that it would be abandoned but maybe still useful as a low-power linux server. I guess I ought to set it up and take advantage of it.

Thanks, Valve, for not letting these things become instant e-waste.

[–] blazeknave@lemmy.world 57 points 10 months ago (2 children)

8 years later and I still haven't used it once

[–] BigPotato@lemmy.world 28 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Every time I've tried to use it, I've either had to head downstairs to the PC to fix something or had terrible lag and artifacting making it unusable for even turn based games like Xcom...

But I still love that little box. I've got two of them and I have Steam Controllers to pair with them but I've never had luck with them. Wired, wireless, no luck.

[–] Zyrxil@lemmy.world 28 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Have you tried Moonlight? It's an open source streaming alternative software that you can install on Steam Links, streams using Nvidia's GeForce Experience as the broadcasting part and Moonlight receives it.

https://moonlight-stream.org/

[–] a_wild_mimic_appears@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 10 months ago

https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine works for AMD/Intel/Nvidia :-)

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[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago

Every time I’ve tried to use it, I’ve either had to head downstairs to the PC to fix something or had terrible lag and artifacting making it unusable for even turn based games like Xcom…

That's not normal. While Steam Link is a bit older by now and as a result there are constrains like streamed resolution, your problems look more likely connected to your network than Steam Link itself. Digital Foundry talked about PlayStation Portal recently which also includes a two minutes chapter about best practices that apply to other game streaming devices as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEoo_gbOBYo

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[–] BmeBenji@lemm.ee 50 points 10 months ago (10 children)

Maybe the Steam Link and Controller weren’t as popular as Valve hoped they would be, but damn everyone who still has them seems to love them. Maybe I’m biased because I still have my controller and love it, and I gave away my Steam link because my Deck can do that too, but my friend who received the link is loving it.

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[–] dinckelman@lemmy.world 48 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I love mine. It does one thing, and it does it well. That's exactly what I wanted from it

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[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 44 points 10 months ago (2 children)

That's the thing about Valve. They really know and do software as good as anyone else in the business.

[–] HATEFISH@midwest.social 38 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Let's not pretend alt tabbing a source game was possible pre 2013

[–] Fontasia@feddit.nl 13 points 10 months ago (2 children)

True, but the Steam overlay is a good workaround

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[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 34 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Don't even need the hardware anymore. The Android app is really good on its own. I can even play games while not on my own home network with minimal lag so long as I am on 5G or wifi. I use it to play a few rounds of Civilization when waiting at the doctor.

[–] Retrograde@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Kolanak, I've seen you comment on so many threads on Lemmy. I thank you for A. Being an active commenter, B: having valuable opinions and instigating discourse and C: having your name in emoji format so people clearly see you.

Well done.

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[–] rickdg@lemmy.world 29 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Feels like a nice symptom of Valve's flat structure.

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[–] EmoDuck@sh.itjust.works 29 points 10 months ago

This post reminded me that it's supposed to be used for gaming. I've had mine since it was first released and have always used it to turn my TV into a PC monitor to watch YouTube and Movies from my bed

[–] CH3DD4R_G0BL1N@sh.itjust.works 28 points 10 months ago (2 children)

But…but…vAlve doEsNt suPpoRt iTs haRdWare

[–] Retrograde@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

I've never seen people say this, but if they do, fuck em

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[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago (10 children)

I just wish it worked on modern linux.

spent an entire weekend trying to get steam link to work only to find out it doesnt work on wayland.

[–] knightly@pawb.social 10 points 10 months ago

I give it eight months. Wayland support is getting better every week and some major distros plan to drop X11 by the end of the year.

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[–] garretble@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This post got me to dig mine out after all these years.

After literally 99 updates, I got it running and again and played some games from the couch. It was a good time! I don’t know why I packed it away.

Valve needs to update this little dude, but they never will, of course.

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Most smart devices have steam link streaming built in now...which is sadly why they retired the hardware

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[–] mihnt@lemmy.world 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

I love the concept of them, but I've never had an enjoyable experience on mine. Always lag, host client crashing, or some other crap stopping me from playing.

This is on a Cat 6a network too. Never had it on wifi.

[–] Zyrxil@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Try installing https://moonlight-stream.org/ on the Steam Link. Uses Nvidia's GeForce Experience to stream from your PC; works a lot better in my experience.

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[–] stanka@lemmy.ml 18 points 10 months ago

Labor of Love

[–] Suavevillain@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago

I love when old hardware gets update still.

[–] kratoz29@lemm.ee 17 points 10 months ago

The hardware that became an app, good thing it has updates yet.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Mine never worked very well. I'm assuming it's very dependent on which GPU you have.

Had much better results with Moonlight and Sunshine.

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[–] kosanovskiy@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago (7 children)

What do you use it for?

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 53 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

As someone who continues using a Steam Link for its original intended use of game streaming, this strikes me as a somewhat silly question. Haha.

Maybe I am just not adventurous enough with mine to consider other uses?

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[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

I swapped over to a Sunshine host (non-NVidia version of Moonlight) + Moonlight client combo for game streaming and it absolutely blew Steamlink out of the water for me. Went from lag, resolution switching and disconnects to buttery smooth on my Pi400 at 1080p.

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[–] mrgucci@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

Love mine, use it constantly to play games in the living room!

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