How to Use Steam Link (2026 Guide)

Steam Link is Valve’s free game-streaming system that pipes a game running on your gaming PC to another screen in your house — a phone, a tablet, a TV box, a Raspberry Pi, or even a VR headset. The original Steam Link hardware box was discontinued in 2018, but the software lived on and is now the more useful half of the product. If you already own a capable PC, Steam Link turns every other display you own into a secondary place to play.

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How to Use Steam Link: The Short Answer

To use Steam Link, install the free Steam Link app on your client device (Android, iOS/iPadOS, Apple TV, Meta Quest, Raspberry Pi, or another PC), make sure your host gaming PC is powered on with Steam running and Remote Play enabled under Steam → Settings → Remote Play, then open the app and select your PC from the list. The app shows a four-digit PIN; type that PIN into the prompt that appears on your host PC to pair the two devices. Once paired, hit “Start Playing” and Steam launches in Big Picture mode on the remote screen. Both devices must be signed into the same Steam account, and for the best results both should be on the same local network with the host wired to the router by Ethernet.

That is genuinely the whole process. The complications people run into are almost always network-related rather than software-related, which is why the second half of this guide is about latency, bitrate and Wi-Fi bands rather than menus.

Games That Stream Especially Well Over Steam Link

Setting Up the Host PC Correctly

The host is the machine doing the actual rendering, and it does all the heavy lifting. Open Steam, go to Settings → Remote Play and confirm “Enable Remote Play” is ticked. Leave the host PC awake — Steam Link cannot wake a machine that is fully powered down, though it can wake some systems from sleep if Wake-on-LAN is configured in your motherboard BIOS and network adapter settings. Keep the host signed in to Windows too; a locked-out login screen will stall the connection.

Connect the host to your router with an Ethernet cable if there is any way to do it. Wireless hosts introduce jitter in both directions, and jitter is what produces the rubber-band stutter people blame on Steam Link. If you are shopping for the network gear that makes this work, a gaming router buying guide is the single most useful piece of reading you can do before troubleshooting anything else.

Choosing the Right Client Device

Almost anything with a screen can be a Steam Link client: Android phones and tablets, iPhones and iPads, Apple TV 4K, Meta Quest headsets, Raspberry Pi 4 and 5, Steam Deck, and any second PC or Mac running Steam. Apple TV 4K is arguably the best living-room option because it is wired-capable and sits permanently under the television.

Whatever you pick, avoid streaming to a device on 2.4GHz Wi-Fi. Steam Link needs a clean 5GHz or 6GHz channel, or better yet a cable.

Controllers, Pairing and Input

Steam Link forwards controller input from the client back to the host. Pair a Bluetooth controller directly to the client device rather than to the PC — the app then routes the inputs across the network. Xbox Wireless Controllers, DualSense, DualShock 4, Switch Pro Controllers and Steam Controllers all work. On phones the app also draws an on-screen touch overlay, which is serviceable for strategy games and unusable for anything requiring precision.

Steam Input runs on the host, so your per-game controller layouts, gyro bindings and back-button mappings carry over untouched. If you are still deciding what to buy, our wireless gaming controller buying guide compares latency and battery life across the main options, and a gaming headset buying guide covers the wireless audio side, which Steam Link handles by piping game audio to the client device.

Dialling In Video Quality and Bandwidth

Inside the Steam Link app, open Settings → Streaming and you will find three presets: Fast, Balanced and Beautiful. Fast lowers the bitrate and resolution to prioritise responsiveness; Beautiful pushes resolution and bitrate up at the cost of a few milliseconds. Balanced is the right default for most homes. Under Advanced you can cap the bitrate manually — 20–30 Mbps is plenty for 1080p60, and 4K60 wants closer to 50 Mbps of clean headroom.

Enable hardware decoding on the client and hardware encoding on the host. Modern NVIDIA (NVENC), AMD (AMF) and Intel (Quick Sync) GPUs all encode the stream without meaningfully taxing the game. Turning on the performance overlay while you test will show you encode time, decode time and packet loss in real time; anything above roughly one percent packet loss is a network problem, not a settings problem. A gaming monitor buying guide is worth a look if you plan to stream to a desk display, since refresh-rate mismatches between host and client cause visible judder.

Playing Away From Home With Remote Play Anywhere

Steam Link is not limited to your house. Remote Play Anywhere routes the same stream over the internet, using Valve’s relay servers when a direct connection is not possible. Expect higher latency and be realistic about what is playable: turn-based games, RPGs and management sims travel well, while competitive shooters and fighting games do not. Upload bandwidth at the host end is the usual bottleneck, so check your upstream speed rather than your download speed.

Fixing the Most Common Steam Link Problems

If your PC does not appear in the app, the two devices are usually on different subnets — guest Wi-Fi networks and mesh systems with client isolation enabled are the usual culprits. Steam Link discovers hosts over UDP broadcast, which does not cross subnet boundaries. Disable AP isolation, or use the app’s manual “Other Computer” pairing option and enter the host’s IP address directly.

Stuttering only during busy scenes points to encoder overload; drop the resolution one step. Constant stuttering points to Wi-Fi interference. Black screens with working audio almost always mean the client’s hardware decoder needs toggling off and on again. And if the host GPU is pinned at 100 percent by the game itself, the encoder gets starved — cap the in-game frame rate slightly below your refresh rate to leave headroom. Our graphics card buying guide and gaming PC power supply guide cover this in more depth.

Frequently Asked Questions About How to Use Steam Link

Is Steam Link free to use?

Yes. The Steam Link app is completely free on every platform it supports, and there is no subscription attached to Remote Play or Remote Play Anywhere. You only need a Steam account and a host PC that owns the games; Valve does not charge anything for the streaming service itself or for the bandwidth used.

Do I still need the Steam Link hardware box?

No, and you should not buy one new. Valve discontinued the physical Steam Link hardware in 2018 and the software app replaced it entirely. The app on an Apple TV 4K, a modern Android TV device or a Raspberry Pi 4 delivers noticeably better performance than the original box, which was limited to 1080p and older codecs.

Can two people use Steam Link on the same PC at once?

Not with separate games. A single host PC streams one session at a time, because only one instance of the game and one desktop session are being rendered. However, two players can share the same stream in local co-op, with each client device forwarding its own controller input back to the host simultaneously.

Why is my Steam Link stream laggy on Wi-Fi?

The usual causes are a 2.4GHz connection, a wireless host PC, or channel congestion from neighbouring networks. Wire the host to the router with Ethernet, move the client to a 5GHz or 6GHz band, and lower the streaming preset to Fast. Checking the in-app performance overlay for packet loss will confirm whether the network or the encoder is at fault.