I gave AMD Link another shot… I like to play games in the living room from time to time… I’ve been using Steam Link for a while now, ever since i switched from nVidia to AMD. Was using GeForce Experience’s gamestream + moonlight on android tv, before.
I’ve been using nV GPUs ever since i got rid of my Radeo 9700 Pro but changed last gen. I got a 6800 XT from Linus’s certified actual gamer program… i would have gotten a 3080 had I had a choice, but it was rough to get a GPU back then (still is, but a little easier now).
I went ahead and installed 22.3.1, after watching Wendell’s video about it and decided I would give AMD Link another chance.
So, here’s my setup:
Intel i7 10700k, 32gb ram, 6800 xt
Living room setup:
Sony Bravia x800d49 (2016 model, android 9), latest gen xbox controller connected to the tv thru bluetooth.
Network is wired ethernet 1gbps, even the TV.
AMD Link still performs poorly. The Android App is very poor and unstable. Using the “Optimize stream quality” test results in a crash half the time. Playing with the settings (h264, h265, resolution, frame-rate, bit-rate), I can’t really get “Decode time” below 60ms for a total latency of around 75ms. Which isn’t great but is “playable” for most game that dont require fast reaction time.
But the worst part is that it is super unstable.
- I will sometimes spike up to 200ms
- Screen will flash black for a couple of couple of frames
- Quality gets worse until a new “key frame” is received, which refreshes the whole screen. This causes movement where nothing was happening. Super easy to see if standing still in game.
My benchmark is trying to play Dead Cells…
It is absolutely unplayable, parrying is very hard, timing dodge rolls is very hard.
Steam Link works just fine on the same tv, i get about 30 to 50ms, but it is stable and predictable making Dead Cells playable. Everything requires a little more anticipation than live on the PC, but consistency of the latency makes it work.
I’ve tried Parsec, the android app is garbage. Controllers don’t work, even the TV remote can’t be used, so really, if I want to use it, I have to connect my controllers thru bluetooth straight on my computer, which is a fair bit away from my living room… not a viable solution)
I’ve tried Open-Stream + Moonlight. That works surprisingly well, I’d say a little better than Steam Link BUT the app is not mature, many settings are missing, it somehow forces streaming from my second monitor, so I have to Windows-Shift-RightArrow all my games, to stream em and obviously they like to return to the main-screen whenever something happens, so I have to get up from the couch walk to my computer and Windows-Shift-RightArrow again every now and then. And looking at their github, dev seems stalled.
So really, the only 2 options that will give me low-latency that I know of are Steam Link and AMD Link.
Last thing… The TV…
It’s not powerful, it has gotten slower and slower with every Android update from Sony. Networking speeds are poor. It has many outstanding issues. They’ve dropped support for some features that were actually important to me and were key aspects of my choice of this TV. (Like dropping Playstation Now and dropping DualShock 4 controller support (wired works, but BT support doesn’t work properly anymore)).
So the TV may not be the best android box to use for AMD Link…
So I went ahead and give it a go on my Galaxy Tab S6 Lite, which is decent (Exynos 9611, 4gb ram)… same experience as on the TV.
Tried it on my Pixel 4 XL (Snapdragon 855, 6gb ram), I’d say it was slightly better, but not by much.
Haven’t tried AMD Link on a non-android device, but so far my conclusion would be that the AMD Link app on Android is hot garbage.
I gave it an honest shot, but AMD Link, at least on Android, i still nowhere near nV GameStream+Moonlight. Thankfuly, Steam Link has gotten much better over the last few years and is actually usable and supports AMD VCE.
By the way, I only wrote this to give and honest opinion about the state of AMD Link after the installation of 22.3.1… but if anyone has tips or ideas to improve my local network game streaming setup, I’m ready to give em a try!