Valve Makes Steam In-Home Streaming Available to Everyone

Valve has opened up its remote desktop service for Steam to everyone. The service allows users to install and play games within their own home network from any system they are logged into Steam with. Steam In-Home Streaming works on multiple operating systems.

With In-Home Streaming, Valve lets games that run on a high-end system stream over the home network to other computers. For example, users can play games on their laptop or HTPC, even if they are not powerful enough themselves. Also, users can install and launch games remotely, and they can play a game on system A and continue on system B. All systems require the user to be logged in to Steam.

Valve recommends using a quad-core CPU for the central game system, while the clients should have a GPU with h.264 acceleration. In addition, the service works best via a wired network, according to Valve. In the event of stuttering, users can adjust the setting to prioritize speed over image quality and conversely, limit bandwidth. The client runs on Windows, OS X and Steam OS/Linux, but the host can only run on Windows. anyone can use it.