How to Optimize Steam Remote Play

Steam Remote Play is one of the best features of Steam and allows you to play games on other devices by streaming them from your main PC. You can use it on phones, Steam Deck, and many other devices. The best part is that it saves a lot of battery life on the device you are using since it is not relying on local hardware. While it works well with the default settings, there are some changes you will want to make to optimize performance and visuals while using Steam Remote Play.

What Is Steam Remote Play?

Steam Remote Play allows you to stream games from your gaming PC to another device, laptops, tablets, phones, TV's and of course Steam Decks. It is a great way to play games without being locked into a single device/location. Plus if you're using Steam Deck or another mobile device you will save a lot of battery power since it's not hammering your CPU and GPU.

How to Optimize Steam Remote Play

• First open Steam on your computer/primary device.
• If you aren't already logged in, click the login option at the top of the screen and sign in using the account with the games you want to play.
• Once you are logged into your account, click Steam in the top left corner of the screen, then click Settings from the dropdown menu.
• Inside the Settings menu, find and click the Remote Play option.

This area has all the optionsyou need to tweak to improve streaming Remote Play performance. Now follow the steps below to configure host and client options.

Configure Host Settings

• Find the option called Allow Direct Connection IP Sharing and set it to Automatic or Enabled.

This helps Steam establish a more stable direct connection between devices, which should reduce latency and connection issues. (Your connection plays a bigger role than this option though)

• Enable Advanced Host Options to unlock the rest of the performance settings.

These extra controls allow you to fine tune how your computer handles game streaming.

• Turn on Hardware Encoding.

This setting uses your GPU or dedicated hardware to encode the video stream instead of relying entirely on the CPU. Most of the time, this improves streaming performance and reduces system strain.

• Enable the option to Prioritize Network Traffic.

This tells your network to give streaming traffic higher priority over everything else, which should also help reduce input lag and improve responsiveness during gameplay. You should notice a lot less stuttering.

Configure Client Settings

• On the device receiving the stream, enable Advanced Client Options.

This unlocks more control over stream quality and performance similar to what the Host options did.

• Set the Video Stream Quality option to Fast.

This provides a strong balance between image quality and low latency, especially if your internet connection is not extremely fast. I would experiement with the other options until you find the one that works best. Though Fast is the best place to start.

• For the Bandwidth Limit, you can select Unlimited if your network is stable and high speed.
• If your connection is limited, choose a lower bandwidth setting that matches your available speed to avoid stuttering or buffering.
• Set the Resolution Limit to Automatic.

This tells Steam to dynamically adjust the resolution based on network conditions, helping maintain smoother gameplay when connection quality changes. It's not all that noticable on smaller screen so is worth using.

• Make sure Hardware Decoding is enabled on the client device.

This shifts video decoding tasks to the device hardware, improving performance and helping create a more stable stream.

Check to see the Performance Gains

Now launch a game and check to see if you have better performance. Most of the time these settings are perfect however, as always it comes down to how good your Internet connection is.