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ValveSoftware / steam-for-linux

Issue tracking for the Steam for Linux beta client
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Remote play: Hardware encoding is being randomly turned off during stream #8393

Open Igortorrente opened 2 years ago

Igortorrente commented 2 years ago

Your system information

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

After some time of gameplay, the hardware encoding is being turned off and the software encoding is enabled as a fallback. This can happen within a minute o can take half a hour. But always happens.

Additional info

This issue happens in both, windows and Linux steam link apps. This issue happens in both, native and proton games.

Client info:

Host info:

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Connect steam link to the host.
  2. Start the game
  3. Wait until it happens.
kisak-valve commented 2 years ago

Hello @Igortorrente, this reads like a VA-API driver issue of some kind. Are there any hints in <steam install folder/logs/streaming_log.txt?

Igortorrente commented 2 years ago

Hi @kisak-valve, thanks for the quick response. The streaming_log.txt.

I found this log line here:

[2022-02-06 19:14:41] VAAPI: Hardware encoding is too slow, disabling

Interesting to note that this issue is way easier to reproduce in the batman Arkhan Origins(200260) than the Castlevania lords of shadow 2(239250) or even the Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition(35140).

And I only notice something wrong when it fallbacks to the software encoding. Because without hardware encoding everything becomes unplayable.

There's a way to force the hardware encoding? Or choose the vaapi device that the steam will use?

kisak-valve commented 2 years ago

This might be https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/3540.

Igortorrente commented 2 years ago

Yeah, this is probably the cause of this problem.

I was about to test it using my intel gpu to encode the video(using the LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=i965 environment variable), but I discovered that it isn't working :(

There's a way to force the steam to ignore the slow encoding?

rcbevans commented 2 years ago

This issue isn't specific to Linux.

I see exactly the same issue streaming from Windows to both the Mac and Android clients, also with Batman Arkham Origins, where the NVENC encoder is being stopped and software encoding switched to.

streaming_log.txt