Remote Play: How to Stream Games From Your PC to the Steam Deck

The Steam Deck is an excellent device for playing PC games away from your actual PC. It’s not the most portable handheld on the market (due to its size), but it connects seamlessly with your Steam profile and allows you to download games locally.

However, sometimes you might want to stream games directly from your PC, thereby taking much of the Deck’s power out of the equation. Thankfully, this is an easy thing to set up. All you need is a stable internet connection, and you can start streaming.

Why Stream Games to Your Steam Deck?

(Credit: Carli Velocci / Valve)

Since the launch of the Steam Deck (and many other handheld gaming consoles), players now have a portable gaming solution for PC games. Still, Steam’s Remote Play feature allows you to stream games from your computer to your Deck in the same way that Steam Link lets you play games on your phone. But why would you ever need to stream games to a console when you can just play locally?

If you own a powerful PC, you can use Remote Play to leverage your rig’s processing power. A game streaming to the Steam Deck will harness your PC’s specs instead of the handheld’s more limited hardware. So, depending on the game, you might get a more robust experience. This can be especially helpful for the more demanding AAA games in your library.

Games must be compatible with the Steam Deck before you can play them. Valve has verified many games to ensure they run correctly. However, Remote Play can also help your experience with smaller indies that have not been optimized for the Deck because the game will technically be running on your PC.

Streaming can also circumvent local storage, helping you save on disk space. No matter what size Steam Deck you have—the most expensive of the new models comes with 1TB—it can fill up fast. You can always expand storage with a microSD card, but using Remote Play is an easy alternative.

What Games Work With Remote Play?

(Credit: PCMag / Valve)

If you bought a game on Steam and it’s available in your library, you can run it through Remote Play. However, how well your Steam games run will depend on how well they have been optimized for the feature. You can easily check this from the web or Steam app (but not on the Steam Deck itself) from the game’s store page.

Where, exactly? Scroll down a bit and look on the right-hand side. There should be a small Steam Deck Compatibility section just under the list of supported languages and above the in-game achievements. should show one of the following:

• Verified: The game works great on Steam Deck, right out of the box.

• Playable: The game may require some manual tweaking by the user to play

• Unsupported: The game is currently not functional on Steam Deck.

• Unknown: We haven’t checked this game for compatibility yet.

(Credit: PCMag / Valve)

While this section is meant to provide you with a quick glance as to whether or not the game will work, you can also click the Learn more button to get extra insight about what might not be completely optimized. Valve has its own database that tracks which Steam games are compatible with the Steam Deck.

Steam also has a page for Remote Play-capable games. If a game is Deck Verified, it will also likely run well through Remote Play. The feature may also be workable for any games from other storefronts, but those will require a lot more setup.

How to Stream Games to Steam Deck

(Credit: PCMag / Valve)

Once you have chosen a game to play, it’s easy to get everything up and running. For the best experience, you can also make one small tweak. Open the Steam client on your PC and head to Steam > Settings > Remote Play. Enable Advanced Host Options, and then enable Change desktop resolution to match streaming client to help your PC use less power by automatically matching the Steam Deck’s maximum resolution. Then hit OK.

Now we’re ready to stream. Make sure Steam is up and running on your PC and the game you wish to stream is installed on your computer. Both your PC and Deck must also be connected to the same wireless network. Open to your Steam library on your Deck and go to the game you want to stream.

(Credit: Carli Velocci / Valve)

Hit the arrow next to the big Install button, and a pop-up will appear. Select the name of your PC (in my case, it’s MagnaCarter-PC) and hit A. The button will now say Stream. Hit that and Remote Play will begin to work its magic.

(Credit: Carli Velocci / Valve)

You will know everything is working if an instance of the game starts to run on both your PC and Steam Deck at the same time. Your PC mirrors whatever you do on your Steam Deck. 

Valve Steam Deck Frees PC Games From the Desktop