One of my few complaints with Valve is that sometimes the messaging and naming for their products and features gets really confusing.

For example, there’s this feature called Remote Play, where as long as you have another device running that is paired and has a game installed, when looking at the game in your library you can select “Stream” instead of “Play” or “Install” to stream it from that other machine. All of the streaming settings are in the “Remote Play” section of the settings menu, but these settings apply to other streaming features too. I’ve found that streaming this way, especially with the Deck, has tons of glitches and issues, and the settings don’t seem to work. For example, the option to turn off audio on host never actually does that when used this way.

There’s also the Remote Play Together, which I’ve never used but my understanding is that it allows multiple clients to use that Remote Play feature to simulate local multiplayer.

Then you have the Steam Link hardware. Those cheap TV boxes that allowed you to stream games to them.

Then you have the Steam Link application. This is my go-to streaming method. It’s a separate application for clients available on various platforms, and this is my go-to method for streaming from my main desktop. On the Deck, you need to go into desktop mode and find it in the repository, then add it as a non-steam game, then set up a controller mapping and mess with a bunch of settings. But once it works, it works well.

If I’m understanding the article correctly I don’t think Steam Link is affected by this, though I’ll have to try myself later.