The Steam Deck now supports game broadcasts from PCs

The Steam Deck now supports game transfers on your local network, so you can copy installed games from your PC to the Steam Deck without having to re-download them over the internet. This feature, bundled with the Steam Deck Beta update released last week, should help reduce the amount of Internet data you use, especially if you frequently re-download heavy games onto your handheld.

In order to gain access to the feature, you must first activate the beta version of Steam on both the Steam deck and the Steam client on your PC. From there, select the game you want to install on your Steam deck and Steam will automatically check if the game is already installed on a PC on your network. If it finds one, Steam will begin broadcasting the game.

This is what match broadcasts look like. Image: valve

It’s worth noting that this feature also applies to PCs on the same network, so you can transfer already installed Steam games to your PC from any other PC in your household. Steam goes into more detail on how everything works on its support page, noting that if the devices lose connection “or no more content is available” during the transfer process, Steam will download the rest of the game from its servers instead.

You can also customize settings that determine which PCs your Steam Deck (or PC) can download from. While Steam sets it to “Only my own devices” by default, meaning you can only cast games from the devices you’re signed into Steam with, you can also set it to “Only my friends” and “Any user”. when you want to download games from a friend or family member’s PC. Unfortunately, Steam does not currently support game broadcasts originating from Steam Deck or PCs in Big Picture mode.

I don’t have a Steam deck (still), but I definitely wish I had this feature when downloading elden ring from my partner’s shared Steam library. Anyway, I’m glad it’s here now because it’s nice to have something to help me stay under my internet data cap for the month, even if it’s a small impact.

Source: www.theverge.com