protonscr

Remote play: Hardware encoding is being randomly turned off during stream

steamopen AMD driversStreamingDistro Family: Debian
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#8393 · opened 2022-02-06 by Igortorrente · updated 2026-01-08 · 6 comments · github
IIgortorrente 2022-02-06 github

Your system information

  • Steam client version (build number or date): Jan 16 2022, at 17:34:49
  • Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Debian GNU/Linux 11-bullseye [Freedesktop.org 20.08.17 (Flatpak runtime) (64 bit)]
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: No
  • Have you checked for system updates?: Yes

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:

  • Linux: flatpak version 1.1.89.255
  • Windows: version 1.1.87.210
  • Device: Mesa Intel(R) HD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2) (0x5916)

Host info:

  • Hardware encoding h264.
  • Device: AMD Radeon R7 200 Series (BONAIRE, DRM 3.42.0, 5.15.11-xanmod1, LLVM 11.0.1) (0x6658)

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Connect steam link to the host.
  2. Start the game
  3. Wait until it happens.
Kkisak-valve maintainer 2022-02-06 github

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?

IIgortorrente 2022-02-06 github

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?

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2022-02-06 github

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

IIgortorrente 2022-02-08 github

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?

Rrcbevans 2022-02-10 github

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

00x90shell 2026-01-08 github

Seeing flickering similar to https://steamcommunity.com/groups/homestream/discussions/1/4290314417250545891/ still in 2026.

Nothing extracted yet.