Excessive color banding while using Steam Link app

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VP 31 Dec, 2019 @ 10:36am

Excessive color banding while using Steam Link app

I've just gotten a 55Q70R and I'm really happy with it. When I noticed there was a Steam Link app available for it, I was even more thrilled.

The fun stopped pretty soon when I first started using the app. While everything runs smooth, there is an excessive amount of color banding present in the picture. It is almost like low quality 8-bit color. It mostly happens in the dark tones, as expected.

I hopped into the options, enabled the statistics overlay, and checked for potential low bitrate. The bitrate is set to 'auto' and was constantly around 25-35 mbit in the overlay, so that wasn't it. For good measure I tried setting it to a fixed rate of 30 and 50 mbit. Runs smooth, but same problem. I've also disabled and enabled every encoding/decoding setting, that didn't help either.

I'm puzzled by this problem. I own a normal Steam Link box which does NOT have this problem. So it seems to me there must be something wrong with the app. My preference is to use the Samsung App, but if this problem persists I'm afraid I must stick to the box (which is limited to 1080p, RIP).

I uploaded a picture of the screen here (title screen of Thumper): https://ibb.co/sVcgVdh

No, it's not exagarated. In the dark tones the banding really is that extreme.

Everything is connected by Ethernet and there are not network issues. It's simply the color banding that is present which is the problem.

Does anyone else have this problem with the Samsung App? And is there a solution?

Thanks in advance

Last edited by VP; 31 Dec, 2019 @ 10:39am

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Showing 1-4 of 4 comments

Delfor 12 Jan, 2020 @ 1:41am

I have identical setup including steam link box for comparison and I'm experiencing the same problem. In darker games it's extremely distracting up to the point where they are unplayable.

No such problems with the steam link box at all.

DinGer 29 May, 2020 @ 5:07am

HI Guys you can fix this problem this way ...

Depending on your computer you may find that either enabling or disabling hardware encoding may help using these steps:

In the Steam client or Big Picture Mode, open the settings menu

Under the 'Remote Play' tab, select 'Advanced Host Options'

Change the "Enable Hardware Encoding on..." box for your graphics card (NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel)

TInMan 9 Aug, 2023 @ 9:41am

FWIW this still seems to be an issue in 2023. I don't have my hardware steam link hooked up at the moment. However, I can confirm that this is happening on both the steam link app (android phones) as well as the Remote Play streaming feature from another computer. Most of the time it doesn't bother me. When it does bother me, it REALLY bothers me. Totally ruins the mood in dark scenes. Very distracting.