Since they're both Valve products, it makes sense that the Steam Deck and your Steam library can play nicely together. 

While the Steam Deck is designed to act as a portable console, there may be times when you want to simply stream games from your gaming PC instead. 

This might be because you're running low on storage on your console or simply because you're not getting the performance you want from your games. The good news is Steam Deck will work with Remote Play. 

What is Remote Play?

Steam Remote Play is a way to stream games from your main gaming machine to another device on your home network.

When you play a game this way, both video and audio are sent from your gaming PC to the Steam Deck and the commands you're entering on the Steam Deck are all sent back to the PC in the blink of an eye. 

In an ideal world, you'll need a powerful gaming PC and a stable, fast (preferably 5GHz) Wi-Fi network in order to get the best results. So a high-quality Wi-Fi router is a must. 

How to use Steam Remote Play on Steam Deck

The good news is it's simple to use Steam Remote Play on the Steam Deck. You will, of course, need to leave your gaming PC turned on, but you don't need to be in the same room to then play the games on your console. 

  1. Keep your PC turned on and logged into Steam
  2. Open Steam's settings and navigate to "Remote Play"
  3. Click "Advanced Host Options" and tick "change desktop resolution to match streaming client" and "prioritize network traffic"
  4. Grab your Steam Deck and make sure it's connected to the same home network that your PC is on
  5. Navigate to the game you want to play and you'll see the option to install but next to that is a drop-down click that to see the option to stream
  6. Get your game on