Hello,
I purchased VirtualHere for Steam Link (3 device license though I'm thinking of upgrading it) and have been quite impressed. I have been running a the server on my Nvidia Shield to share my bluetooth adapter and it does work when I use the Steam Link app. I also have a physical Steam Link which I want to occasionally use too. There are two use cases where this setup with the Steam Link app does not work for me.
The first is that I would also like to share the bluetooth adapter when I'm using gamestream.
The second is that I have been troubleshooting an intermittent connection issue to the Steam Link (either physical box or the android app). Every once in a while the stream stops for a couple seconds and then come back. This, however, drops the VirtualHere connection as well and VirtualHere doesn't reconnect. (I looked at the android VirtualHere server while the Steam Link app is running and it said it was licensed. As soon as the app exited (or the stream dropped), it went back to being unlicensed - if this is intended functionality, ignore this comment.)
I decided to try skipping Steam altogether to see if that would solve my problems. I uninstalled the Steam version of VirtualHere, downloaded the client from the website, restarted both my PC and Shield, and then booted up VirtualHere on both devices.
The problem is that the the VirtualHere client on my PC cannot find the server on my Shield. I tried the "Auto-Find Hubs" setting and it searches for hubs every once in a while but never finds the adapter on my Shield. My devices are all connected to each other in a single home network over ethernet. Do you have any suggestions for either troubleshooting this connection or running VirtualHere when the Steam Link app is not running?
.
Hi, regarding mixing steam and the normal virtualhere app - they are not really meant to be mixed together. Uninstall virtualhere completely from steam so that its not visible in your library.
Then just install virtualhere server from the play store. Then download and run the virtualhere client from this website which sounds like you have done. Then if they dont find each other automatically, right click USB Hubs->Specify Hubs and enter the ip address of your shield and also check "Auto-Find Hubs"
The licenses arent really connected so if you dont want to use it via steam then try to get a refund from valve. Otherwise outside of steam the virtualhere server wont be licensed properly (or in demo mode). You can reinstall the virtualhere app to keep getting three more tries if you want. Then if it works ok for you then you can purchase a license by clicking Purchase when right clicking on Android Hub in the server properties.
Regarding the drops it seems like the network is temporarily dropping for some reason. So that breaks the virtualhere connection. I suspect the gamestreaming is using UDP so it can handle the drops. VirtualHere usually uses TCP which wont handle the drops. VirtualHere can also use UDP (but i havent turned that feature on yet).
.
Michael,
I guessed the normal and steam clients wouldn't mix well. But using your advice I was able to get the normal client to connect using the direct IP address. Now I just need to figure out if I think gamestream is important enough to buy the android license.
A UDP option would be really cool. I'm sure that you have quite a few other things you're working on at the moment.
Thanks for all the info!
-Ethan Baer