this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2025
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Microphone with steam remote play/steam link app (lemmy.zip)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/linux_gaming
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So I've been messing around with steam remote play. I've got 2 older laptops that I've got running with steam that streams to both of my kids tvs. Everything works great except today I decided to see if a Bluetooth headset would work for steam/in game voice chat.

When I tried it the laptops are using their built in microphones and unlike on Windows I don't see an option for the steam streaming microphone. I'm not sure if there is a way to get it to work but if anyone has an idea I would appreciate it.

I'm on Arch btw.

Edit: I didn't explain myself very well. Trying to have the device running the steam link app have a Bluetooth headset/earbuds connected to it then pass the microphone input to the laptop running steam.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

You're probably using PulseAudio somewhere in the audio stack. It can select the default output and input device. I think that many environments will have a speaker icon or something in the taskbar.

I just run pavucontrol directly. Jump over to the "input devices" tab, and you can check the device you want to be an input.

EDIT: If you're using KDE, might be some Qt-based analog -- pavucontrol uses GTK -- but I don't know the name off the top of my head.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I installed pavucontrol and don't have any steam inputs or outputs although the streaming audio out does work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

Hmm.

So, I haven't used Steam Remote Play, no personal familiarity with it, but as I understand it, you have something like the following setup:

  1. A laptop running Arch Linux which has a built-in microphone. Steam is running on the laptop. There is a game running on the laptop. Steam can get audio from the laptop's built-in microphone.

  2. A Bluetooth headset which is paired to a smartphone (Android?). This is running an app that links it to Steam on the laptop.

  3. You can hear audio on this headset from the game running on the laptop, so Steam on the laptop is definitely talking to the app on the smartphone.

  4. The headphones are not paired with the laptop directly. That is, this isn't a Bluetooth multipoint device -- they can only pair with one device, the smartphone, and you're aiming to have audio from both smartphone apps and the laptop be audible on them.

  5. The laptop is streaming video via some mechanism to the television. I don't think that this is directly-germane to the issue, but just to make sure that I'm not understanding what's going on.

  6. You have previously used this configuration, but with a Windows machine taking the place of the Linux laptop. In that situation, in the operating system list of audio input devices, you selected, in the Windows operating system audio settings, a Steam streaming microphone, and it got audio from the headset by way of the microphone.

  7. When you go to pavucontrol on the Linux laptop, on the "Input Devices" tab, you see only the built-in microphone as an option.

It looks like Steam has its own microphone selection option. I'd have guessed that Steam Remote Play exposes a virtual microphone at the OS level, but maybe it doesn't and the streamed microphone is only usable via software using Steam's libraries. If you go to Steam->Settings->Voice->Voice Input Device, do you see the streaming microphone listed as the Voice Input Device?