How To Get PC Gaming Into the Living Room

While the living room has traditionally been the exclusive domain of dedicated game consoles, there is no written rule that says it has to be that way. Now more than ever, gamers are finding the living room an inviting place for the for PC platform.

HDTVs with HDMI inputs have replaced bulky CRTs with limited input options in many homes as the norm. On top of that, recent advances in CPU and GPU technologies have allowed PC makers to build powerful gaming systems in sleek, console-sized enclosures that look right at home in an entertainment center. The icing on the cake is Steam's Big Picture mode, which provides a customized user interface for living room gaming.

If you’re ready to migrate into the living room but don’t know quite where to start, rest easy, we’ll show you the way!

Plopping a PC in the living room might not always be practical. Maybe you already own a massive desktop tower and like to play games after hours in the basement or dedicated computer room. It would be a hassle to unplug everything, haul the system to the living room, and hook it up only to have to repeat the process time and again. That’s where streaming comes into play.

Buying a Steam Link set-top box for $50 is a lot cheaper than building or purchasing a second system for gaming in the living room. The Steam Link connects to your TV and taps into your home network searching for any connected PCs. When synced, you can stream games from your gaming PC to your TV. It supports 1080p gaming at 60 FPS.

If you’re in the market for a new TV, be on the lookout for models with Steam Link integration. Samsung announced in October that some future models will come with Steam Link functionality baked in without the set-top box, much in the same way that many TVs ship with Netflix.

One thing to keep in mind when setting up a PC in the living room is that you’re not out in the open and presumably within better earshot of everyone, depending on the layout of your home. Maybe you didn’t have to worry about noise wherever your PC used to reside. Now you do.

A good set of wireless headphones keeps the peace while delivering audio for your games. There are many models to choose from at different price points. If you can afford to spend a few hundred bucks on a headset, the Siberia 840 ($318) from Steelseries delivers excellent virtual 7.1 surround sound audio. It’s also comfortable to wear for long stretches, such as all-night gaming marathons, and comes with hot swappable batteries to ensure that you never run out of juice.

A much less expensive alternative is the Logitech G930. The sound quality isn’t quite as good, but it offers 7.1 surround sound, has a noise cancelling microphone, and best of all, we’ve seen it sell for as little as $60.

An alternative to the Steam Link is Nvidia’s Shield set-top box. This is more of a multi-purpose solution with Android TV built into it, but like the Steam Link, it can be used to stream games from your PC, provided your system has a GeForce GTX graphics card (Steam Link supports Nvidia and AMD graphics cards) and is reasonably well equipped. It supports gaming at up to 4K resolution at 60 FPS with 5.1 surround sound.

In addition to casting games from your PC, the Shield is your gateway to streaming over 100 PC games from the cloud using Nvidia’s GeForce Now subscription service. It runs $8 per month on top of the cost of the Shield, but doesn’t require a PC.

Today’s core components from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia are not only faster than ever, they’re also more power efficient. Mini-ITX and other small form factor setups can pack an amazing amount of power inside a little box. There are plenty of options here, too.

One of them is a mini PC by Zotac, an experienced player in the pint sized PC market. Take for example its Zbox Magnus EN1070 ($1,200). It pairs an Intel Core i5-6400T processor with a GeForce GTX 1070 GPU inside a chassis that measures just 210mm x 203mm x 62.2mm. Your job is to fill it with up to 32GB of RAM and a storage drive or two, or you can opt for the Plus version ($1,500) that comes with 8GB of RAM, a 120GB M.2 SATA SSD, and a 1TB hard drive. The Magnus EN1080 ($2,000) is a chunkier version that ups the ante with an Intel Core i7-6700 CPU paired with a GeForce GTX 1080 capable of 4K gaming.

You can go with any number of console sized PCs, such as the Alienware Alpha starting at $550, CyberpowerPC’s Syber Vapor starting at $600, or Digital Storm’s Bolt 3 starting at around $1,800, to name a few examples.

One of the advantages of gaming on a PC is being able to use the highly effective combination of a mouse and keyboard. Unfortunately, these work best on a desktop surface and do not translate well into the living room. Fortunately, peripheral makers took notice and created a product category called the lapboard, a keyboard designed to use on your lap. There are several out there, though we’re partial to the Roccat Sova. It’s available both as a membrane ($150) or mechanical ($200) keyboard, the latter of which uses key switches similar to Cherry MX Browns. It sits comfortable on the lap, has a wrist rest, and sports a large mouse pad for using your rodent of choice. One downside is that it is wired.

If a lapboard doesn’t suit you or you just want something small and wireless to supplement it, there are other solutions out there, one of them being the Logitech K400. It’s a wireless keyboard designed with HTPCs in mind. It’s thin, light, and has a wireless range of up to around 33 feet. It comes in handy when you need to navigate Windows menus to launch games that you'll play with a controller.

The K400 is a smaller keyboard without a number pad. Logitech used the space to the right of the main keyboard section for a stylish 3.5-inch touchpad with two physical buttons and multi-touch support. This gives you mouse and keyboard controls from a single slab of plastic.

Using the K400 requires a pair of AA batteries. Logitech claims up to a year of battery life, though obviously your mileage will vary depending on usage.

Logitech lists a $40 MSRP, but it often streets for half that amount at places such as Amazon and Walmart.

While they clear up clutter, wireless mice sometimes get a bad rap. It is commonly thought that a wireless mouse will suffer from lag, and while some do, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between Logitech’s G900 Chaos Spectrum and a wired gaming mouse.

The G900 has an adjustable 200-12,000 DPI sensor, a customizable button layout, RGB lighting, and a rechargeable battery that’s good for up to 30 hours. It also comes with a detachable cord, in case you want to use it on a different PC without draining its battery.

One of the few complaints about the G900 is the price. At around $128, this isn’t a cheap mouse. If you’re looking for something less expensive, the Razer Mamba ($88) and Razer Orochi ($40) are two other options. If you're not going to supplement a wireless mouse with a lapboard, then a TV tray is a serviceable solution.

For first person shooters, nothing beats the deadly accuracy of the mouse and keyboard. However, console controllers are better suited for some types of games, such as sports titles. For instance, playing NBA 2K17 on an Xbox One controller just feels more natural.

With that being the case, it is a good idea to have an Xbox One controller on hand, if not multiple controllers for when friends pop over who prefer consoles to PCs. While it took some time, Microsoft now makes an Xbox One wireless adapter that lets you use your Xbox One controller on your Windows 10 PC.

Another option is the Steam Controller. It takes some getting used and won’t fully replace the mouse and keyboard for all games, but it does allow you to kick back on the couch and play some titles that you might otherwise have not considered playing with a controller.

Towards the end of 2012, Valve made available a Big Picture mode for Steam that is better suited for big screen TVs than the regular user interface. Everything is bigger and more easily viewed from a distance.

In addition to bigger icons, Steam’s Big Picture mode contains a Daisywheel tool that makes it easier to surf the web and message friends using a controller. You can still use a mouse and keyboard in Big Picture mode, but it was designed for gamepads. It also has what Valve likes to call a first person web browser, the first of its kind with reticle-based navigation, tabbed browsing, and favorites saved to the cloud.

Trying to navigate Windows on a 4K resolution television can be a challenge. Even though your TV is probably much bigger than your monitor, it can still be difficult to read text and discern icons, which can result in a lot of squinting. Luckily there’s an easy fix.

If you’re having trouble seeing things on your TV, you can play around with display scaling to make text and icons appear bigger. The quickest way to get there is to right-click on your desktop and select Display Settings. Alternatively you can navigate to Settings > System > Display, or type Display in the search bar and click on Display Settings.

Windows 10 will have already selected a value that it feels is appropriate based on your display. Adjust the slider and observe the changes in real time until you’re comfortable with what you see. In most cases, increasing the display scaling to 125 percent or 150 percent will be enough, though if your couch is far back from your TV, you might need to crank it all the way up to 200 percent.