Valve added Pyrowave to the Steam Client Beta on September 21, 2026, putting an experimental low-latency codec inside Steam Remote Play. Its basic bargain is easy to understand: Pyrowave spends far more local-network bandwidth than conventional codecs to reduce the delay between a host PC and a client device.
This is meant for in-home game streaming, not ordinary cloud gaming. The reported design target is a fast local network, particularly one using at least gigabit Ethernet.
Valve adds Pyrowave to Steam Remote Play
Pyrowave is an experimental video codec available through the Steam Client Beta’s Remote Play settings. Valve describes it as a high-bandwidth, low-latency option for streaming games from a host system to another device.
The feature is aimed at flat-game streaming through desktop Steam clients. Reported beta support covers Windows and macOS, as well as Linux through the experimental SteamRT3 Steam client.
Its bandwidth appetite is the important practical detail. Pyrowave is reported to use roughly five to ten times more bandwidth than other game-streaming codecs. That makes it a specialized option for a fast home network rather than a universal replacement for the codecs Steam already uses.
What changes compared with conventional codecs?
Most familiar streaming codecs, including H.264, HEVC and AV1, rely on techniques such as motion prediction and entropy coding to reduce the amount of data sent over a connection. Pyrowave takes a different route.
Its design processes frames independently, or intra-only, instead of using motion prediction between frames. It also uses Vulkan compute shaders on the GPU. The result prioritizes fast encoding and decoding over compact video data.
| Aspect | Pyrowave | H.264, HEVC and AV1 in conventional streaming |
| Frame processing | Frames are processed independently | Uses temporal compression between frames |
| Main priority | Low latency on high-bandwidth local networks | Reducing bitrate for bandwidth-constrained delivery |
| Processing approach | Vulkan GPU compute | Compression pipelines built around inter-frame coding and related techniques |
| Best-fit connection | Local network, especially gigabit Ethernet | Networks and internet links where bandwidth efficiency matters |
The architecture also uses a wavelet-based transform. In the author’s implementation, independent 32×32 coefficient blocks can be decoded separately, a design that helps keep processing work localized when streaming a game in real time.
That approach explains why Pyrowave is interesting for Remote Play: the codec is designed to keep the encoding and decoding path extremely short, even if the video stream becomes dramatically larger.
The advantage demands a very fast local network
The reported intended setup uses at least gigabit Ethernet. Pyrowave’s five-to-ten-times bandwidth profile makes the local connection a central part of the experience, not a minor detail buried in the settings menu.
In practical terms, this is for a gaming PC and client device connected across a strong home network. It is a poor match for bandwidth-limited internet delivery, where sending several times more data can quickly become the bottleneck.
The feature can also carry YUV 4:4:4 video, a color format that preserves more color detail than the subsampled formats commonly used for streaming. HDR is reported to activate when both the host and client systems use HDR.
What latency did Pyrowave deliver?
A desktop-to-Ethernet-connected Xbox Ally X test running 007 First Light measured 10 ms of total latency at 1080p60. The measurement comprised less than 1 ms of input latency and 9 ms of display latency.
At 120 frames per second, the same test reported 15 ms of total latency. The associated stream rates were approximately 190 MB/s at 1080p60 and 380 MB/s at 120 fps.
Those figures belong to that specific desktop, Ethernet connection, client device, game and test setup. They show the kind of latency Pyrowave is targeting without turning one result into a guarantee for every Steam Remote Play configuration.
The codec’s technical demonstration also reported 0.13 ms for 1080p 4:2:0 encoding and decoding in under 100 microseconds on an AMD RX 9070 XT using RADV. Those measurements describe the codec implementation’s technical performance on that hardware, while the Xbox Ally X results cover an end-to-end streaming setup.
How to enable Pyrowave in Steam
Join the Steam Client Beta, install its current beta update and restart Steam. The Pyrowave option appears in Steam Remote Play’s advanced client settings when the relevant beta support is available on the client.
The feature remains an experimental beta addition, so its practical scope is tied to the supported Steam client and local network. For the lowest-latency use case, the hardware path and the network connection matter just as much as the codec selection.
