For what it’s worth, my issue ended up being related to Android 11. I rolled back to Android 10 and am now getting much better performance. Docked mode also works properly. The decoder chip on the Switch seems to work really well at 720p, playing games on Steam Link or Parsec in handheld mode has virtually no latency. In docked mode, the Switch now properly outputs 1080p, but it adds a bit of latency, I’d guess around 30ms. Running the same software on my Galaxy S22, it gets much better results. This is likely due to the fact that the Tegra is an old chip and decoding 1080p is a bit slower than 720p. Still, it’s definitely playable at 1080p, just not quite as good as I’d like.
I have a physical Steam Link device (the one that Valve used to sell) and it gets just about the same amount of latency as the Switch at 1080p, maybe a tiny bit less. Steam Link is generally not quite as good as Parsec in the latency department, but when it comes to ease of use it’s much better. The fact that my more modern devices get better performance at 1080p, combined with the stats that Parsec provides indicate that this is an issue on the decoding end on the Switch. Still, it’s incredible that I can connect with Parsec from any internet connection anywhere and play games on my PC. Overall it works really well, especially considering this is a game console that I bought in 2017.
You know, I never really thought about it as I wasn’t running Android 11 very long, but it was running cooler. It doesn’t run so hot in Android 10 that I’m worried about damage, but it’s noticeably warmer at idle. I tried moonlight back when I had a 1080ti in my gaming rig, but nowadays I’m running a Radeon 6800 xt, so no moonlight for me. I tried AMD link earlier, but as expected it’s not very good. Performance wise, Parsec has been the best so far. However, I have to log in on my desktop and launch big picture mode to really be able to do anything, as it connects to the desktop and trying to do anything with the touch screen is miserable. The main benefit of steam link is that it launches straight into big picture mode, and Steam knows that you are streaming, so when you disconnect it closes it. Both Parsec and Steam Link perform much better in handheld mode than docked mode. I get less than half the latency. With Steam Link running in docked mode with diagnostics enabled, I get the occasional “slow display” message and the decoding latency spikes up, so that kinda confirms my theory that the switch hardware is struggling to decode the 1080p video. I guess for now I’ll be sticking to my usual strategy, which involves a mix of using my physical Steam Link on the TV, Switch in handheld mode when I feel like not being in front of the TV, and just my plain old laptop with a controller or keyboard / mouse connected otherwise. Or, you know, physically playing at my gaming rig.