This has been a genuine game-changer for me (thanks again, @creesch!). Prior to this, I was using Steam's Remote Play, which admittedly works well and is very easy to use. It was very obvious that...
This has been a genuine game-changer for me (thanks again, @creesch!).
Prior to this, I was using Steam's Remote Play, which admittedly works well and is very easy to use. It was very obvious that I was streaming, however. The visual fidelity wasn't great, and I'd get lots of artifacting in the video stream. Using Moonlight (paired with Sunshine on the host machine) gets me native-level performance with regards to both visuals and input lag.
I've tested four different games on four different devices. I streamed:
They all worked great. For each one, it legitimately just felt like I was playing the game natively. I wouldn't have been able to tell that I was streaming them had I not already known it.
Ziggurat and Riders are fast-paced, and I used them to see if I could "feel" any input lag. Both of them felt fine. If there was any lag, it wasn't enough to notice.
Riders won't run on the Steam Deck due to its anti-cheat, so streaming it is a great way to get it going on that hardware.
Clutter and Sidewords both work better with touch input than a mouse, so they were perfect for tablet/phone.
Overall I'm blown away by how good Moonlight is and cannot recommend it enough. I will give the caveat that its quality is going to be dependent on your computer setup and router. I've got a decently new router, and my host computer is wired to it (rather than wireless, which I assume might degrade performance).
If I might recommend a similar bit of kit ... Chiaki-NG (previously Chiaki4Deck) provides game streaming from a PS4 and/or PS5 to a Steam Deck, or any other bit of hardware that can run it (phone,...
If I might recommend a similar bit of kit ...
Chiaki-NG (previously Chiaki4Deck) provides game streaming from a PS4 and/or PS5 to a Steam Deck, or any other bit of hardware that can run it (phone, PC, etc). Speaking purely from the PS5 streaming to Steam Deck perspective, it works great - it's a bit fiddly, gotta get it set up just right, but once set up it's nearly flawless. The only thing that hampers my enjoyment of it is my home's shitty ISP and its low upload speeds, but that's not Chiaki's fault.
There's also Lutris, which allows for installation and execution of non-Steam libraries on Linux platforms, including the Steam Deck. This means "native" installation and execution of Epic Games Launcher, Ubisoft Connect, EA, and other such launchers. I haven't dabbled with it in quite a while but it worked great for getting to install Epic Games on my Deck, and allowed me to play my copy of Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin quite well from Epic.
I've never been able to get it to work. Something about my X11 dual screen desktop setup, the resolutions are all mixed up, it gets the wrong screen, or no audio, or the wrong resolution. No end...
I've never been able to get it to work. Something about my X11 dual screen desktop setup, the resolutions are all mixed up, it gets the wrong screen, or no audio, or the wrong resolution. No end of pain and suffering. Same with Steam sharing actually. I was hoping Moonlight was a savior to my game streaming woes from Steam but alas no.
In the end I find it way easier to stream my PS5 to my steam deck via Chiaki than to stream from Steam on my desktop :(
I’ve been considering this for streaming from a PC to the Deck but haven’t gotten around to it, Steam Remote Play works well most of the time iirc but you get the occasional frame drops/skips and...
I’ve been considering this for streaming from a PC to the Deck but haven’t gotten around to it, Steam Remote Play works well most of the time iirc but you get the occasional frame drops/skips and it becomes unplayable via streaming.
Heard Moonlight is better but haven’t gotten around to it.
Genuinely a night-and-day difference for me. On default settings Moonlight was pretty comparable to Steam Remote Play, but after I cranked up Moonlight’s FPS and bitrate, it pulled way ahead....
Genuinely a night-and-day difference for me. On default settings Moonlight was pretty comparable to Steam Remote Play, but after I cranked up Moonlight’s FPS and bitrate, it pulled way ahead. Perfect, lag-free visuals.
I've had pretty much the same experience. I've been streaming most games in 4k to my TV using a raspberry pi and moonlight over wifi. After being underwhelmed by both parsec and steams...
I've had pretty much the same experience. I've been streaming most games in 4k to my TV using a raspberry pi and moonlight over wifi. After being underwhelmed by both parsec and steams gamestreaming, this is a whole other world. I recommend Sunshine/Moonlight to all my friends who want to be able to stream their games.
For anyone wondering about performance/input lag of Moonshine and Sunshine: When my wife was in the hospital last year, I brought my tablet and modified GameSir G8 to test out a remote stream....
For anyone wondering about performance/input lag of Moonshine and Sunshine:
When my wife was in the hospital last year, I brought my tablet and modified GameSir G8 to test out a remote stream. WireGuard’d into my network, fired up Diablo 4, almost no discernible lag and picture quality was great.
Specs:
Desktop: Ryzen 3950X, 32GB RAM, RTX 3080, game at
2800x1752 60fps.
Home Network: 1 Gig fiber, Palo Alto PA-440
I was pulling 250Mb down on the hospital WiFi, which was probably the biggest determining factor.
I’ve had a similarly good experience streaming my home PC (5950X/3080Ti) at 1280x800 to my Steam Deck. With Tailscale it worked great even when connecting from the opposite coast of the US while...
I’ve had a similarly good experience streaming my home PC (5950X/3080Ti) at 1280x800 to my Steam Deck. With Tailscale it worked great even when connecting from the opposite coast of the US while staying with family over the holiday with less latency than one might think possible. I wouldn’t want to play a competitive shooter that way or anything, but it’s more than good enough for anything else.
Count me as a second for the Moonlight/Sunrise combo. My home setup is such that my PC is in one room, connected via Cat5e cabling built into the walls to a "network hub" in another room (which...
Count me as a second for the Moonlight/Sunrise combo.
My home setup is such that my PC is in one room, connected via Cat5e cabling built into the walls to a "network hub" in another room (which houses the coax internet from my ISP, into the modem, into my mesh network, into an ethernet hub), which then connects via Cat5e to my Steam Deck Dock in another room, which is plugged into my Steam Deck ... the combination of which is connected to my TV via HDMI, and I use bluetooth controllers and KB+M to play games.
Suffice it to say, I stream from my host PC through my Steam Deck on the regular, as the Deck - as convenient as it is - simply doesn't offer the graphic fidelity that my PC does, particularly on a 4k TV.
This setup works wonders. It's close-to-native quality with few hiccups and low input lag. Odds are if I were trying to stream something like a fighting game, which requires really low input lag, it probably wouldn't be as ideal ... but it's good enough for games with lower input lag requirements.
I've played most recently things like Metaphor Refantazio, Baldur's Gate 3, Grim Dawn, Dave the Diver, Marvel's Midnight Suns, and No Man's Sky with this arrangement with zero issues.
Been using Sunshine with the moonlight client for a while now and it is really good! For those that have a ultrawide screen connected to the PC and are having trouble getting the resolution right...
Been using Sunshine with the moonlight client for a while now and it is really good!
For those that have a ultrawide screen connected to the PC and are having trouble getting the resolution right on your client, I recommend this little piece of code (only for Windows): ResolutionAutomation
It will automatically switch the screen resolution on your PC to match that of the Moonlight client and then revert back when the client disconnects, thus saving you some headaches :)
Adding another recommend to the pile. I use this to stream to my PC to my Raspberry pi connected to a TV. It works way better than steam remote play - you can get up to 120fps! Personally I stream...
Adding another recommend to the pile.
I use this to stream to my PC to my Raspberry pi connected to a TV. It works way better than steam remote play - you can get up to 120fps! Personally I stream at 90fps because anything higher than that gets wonky.
It's a pain to set up (had a lot of issues in my case), but once it's done it's beautiful.
This might be a good answer to wtf I do with my Wii U these days. And repurposing an existing device rather than getting a new one so my kids can play games. Might need to figure out something...
This might be a good answer to wtf I do with my Wii U these days.
And repurposing an existing device rather than getting a new one so my kids can play games.
Might need to figure out something with the game host though...
Another happy moonlight + sunshine user here! It works amazing well on both linux and windows (I have a dual boot setup that I also sometimes virtualize with vfio). Over time, I've added some...
Another happy moonlight + sunshine user here!
It works amazing well on both linux and windows (I have a dual boot setup that I also sometimes virtualize with vfio). Over time, I've added some hooks like switching to a virtual monitor, adjusting refresh rate/rtss frame cap (separate from refresh rate due to a quirk in VDD)/resolution as well as changing the volume and locking the user session before and after a streaming session.
There's a touch of latency, but I don't have ethernet runs so this is all over mesh wifi using the 5Ghz band.
I also love my steam controller, so I went as far as debugging steam controller support for moonlight for steamlink so I could create a cursed setup where I can use the steam controller in bluetooth mode to control the steamlink/moonlight, and then pass it through to the host over virtualhere in normal mode.
This has been a genuine game-changer for me (thanks again, @creesch!).
Prior to this, I was using Steam's Remote Play, which admittedly works well and is very easy to use. It was very obvious that I was streaming, however. The visual fidelity wasn't great, and I'd get lots of artifacting in the video stream. Using Moonlight (paired with Sunshine on the host machine) gets me native-level performance with regards to both visuals and input lag.
I've tested four different games on four different devices. I streamed:
They all worked great. For each one, it legitimately just felt like I was playing the game natively. I wouldn't have been able to tell that I was streaming them had I not already known it.
Ziggurat and Riders are fast-paced, and I used them to see if I could "feel" any input lag. Both of them felt fine. If there was any lag, it wasn't enough to notice.
Riders won't run on the Steam Deck due to its anti-cheat, so streaming it is a great way to get it going on that hardware.
Clutter and Sidewords both work better with touch input than a mouse, so they were perfect for tablet/phone.
Overall I'm blown away by how good Moonlight is and cannot recommend it enough. I will give the caveat that its quality is going to be dependent on your computer setup and router. I've got a decently new router, and my host computer is wired to it (rather than wireless, which I assume might degrade performance).
If I might recommend a similar bit of kit ...
Chiaki-NG (previously Chiaki4Deck) provides game streaming from a PS4 and/or PS5 to a Steam Deck, or any other bit of hardware that can run it (phone, PC, etc). Speaking purely from the PS5 streaming to Steam Deck perspective, it works great - it's a bit fiddly, gotta get it set up just right, but once set up it's nearly flawless. The only thing that hampers my enjoyment of it is my home's shitty ISP and its low upload speeds, but that's not Chiaki's fault.
There's also Lutris, which allows for installation and execution of non-Steam libraries on Linux platforms, including the Steam Deck. This means "native" installation and execution of Epic Games Launcher, Ubisoft Connect, EA, and other such launchers. I haven't dabbled with it in quite a while but it worked great for getting to install Epic Games on my Deck, and allowed me to play my copy of Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin quite well from Epic.
I've never been able to get it to work. Something about my X11 dual screen desktop setup, the resolutions are all mixed up, it gets the wrong screen, or no audio, or the wrong resolution. No end of pain and suffering. Same with Steam sharing actually. I was hoping Moonlight was a savior to my game streaming woes from Steam but alas no.
In the end I find it way easier to stream my PS5 to my steam deck via Chiaki than to stream from Steam on my desktop :(
I’ve been considering this for streaming from a PC to the Deck but haven’t gotten around to it, Steam Remote Play works well most of the time iirc but you get the occasional frame drops/skips and it becomes unplayable via streaming.
Heard Moonlight is better but haven’t gotten around to it.
Genuinely a night-and-day difference for me. On default settings Moonlight was pretty comparable to Steam Remote Play, but after I cranked up Moonlight’s FPS and bitrate, it pulled way ahead. Perfect, lag-free visuals.
I've had pretty much the same experience. I've been streaming most games in 4k to my TV using a raspberry pi and moonlight over wifi. After being underwhelmed by both parsec and steams gamestreaming, this is a whole other world. I recommend Sunshine/Moonlight to all my friends who want to be able to stream their games.
In my experience Moonlight is much better than Steam Remote Play.
For anyone wondering about performance/input lag of Moonshine and Sunshine:
When my wife was in the hospital last year, I brought my tablet and modified GameSir G8 to test out a remote stream. WireGuard’d into my network, fired up Diablo 4, almost no discernible lag and picture quality was great.
Specs:
Desktop: Ryzen 3950X, 32GB RAM, RTX 3080, game at
2800x1752 60fps.
Home Network: 1 Gig fiber, Palo Alto PA-440
I was pulling 250Mb down on the hospital WiFi, which was probably the biggest determining factor.
I’ve had a similarly good experience streaming my home PC (5950X/3080Ti) at 1280x800 to my Steam Deck. With Tailscale it worked great even when connecting from the opposite coast of the US while staying with family over the holiday with less latency than one might think possible. I wouldn’t want to play a competitive shooter that way or anything, but it’s more than good enough for anything else.
Count me as a second for the Moonlight/Sunrise combo.
My home setup is such that my PC is in one room, connected via Cat5e cabling built into the walls to a "network hub" in another room (which houses the coax internet from my ISP, into the modem, into my mesh network, into an ethernet hub), which then connects via Cat5e to my Steam Deck Dock in another room, which is plugged into my Steam Deck ... the combination of which is connected to my TV via HDMI, and I use bluetooth controllers and KB+M to play games.
Suffice it to say, I stream from my host PC through my Steam Deck on the regular, as the Deck - as convenient as it is - simply doesn't offer the graphic fidelity that my PC does, particularly on a 4k TV.
This setup works wonders. It's close-to-native quality with few hiccups and low input lag. Odds are if I were trying to stream something like a fighting game, which requires really low input lag, it probably wouldn't be as ideal ... but it's good enough for games with lower input lag requirements.
I've played most recently things like Metaphor Refantazio, Baldur's Gate 3, Grim Dawn, Dave the Diver, Marvel's Midnight Suns, and No Man's Sky with this arrangement with zero issues.
This is my preferred tool for PC to Steam Deck streaming, and it makes my couch as good as my desk for games. A+, do recommend.
Been using Sunshine with the moonlight client for a while now and it is really good!
For those that have a ultrawide screen connected to the PC and are having trouble getting the resolution right on your client, I recommend this little piece of code (only for Windows): ResolutionAutomation
It will automatically switch the screen resolution on your PC to match that of the Moonlight client and then revert back when the client disconnects, thus saving you some headaches :)
Adding another recommend to the pile.
I use this to stream to my PC to my Raspberry pi connected to a TV. It works way better than steam remote play - you can get up to 120fps! Personally I stream at 90fps because anything higher than that gets wonky.
It's a pain to set up (had a lot of issues in my case), but once it's done it's beautiful.
This might be a good answer to wtf I do with my Wii U these days.
And repurposing an existing device rather than getting a new one so my kids can play games.
Might need to figure out something with the game host though...
Another happy moonlight + sunshine user here!
It works amazing well on both linux and windows (I have a dual boot setup that I also sometimes virtualize with vfio). Over time, I've added some hooks like switching to a virtual monitor, adjusting refresh rate/rtss frame cap (separate from refresh rate due to a quirk in VDD)/resolution as well as changing the volume and locking the user session before and after a streaming session.
There's a touch of latency, but I don't have ethernet runs so this is all over mesh wifi using the 5Ghz band.
I also love my steam controller, so I went as far as debugging steam controller support for moonlight for steamlink so I could create a cursed setup where I can use the steam controller in bluetooth mode to control the steamlink/moonlight, and then pass it through to the host over virtualhere in normal mode.