moonlight_hdr_launcher VS Sunshine

Can't seem to get HDR to work from a Shield TV if HEVC (H265) is turned off. HDR works with HEVC, but at the cost of poorer performance and FPS dips during gameplay. I'm using the Mass Effect Andromeda trick (https://github.com/lyckantropen/moonlight_hdr_launcher) and I can only really say I noticed this issue recently. Anyone else experiencing this - or is everyone who got HDR to work stuck with HEVC?

Just check https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.liuzh.deviceinfo, there are many options to stream in HDR like https://github.com/lyckantropen/moonlight_hdr_launcher + playnite

This worked: https://github.com/lyckantropen/moonlight_hdr_launcher

I installed the Moolight HDR launcher on the remote PC (https://github.com/lyckantropen/moonlight_hdr_launcher), and use Moonlight on my Shield. This way, I have an icon « Mass Effect Andromeda » which starts the streaming without loading any game. From there, I just use a mouse to start my games from the Xbox app.

I'm using moonlight_hdr_launcher with gamestream launchpad which I have set to launch steam big picture mode so that I don't need to fake Andromeda for every game. I add all of my games to Big Picture Mode because I like to use as my steam controller and to use steam link on my phone on occasion. This lets me play any game on my computer at 1440p,120Hz, HDR.

On host PC, I have moonlight HDR launcher (https://github.com/lyckantropen/moonlight_hdr_launcher) configured to start a HDR game stream: My moonlight HDR launcher config is as follows:

I just got the same one and it works for me using this launcher https://github.com/lyckantropen/moonlight_hdr_launcher. Took a bit of tinkering. I struggled to get it working because the EDID was not display 1 in windows so it would always stream my other monitor regardless of what was set as primary. My gpu always makes the displayport connections montior 1, if you can rearrange yours to make your EDID first that might fix it. If you can't do that it's a bit more annoying, can try to follow this guide which worked for me https://lighthouse.thecloudiest.com/2020/12/20/fix-nvidia-shield-moonlight-selecting-the-wrong-monitor/. This thread is also helpful, https://www.reddit.com/r/cloudygamer/comments/ma3zsr/moonlight_finally_solved_the_problem_with_windows. But I used something called multimonitor tool instead of the one listed in that guide. You may have a different issue though cause if it doesn't work when it's the only monitor then something else might be wrong, good luck!

> Would the Swift UI also work on an iPad?

Yes, but probably not for the first version.

> Do you have any comparisons with other tools (eg steam streaming, moonlight)

Steam streaming just doesn't really work on linux. Moonlight is somewhat similar in terms of direction, and has an established client base. I know of at least two projects to build servers for the Moonlight protocol[1][2].

The Moonlight protocol is a bit weird, because it's an open-source reverse engineering of a dead NVIDIA project, GeForce now. There are fundamental limitations to the protocol, for example that the cursor must be rendered in-stream or simulated. Using my tool, the cursor is rendered locally, and custom cursor images can actually be pushed to the client, for a seamless experience. This sounds like a minor detail but it matters a lot for subjective latency. I'm also working on employing tricks like hierarchical coding using FEC in the protocol, because I hate VBR encoding for games (it makes text blurry and breaks immersion). Those tricks aren't really possible in Moonlight.

All of the Linux solutions I know about have significantly higher latency compared to Magic Mirror, although I don't have numbers for exactly how much higher. (I have a benchmark to test the latency of my tool, but the others don't.) I'd encourage you to try them out and get a feel for the difference.

Finally, I think Magic Mirror is the easiest to install and get going on the server. It has almost zero runtime library or service dependencies (there's a pesky dynamic link against libxkbcommon which I haven't managed to remove), so you don't need to mess with pipewire or docker or anything - it's completely self-contained.

All that said, the existing tools have the advantage of a larger user and contributor base, whereas Magic Mirror is just me on a mission so far :) So they're likely to be much more stable and usable.

[1]: https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine

RDP as a regular or quick solution is actually really decent in this respect.

(1) https://app.lizardbyte.dev/Sunshine

Moonlight + Sunshine for a self hosted solution, works with every OS

server: https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine/

client: https://github.com/moonlight-stream

You could use sunshine (https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine) + moonlight (https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-qt). To be honest, at least for me, it works better than most of the RDP/VNC stuff.

EDIT: Just checked again, original was released early 2020, current maintained project started 2022.

On your pc, install Sunshine. It's an open source moonlight server. There's a good walk through on the sunshine github page. Connect your handheld to the wifi running the server & open moonlight. Should work.

I discovered the moonlight client and sunshine server a few months ago. These are open source solutions to provide remote gaming/desktop capabilities with built in input and audio passthrough. I tried NoMachine, but I wasn't able to get audio to work. This looks like a known issue on arch. On sunshine, I didn't have to do any extra tweaking! This allowed me to game on my desktop pc without having to sit at my desk. This was especially helpful while watching my 2nd son. I was really impressed by the performance, I could stream my host's display at high resolutions and frame rates with low latency despite my desktop being in the basement using WiFi. I was getting some instability with WiFi, so I wanted to try connecting my desktop to the router via Ethernet. I decided to go with a headless solution because that gives me more flexibility on the placement of the desktop; I ended up moving my desktop upstairs closer to my router. I figured out a way to stream my hosts display headless by using Nvidia TwinView to create the virtual display. This means I don't need to buy any HDMI/DP dummy plugs. I wrote a Linux Guide for sunshine on how to set this up. If you have any feedback on this guide, let me know! I haven't tried this, but wolf is an interesting docker alternative to sunshine.