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Moonshine: Lets you stream games from your PC to any device running Moonlight

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Re: Moonshine: Lets you stream games from your PC to any device running Moonlight

#31

Post by gadtfly »

PalmPilotProMax wrote: post #25

So, to sum up: First there was Nvidia Gamestream, which was proprietary and later deprecated by Nvidia themselves. Then came Sunshine and Moonlight, open source server and client implementations of the protocol to allow low latency streaming for all platforms. Along the way the Game on Whales project started, to allow multi seat streaming plus virtual displays so currently logged in user sessions aren't impacted. Bas…

I would love "normal linux user remote desktop session suitable for gaming using the host's GPU".

Nothing seems to do exactly that, though this (moonshine) seems like it might be the closest yet.

Can it run a desktop environment as the "Application" that it's streaming?

Re: Moonshine: Lets you stream games from your PC to any device running Moonlight

#32

Post by taikon »

pyreko wrote: post #26
taikon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Apollo is a moonshine fork

Apollo is a fork of Sunshine (it's on the repo). EDIT: maybe you're mixing up Sunshine and Moonshine (this project)?

Good catch, I misread

Re: Moonshine: Lets you stream games from your PC to any device running Moonlight

#33

Post by Gigachad »

esperent wrote: post #18

I spent quite a while trying to set up streaming from my laptop to my phone using Sunshine/Moonlight. I never got decent results despite following tutorials that were supposed to make it all very easy. Gaming is something I do to relax and I eventually decided it wasn't worth it since I had spent a week of my limited downtime messing around with codecs, latency, wifi settings, trying different apps, etc. and not gott…

I've had it work occasionally. I had a few sessions which worked flawlessly which proves it's entirely possible for it to work, but 90% of the time I'm hit with endless weird issues, configuration problems, breaking changes in updates.

There are some people who it seems to be working for, but I think it still needs a lot more work to iron out all of the issues.

Re: Moonshine: Lets you stream games from your PC to any device running Moonlight

#34

Post by MostlyStable »

esperent wrote: post #18

I spent quite a while trying to set up streaming from my laptop to my phone using Sunshine/Moonlight. I never got decent results despite following tutorials that were supposed to make it all very easy. Gaming is something I do to relax and I eventually decided it wasn't worth it since I had spent a week of my limited downtime messing around with codecs, latency, wifi settings, trying different apps, etc. and not gott…

About a week ago, I set it up on my windows machine (host) to my ubuntu laptop (client) with the help of an LLM in about 30 minutes, with an additional 15 of troubleshooting the first time I tried using it away from the LAN. It was pretty painless and worked right off the bat. And then it turned out that A) the game my friend and I were trying to play had only local multiplayer (so my host machine couldn't connect) and B) despite protonDB claiming limited compatibility, the game launched immediately with no problems natively on my laptop, so the whole exercise ended up not being necessary. But it was relatively painless.

In case it makes a difference, I was also using Tailscale.

Re: Moonshine: Lets you stream games from your PC to any device running Moonlight

#35

Post by [deleted] »

PalmPilotProMax wrote: post #25

So, to sum up: First there was Nvidia Gamestream, which was proprietary and later deprecated by Nvidia themselves. Then came Sunshine and Moonlight, open source server and client implementations of the protocol to allow low latency streaming for all platforms. Along the way the Game on Whales project started, to allow multi seat streaming plus virtual displays so currently logged in user sessions aren't impacted. Bas…

[deleted]

Re: Moonshine: Lets you stream games from your PC to any device running Moonlight

#36

Post by Gigachad »

Grombobulous wrote: post #8
SpecialistK wrote: post #2

Since this doesn't take over the desktop (per the FAQ) this sounds amazing for headless machines. Shame it needs such a modern GPU and $feature which isn't offered by my preferred Alpine Linux. But that shouldn't detract from what it's promising.

That's not too bad, being able to go all the way back to an RTX20XX or RX 6000 series is pretty old for the kind of person looking to stream some games. If you go back much further your client device might just have enough horsepower to run the game you're trying to play without streaming at all!

I've been streaming from an RX5700 XT which is something like 20x more powerful than my steam deck I'm trying to stream to.

Re: Moonshine: Lets you stream games from your PC to any device running Moonlight

#37

Post by ducktective »

PalmPilotProMax wrote: post #25

So, to sum up: First there was Nvidia Gamestream, which was proprietary and later deprecated by Nvidia themselves. Then came Sunshine and Moonlight, open source server and client implementations of the protocol to allow low latency streaming for all platforms. Along the way the Game on Whales project started, to allow multi seat streaming plus virtual displays so currently logged in user sessions aren't impacted. Bas…

Thanks for the summary!

Does anyone happen to know how to make a Windows machine, the extended display of a Linux machine? Both machines are on the same network.

I'm looking to use a Windows laptop as a mere HDMI monitor for the Linux laptop. I don't need gaming/streaming requirements. Like, can anyone list our options in 2026 as the parent comment did?

I assume one can use this Moonshine on the server (Linux laptop) and run Moonlight on the client (windows laptop)?

Re: Moonshine: Lets you stream games from your PC to any device running Moonlight

#38

Post by Gigachad »

Grombobulous wrote: post #11
xingped wrote: post #5

I don't remember whether it was this or "sunshine", but game streaming from your own PC hasn't been the same since it was simply "turn on the Nvidia feature". It was way too difficult to figure out how to make it work the last time I tried and I gave up and haven't tried again since. For all the good they do otherwise, FOSS devs just never seem to get usability right.

I hope you do try again! It's actually become an incredibly wonderful experience ever since the "turn on the Nvidia (proprietary!) feature" days. Nvidia's implementation as far as the software experience was convenient but also bad in a lot of ways compared to what we have today. Perhaps the first thing I would recommend is Steam's built-in Remote Play feature along with their apps. This is the most dummy-proof metho…

I've been trying regularly for a few years now but it still doesn't work for me. Steam remote play often refuses to launch a game, it'll open on my desktop but the stream won't start. Then when it does, sometimes it's totally fine, sometimes it lags out incredibly bad despite being over ethernet.

Sunshine/Moonlight kind of works and in the desktop it works fine but when I open a game the display scales wrong on my client device despite looking fine on the host.

Re: Moonshine: Lets you stream games from your PC to any device running Moonlight

#39

Post by BatteryMountain »

PalmPilotProMax wrote: post #25

So, to sum up: First there was Nvidia Gamestream, which was proprietary and later deprecated by Nvidia themselves. Then came Sunshine and Moonlight, open source server and client implementations of the protocol to allow low latency streaming for all platforms. Along the way the Game on Whales project started, to allow multi seat streaming plus virtual displays so currently logged in user sessions aren't impacted. Bas…

I setup a fake display on my fedora instance (inside proxmox) at boot time (boot/kernel args) that mimics the specs of my real display. Sunshine sees it as a real display so I can unplug everything from the box except power and lan cable. No hdmi dummy dongle or virtual display driver needed. Using linux as a gaming server works fine!

Re: Moonshine: Lets you stream games from your PC to any device running Moonlight

#40

Post by hxii »

aliasxneo wrote: post #22

I use moonlight/apollo. 1. Connect my Dualsense controller to my macbook 2. Open moonlight on my macbook 3. Connect to my gaming desktop in full screen mode 3. Launch my AAA game on Steam 4. Profit Over Wifi 7 I get basically no discernable lag, which was crazy to me the first time I tried it. I also have a Minisforum attached to my large screen TV and the process is identical except I push a different combo on the D…

I have a question if you don’t mind – do you also have to kill AWDL to prevent lag spikes during a streaming session?
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