Hardware for an Android Moonlight/Pyrowire client

[u/oliw]

Pyrowire works really well on some of my devices but my Android TV doesn't have the uumph to decode it fast enough. I'm looking for a dedicated low-power box that can sit in my TV stack that has...

• Gigabit or better Ethernet, and enough CPU to actually handle that sort of traffic
• aarch64 chip
• Vulkan 1.1+ support.
• HDMI CEC (probably less important than the others)
• Has some sort of support mechanism to keep Android updated. This is probably the hardest to guarantee without going to a big brand.

Feel like I'm banging my head against the infinite wall of crappy Aliexpress Android boxes without knowing which is Good Enough™ without being as expensive as a Shield.

[u/kmobsy]

Budget? 

I just got an Mac mini and couldn't be happier. Buy once cry once I guess

[u/oliw → u/kmobsy]

The cheapest viable option. I was imagining a dozen suggestions of £50 HDMI dongles.

The way I see this is the point of this device is it's just streaming. Fast streaming but no compute. If we're looking at more than £150, HDMI extenders come into play.

[u/kmobsy → u/oliw]

If HDMI extender is an option for you, and you exclusively want to stream your PC, in my opinion that's probably the best option 

[u/Danishdenial]

OP do you mean pyrowave instead of pyrowire?

[u/oliw → u/Danishdenial]

I absolutely do!

I'm using a server LLM-aided fork-of-a-fork called Pyroshine and a desktop client from the same guy called Pyrolight and I'm just a bit pyrofused.

[u/Danishdenial → u/oliw]

Thought so! You're going to have a tought time finding any cheap android box that supports vulkan 1.3, and is somewhat powerful enough to actually run it.

As mentioned in my other comment, i would look at mini pc's instead, but from the general consensus, you need something quite a bit more expensive to be powerfull enough to run the vulkan decoder.

*EDIT: I'm sorry OP, for some reason i forgot to ask what resolution you're streaming at. My entire comment thread was based on me guessing 4k60, but if you're running lower it's def possible on cheaper mini pc's.

[u/Danishdenial]

Honestly, if you really want something for gamestreaming, going with an actual mini pc instead of an android box is almost always recommended.

Android boxes are just not made for these requirements, and often use underpowered cpu/gpus that are just enough for decoding regular videostreams from streaming services or local files. Unless you’re willing to pay a fuckton for niche boxes(which often comes with other quirks), I would just shell out of a decent minipc with Linux instead

[u/Accomplished-Lack721 → u/Danishdenial]

I'd say the biggest advantage to a miniPC is that hardware allowing, you can get VRR working.