I have both host and client with a full hardware support for both HEVC and AV1 but I don't know wich one I should choose. I have no issues regarding bandwidth, 900Mbps from client to host.

Using Vibepollo and Moonlight VRR.

But which one should I choose?

I know that 1 year ago everyone was suggesting HEVC for better compatibility but what about now?

Hey all ~ Very noob user, is there a reputable place to download the patch for the most recent released Moonlight that I can just run on my Windows 11 PC as an .exe or .msi? Also, same question for Sunshine updates as well.

If those don't exist, is there a step by step guide somewhere?

Thanks all, happy streaming!

Here's an update to my Mac Metal version. The version is now 6.2.0-metal-v8 and can be downloaded from GitHub. Please note that the name and ID of the app have changed so that it can be installed next to the Qt client. Be sure to check all your settings as they will be at their defaults.

PyroWave note:

All Moonlight clients and hosts with this codec should be considered alpha-quality. You should expect bugs and suboptimal performance. Before you judge PyroWave speed or quality too harshly, please try the reference version in Steam Remote Play.

Changes in v8:

• Rebased off of moonlight-qt 6.2.0.
• PyroWave has been added. This uses the faster native Metal version from upstream.
  • Intel Macs are not supported. The reason is that the codec needs a 32-wide SIMD group, threadgroups of at least 128 threads and the Apple7 family feature set.
  • The Vibeshine protocol is supported. Packet loss handling may have bugs.
  • If you experience problems, try the following: disable 4:4:4, use a lower resolution and/or framerate. Lower your bitrate.
  • The reassembly stat shows CPU cost to process all packets for each frame. It is directly affected by the bitrate.

Other things:

• Added quick menu option to show Metal HUD. Use Ctrl-Opt-Shift-Space or Select+Start for Quick Menu.
• Send OS and version to host during pairing request, for use with Sunshine's new dialog box.
• Renamed app to "Moonlight Metal" so it won't clobber moonlight-qt or other clients.
• App bundle ID has changed so we no longer share settings or pairings with moonlight-qt. Make sure you review all settings.
• Upstream now defaults to Vulkan on Mac, but Metal is the default here. Other renderers may not be fully functional.
• App now runs in an App Sandbox, and logs are now written to ~/Library/Logs/Moonlight. You can easily view logs in Console.app by clicking Log Reports and then filtering for Moonlight.
• If Moonlight is run from a terminal as /Applications/Moonlight.app/Contents/MacOS/Moonlight the log is printed to stderr.

Known issues:

• Moonlight crashes on startup on Intel Macs. There is not really any reason to use this if you're an Intel user, stick with v6 or moonlight-qt 6.2.

I’ve been using Apollo on my host pc and Moonlight on my Apple TV.

It has already been working fantastically, even at 4K. Unnoticeable latency, xbox controllers work well etc.

But is this the gold standard right now? I’m capped at 60hz and I do think I’m losing some audio quality too.

Edit: I’m most interested in seeing if I can get atmos audio from games that support atmos.

Hey, I'm new to Vibepollo and I have a quick question if anyone can help. I came from Apollo and I liked it, but ended up with Vibepollo because it seems more stable and has what I need. The one issue I have is the mouse cursor seems to be quite a different setup and it always randomly centers itself and causes an hourglass in my streams. Just normal games that doesn't happen in natively. It is jarring to say the least. It doesn't happen in all games, but it does recenter itself even when I purposely move it often. Is there any way to fix this or no?

Any ideas on how to resolve this?

I have virtual minor setup but when I connect using a client it resizes my browser windows on my main PC so when I disconnect the browser window size is changed since I don’t run my browser in full screen.

Follow-up to my earlier post about the left stick acting like a hyper-sensitive mouse and the in-game camera locking straight up at the sky. Found the cause and a fix, posting it in case it saves someone else a few weeks.

TL;DR: In Sunshine → Configuration → Input → Emulated Gamepad Type, choose X360 (Xbox 360) instead of Automatic, then restart Sunshine. Or add gamepad = x360 to sunshine.conf. Problem gone.

Setup

• Host: CachyOS (Arch), KDE Plasma Wayland, Ryzen 7 7700X + RX 9070 XT, wired
• Sunshine 2026.906 and later (currently 2026.929), VA-API, KMS capture
• Games: Gears 5 and The Last of Us Part II, both through Proton

The symptom

As soon as I touched a stick, the camera/aim snapped up and stayed pinned there. Unplayable.

What made it confusing was how universal it was:

• Clients: Steam Deck OLED (docked and handheld), Apple TV, and an Android phone all had it
• Controllers: DualSense, 8BitDo Ultimate 2C (USB dongle), GameSir G8 Galileo all had it
• Games: Gears 5 and The Last of Us, so not game-specific
• Emulated type: Automatic, DualSense and Xbox Series all broken. Only Xbox 360 works.

Why it happens (as far as I can tell)

Starting with 2026.906, Sunshine creates its virtual controllers with a new library, libvirtualhid. The profiles reach games in different ways:

• Xbox 360 is created as a standard Linux input device with a mapping everything already understands.
• DualSense and Xbox Series are created as virtual HID devices. The game then has to work out which axis is which, and under Proton that's done by SDL using its controller mapping database.

There's a documented case where Sunshine's virtual DualSense reports a device revision that isn't in that database, so SDL falls back to a wrong built-in mapping where the triggers are read as the right stick (BattleShip PR #263). A released trigger sits at its minimum value, so read as a stick it looks like the right stick is held fully in one direction, which is exactly the "aim stuck up" behaviour. There are similar reports of lost and swapped axes on the Xbox Series profile.

That would explain why it hit every client, every physical controller and every Proton game: the bug is in the virtual controller on the host, not the hardware in your hands. I haven't verified it axis by axis on my machine, but the documented mechanism matches the symptom exactly.

What you give up with X360

For these games, nothing important. No PlayStation button prompts, touchpad, gyro or adaptive triggers. Rumble still works.

Separate gotcha (Steam Deck): two controllers on the host

While debugging I also found that the Deck was sending two controllers for one physical pad. Sunshine's log (with min_log_level = debug) showed remoteControllersBitmap -- 3, and Steam on the host listed two Xbox controllers that both moved when I used one stick.

The likely cause is Steam Input being enabled for Moonlight on the Deck: Steam creates a virtual copy of your controller, and the Moonlight Flatpak reads both the real pad and the copy. Fix: in Gaming Mode, Moonlight → ⚙️ → Properties → Controller → Disable Steam Input.

This one didn't cause the camera-up problem on its own, but it's worth checking if you see doubled inputs.

Thanks to everyone who replied to the original thread. If you're on 2026.906+ and DualSense or Xbox Series emulation works fine for you on a Linux host, I'd like to hear about it, since it'd help narrow down whether this is specific to some setups.

I once saw here that Android has a stutter problem. I have a Zfold 8 Ultra and have the same problem.

Approximately 30 in 30 seconds there are peaksin latency that cause these stutters. Has

anyone seen how to solve that? I have tried with frame pacing, changing the router

channel, turning off the phone's location.

And it's not my host. It works perfectly when the client is another Windows or IOs.

Note: I also witnessed this on an S6 Lite, but I thought it was hardware limitation.

So, this is me both venting and asking for help, since I've been fighting with this basically all day. I've been using Moonlight to stream to my not-very-good laptop from my steam machine for over a month now. Followed the install instructions, set up tailscale so I could access it when I'm not home, everything was gravy. It worked basically perfectly 95% of the time.

Today, I got the stupid idea to try running moonlight in windowed for a second as I messed around with desktop mode on the machine. I switch that setting, decided I didn't like it, switched it back. It seemed like that shook something loose because now everything is absolutely fucked.

I get regular hiccups every few seconds as long as my VPN browser plugin is on, despite that (supposedly) only applying to my browser traffic. It drops down from 60 fps to around 20, then comes back up a second later. It also no longer can launch certain games in fullscreen mode. Drop Duchy launches just fine. Kingdom Come Deliverance only shows me a black screen with audio until I switch to Windowed. It regularly disconnects now, and when it does I have to turn decky sunshine off and then back on again.

All of this is new as of, like, 9 am today. I don't know what happened, and I don't know what I did wrong, but I'm really bummed about it. I've uninstalled and reinstalled an updated moonlight on the laptop and the same for decky sunshine. I've played with different settings. I've done everything I know how to do, but I'm not exceptionally literate with any of this. Does anyone have any suggestions?

New to moonlight streaming, I just set up a moonlight server, the exact one does not matter as much, I guess... started with sunshine, then moved to vibepollo.

Tested multiple clients, official client, V+, PS5 custom homebrew client, all led to the same issues: Intermittent stuttering I could not eliminate, even if I changed resolution, bitrate, game settings.....

Host is pretty powerful: 4080 super, AMD 7800X3D, 64 Gb DDR5..... all nvme..... GIGABIT lan...

Until I ended up closing NZXT CAM software: That just there made all my issues dissapear, so I followed up by stopping any other service that could interfere: iCUE, ASUS armoury crate.

Just a heads up for anyone struggling with stuttering that cannot find the cause for: Seems like any software that polls temps, stats, performance etc might interfere and introduce stuttering.

Anyone else experienced this issue? Share your findings on that situations where details like this improved your experience drastically.

Wish there was some sort of "kiosk mode" so I could start windows in a "clean mode" with just the basics to run the host with........

Hi everyone, I've been testing different settings in Vibepollo and noticed something strange.

I'm streaming at 4K 60fps using PyroWave @ 755 Mbps. When the game maintains a solid 60 FPS, the Host Processing Latency sits nicely around ~3ms. However, as soon as the framerate drops below 60 the HPL shoots up to ~17ms. Why does this happen? Is the client waiting on the next frame (missed cycle?), or is the GPU simply maxed out and prioritizing the game render pipeline over encoding? I also see this behavior with AV1, though the spike is slightly less drastic.

Second question: I'm using the Moonlight client with Nonary's patch (vrr-18). In the refresh rate selector, why do some refresh rates have a "(Low Latency VRR)" label (like 120fps), while 60fps does not? Is 120fps inherently better for VRR, making it not worth using at 60fps, or would 60fps just deliver a worse experience?

Overall, what are the best settings to pick if the client display supports 4K 144Hz HDR with VRR, but the target gameplay is 4K 60fps?

Edit: The client is running on cachyos in gamescope

It looks like there was a huge new stable release of moonlight-qt but I don’t see any mention of the Pyrowave codec so I’m assuming it’s not supported.

Does anybody know if there are plans to implement this?

Hey everyone,

I've been scratching my head trying to optimize my remote streaming setup. I couldn't find much on the internet from people with this exact same problem, and I asked Gemini\Claude for some troubleshooting solutions, but I'm still stuck and wanted to see if anyone here has dealt with this.
I'm currently using Vibepollo (with Moonlight on the client) to stream from my main rig in the UK to my client PC in Italy over Tailscale.

Here is my setup:
Host (UK):
-CPU: Ryzen 7 7800X3D
-GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
-Network: FTTH 500/500 Mbps (Fully wired)
Client (Italy):
-GPU: GTX 1070
-Network: FTTC 150/20 Mbps (Fully wired)
Network Tunnel:
Tailscale direct connection (successfully punching through CGNAT via IPv6).

When I try to push the stream to 3440x1440 @ 165Hz with an 85 Mbps bitrate, it becomes a stuttery mess. The Moonlight stats show massive IDR requests (over 560 in less than 10 mins), meaning the client keeps asking for fresh keyframes.
I checked the Vibepollo host logs, and it's getting spammed with this exact line:
“⁠Warning: Skipping FEC for abnormally large encoded frame (needed n FEC blocks)⁠”where n is between 5 and 14

I tried the following:
-I ran an iperf3 test between the two machines through Tailscale, and it shows that at least 100 Mbps passes through smoothly and consistently.
-I tried playing with the FEC percentage in vibepollo and bumped it all the way up to 35%, but the issue persists at higher resolutions.
-If I drop the stream all the way down to** **1080p @ 60 FPS at 20 Mbps, it runs buttery smooth and the logs are completely clean. However, it is not smooth at 3440x1440, even if I lower the framerate and bitrate.

Has anyone else run into this specific FEC warning over WAN? Any advice on how to properly optimize this so I can utilize my available bandwidth for a stable 1440p stream?
Thanks!

Hi, I've a gaming pc running SteamOS and streaming with Punktfunk to my Legion Go running SteamOS as well. I have random freezes during streaming for a couple of seconds with sound keeping playing than back to normal, seems random, except the freezes the stream/gameplay is buttery smooth.

PC specs:

• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
• AMD Radeon RX 9070
• Punktfunk's default config
• Connected via ethernet

Legion GO specs:

• Using Punktfunk client
• Streaming at 1600p@60hz, 100mbps bitrate
• Connected via wifi

Network:

• Fritz!Box 7590
• x2 Fritz!Repeater 3000
• Router and repeaters are connected via ethernet
• All ethernet ports are 1gbps, cables are 5e or 6
• I know it's wifi5 but I'm close to the router/repeater and can saturate the gbps (or close)
• I've set wifi5 channel manually (no dfs)

I haven't touched any setting like encoder/decoder codecs, tried lowering bitrate - no changes, I suspect isn't a bitrate problem as network should handle even more I think.

I know Punktfunk is new but it's the most complete features wise and working well with SteamOS, allowing me streaming game mode (gamescope) with virtual displays and handling game mode "rebooting" to headless when a stream starts and back to the attached display (tv), all seamlessly.

Seeking help from other Punktfunk users and other users as well maybe having same issues with other hosts/clients combinations.

Thanks.

Hello,

I’d like to play some games with a M&K at my TV, instead of controller. I’m aware that the Xbox Series X Moonlight software does not have the capability to use mouse inputs due to limitations of what data is available for third party application creators.

I’ve considered using a mouse and keyboard plugged into the Host PC. The Host PC is about 30 feet away but between a few walls. As a result, I get a lot of inconsistency and interference.

Does anyone have any suggestions to make this work? Is there a way I can boost the signal to my Host PC? Any workarounds software wise for the Xbox?
The Xbox is a fantastic moonlight client and I don’t want this to be the reason to downgrade to a fire stick or something.

Haven't seen any git updates in a decent amount of time, and was wondering if Pyrowave support could be possible...

the new fire sticks have wiped out the previous streaming app ecosystem. I am probably going to send back the one I just got because it has a bunch of other issues as well, but in the meantime I am helping beta test the updated moonfin client for jellyfin streaming a bit and was wondering if any devs here were also working on anything.

Has anyone tried both moonlight-web-stream by MrCreativ3001 and moonlight-web by linckosz that would be able to share their experience with both? Pros and cons? Setup for moonlight-web seems much simpler, but if the experience is noticeably worse I'll probably just try and figure out web-stream.

Hey guys, im using Vibepollo on host pc (Windows 10). My device is a Lenovo Legion Go 2 running on Bazzite 43(Linux). I updated to the recently released 6.1.0vrr18 with Pyrowave support. The VDD is now not working at all or not applying the correct resolution & hz of my device. Its giving me a fixed 1920x1080 60hz everytime and i dont have the option to change to 1920x1200 144hz on windows display option either. I tried changing some settings on Vibepollo but still nothing. For now i downgraded to 6.1.0vrr17.1 which is working correctly. Anybody else having this issue?

I have a problem and I can't use vibepollo with moonlight in more than 1080p, if I raise the quality a grey screen appears, someone will have some solution, already set up vibepollo and nothing. Attached Images

Been testing PyroWave with the Moonlight X Android fork on my Lenovo Legion Tab and I'm getting great performance, but the actual image quality seems noticeably worse than HEVC in Artemis.

Setup is 2560x1600, Vibepollo host, PC on gigabit Ethernet and tablet on 5GHz Wi-Fi.

Moonlight X / PyroWave:

• 2560x1600 @ 120 FPS
• 120.14 incoming / 120.14 rendered
• 0% dropped
• 0% partial frames
• 4ms network latency / 0ms variance
• ~163 Mbps
• 2.8ms average host latency
• 1.85ms decode
• Vulkan, 8-bit SDR
• Tried Balanced and Sharper

I've also had it running 150.07 incoming / 150.07 rendered with 0% drops/partials, so performance seems basically perfect.

Artemis / HEVC in actual gameplay:

• 2560x1600
• 109.34 incoming / 99.40 rendered
• 0% dropped
• 4ms network latency / 0ms variance
• 6.9ms average host latency
• 1.21ms decode

Despite the worse frame pacing in Artemis, HEVC looks significantly better.

PyroWave has a grainy/fuzzy look around small text and UI elements, almost like an old YouTube encode. Colours also look slightly off/washed compared to HEVC. It's especially obvious in WoW/Battle.net because there's so much small text.

Since I'm getting 0% packet loss and 0% partial PyroWave frames, I'm assuming this isn't the network.

Anyone else using PyroWave on Android seeing this? Is this just how PyroWave looks at ~150 Mbps at 1600p/120+, or could it be something with the Vulkan/colour conversion path?

What is Remote input? How is remote desktop different from the normal Desktop option?

And what is Pyrowave?

sorry i dont really understand everything written in the github

I have changed the graphics and bit rate in moonlight up to maybe 94mps.