Betwixt Stadia, GeForce At present, Microsoft xCloud, and other contenders like Shadow, game streaming is seeing a truthful resurgence. Cadre internet infrastructure and encoders have picked upwardly significantly since OnLive's ballsy failure a decade ago.

Just as importantly, the idea of streaming media is now embedded in the public conscious: We've got Netflix, nosotros've got Spotify, so why not games, too?

Steam Remote Play lets you lot run The Medium in any plane of reality

Remote game streaming still has a ways to go though: not everyone has gigabit internet, and some amount of latency is unavoidable unless you lot're physically close to the servers.

Only what about in-home streaming? In these homebound times, "remote," more often than not ways your bedchamber, as opposed to your workplace or a dissimilar boondocks. In-dwelling streaming solutions have come a long way, too. But unlike remote streaming, a top-quality in-home streaming experience is within reach, with modest hardware requirements.

Whether you simply want to play Skyrim in bed, or take your your work apps with yous to the living room, solutions like Steam in-abode streaming and Moonlight offer a most-flawless experience. As a matter of fact, while I'm typing out this article, I happen to be using an iPad Pro ten.5" streaming Windows 10 desktop over Steam Remote Play.

In this piece, I'k going to share my experiences with these two local streaming options. Which one's better? How much does latency touch the feel? And actually, tin yous play Skyrim in bed?

What's Steam Remote Play? What's Moonlight?

If you're an iOS or Android user with an Nvidia graphics carte du jour, these are your become-to options for in-home streaming. They're both implemented differently, however.

Steam Remote Play is (obviously) tied to your Steam account and to the Steam app on Windows. You need to run Steam for Remote Play to work. On the other paw, Moonlight uses an open up-source implementation of Nvidia's GameStream technology and works through GeForce Experience. Both of these apps practice fundamentally the same thing, though: they stream compressed sound and video feeds from your PC games to your iOS or Android device.

Because these solutions are embedded in Steam and GeForce Feel respectively, you don't need any boosted software on the host side, simply yous will need to download a game client on your mobile device. Y'all can get them correct here:

Download Steam Link

  • ‎Steam Link on the App Shop (iPad and iPhone)
  • Steam Link on Google Play, APK standalone (Android devices)

Moonlight:

  • Moonlight Game Streaming on the App Shop (iPad and iPhone)
  • Moonlight on Google Play (Android), likewise for Amazon devices and Chromebooks

Why would you option one over the other? In our testing we tried to measure specific aspects of the experiences such as latency, high refresh charge per unit support, image quality, compression and impact controls.

Our desktop test rig is running a GeForce RTX 3080 and a Ryzen 9 3900X. We used a Netgear R6260 AC1600 router, with the PC connected via Ethernet. This is extremely important to keep in mind: a hardwired connexion between your PC and the router can bring latency downwards considerably.

Our primary device for streaming was an iPad Pro x.v" and an LG ThinQ G7 to test out Moonlight's input latency. Nosotros did this because the iOS version of Moonlight doesn't feature a full performance overlay. We capped the bitrate at 50 Mbps on both devices, with x265 encoding enabled and a 1080p render resolution. This represents more than or less standard usage weather condition. Steam Remote Play'southward video quality setting was changed to "Fast." There is a slight boost to both image quality and latency if you select "Counterbalanced" or "Cute" instead.

Latency

Both setups delivered remarkably similar results, with latency in the xx ms range. This is an order of magnitude amend than the 150-200 ms latency in about Google Stadia titles. Moonlight performed slightly better, with gameplay occasionally running in the eighteen-20 ms range. However, in practice, we found it hard to distinguish latency on either Moonlight or Steam Remote Play. When compared head-to-caput with a native keyboard/mouse experience, both streaming options felt a bit sluggish. Simply without that frame of reference, it was very difficult to tell.

Steam Remote Play on the iPad Pro 10.5

Wrath: Aeon of Ruin handled merely like a typical iOS or Android game. Because that many mobile titles run at 30 FPS (with dips below), input lag was actually lower than the typical native gameplay experience.

From a latency standpoint alone, information technology's a toss-upwardly: both Steam Remote Play and Moonlight hand in equally stellar results.

Moonlight on the LG G7 ThinQ

Loftier refresh rate support

Manufacturers like Samsung and Apple are increasingly using high refresh rate panels on flagship smartphones and tablets. This opens the door to silky polish high-refresh game streaming if it'due south a supported feature. Unfortunately, Steam Remote Play tops out at 60 Hz.

Moonlight, on the other hand, supports ninety Hz and 120 Hz panels. We tried out Moonlight's 120 Hz way on the iPad Pro'southward ProMotion display. This required a bit of piffling with custom resolutions in the Nvidia command panel, but we were impressed past the results.

Perceived input latency was lower than Steam Remote Play at threescore Hz and very close to the native PC experience. Interestingly, motion blur was lower on the iPad compared to our 1440p QNIX monitor. This meant that, at least in certain respects, streaming epitome quality was meliorate than native.

Image quality and compression

Both Moonlight and Steam Remote Play support HEVC (x265) encoding. HEVC offers x264-equivalent image quality at a lower bitrate or superior pinch at an equivalent bitrate.

When streaming higher resolutions and framerates, HEVC is critical to ensuring a low latency experience. While nevertheless frames held up well in both Steam Remote Play and Moonlight, we noticed that Remote Play more often than not looked improve in motion, everything else being equal.

Despite the high pixel density of the iPad Pro's brandish, fast-moving scenes noticeably degraded prototype quality: it's important here to differentiate movement blur from pinch artifacts. Every bit we mentioned earlier, movement blur is lower on Moonlight when using its high refresh mode. But in the thick of the action, Steam Remote Play tends to hold upwardly a chip meliorate. The "Balanced" and "Beautiful" image quality modes farther heave prototype quality at the cost of 5-10 ms of latency.

Touch Controls

Steam Remote Play wins hands-down here. Moonlight features extremely basic touch controls: essentially a virtual Xinput controller with buttons placed equally they would be on an Xbox One controller. It's next to impossible to printing multiple buttons at a time in Moonlight or even to aim reasonably well with the virtual thumbstick.

Guerilla's official touch control configuration for Horizon: Zero Dawn

Steam Remote Play, on the other hand, features support for Steam Big Moving picture controller remapping. This gives y'all virtually unlimited flexibility to map touch on controls, button combos, and aiming styles. Even better, you go access to customs and developer-built touch command profiles.

In games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, these custom configs tailored the controls to deliver something approaching a native mobile experience. If you don't have a mobile controller on-hand, Steam Remote Play's touch on controls are more than adequate.

The optimal way to stream games at home is with a physical controller

We also tested both streaming clients with a GameVice controller. While some games, like 2D platformers and ARPGs handle reasonably well with a touch screen, a physical controller is substantially better, even compared to custom touch controls. We noticed that Moonlight's input latency advantage was more pronounced with the GameVice connected, especially when running at a higher refresh rate.

Endmost Remarks

Both Steam Remote Play and Moonlight offer a solid (and costless!) in-home streaming feel. Both offer excellent input latency and image quality, to the point that streaming is as skillful as or better than native mobile gaming. All the same, they both have their own sets of advantages and caveats. If you want to stream games at a loftier refresh rate, Moonlight is currently the only option. You will have to put up with slightly worse paradigm quality, but the lower input latency and smoothness are well worth it.

On the other hand, Steam Remote Play offers customizable touch controls. If you don't have a controller on hand, it's the merely style to go, considering Moonlight's bluntly atrocious default touch controls.

Steam Remote Play also appears to be a ameliorate option if you plan on using in-abode streaming for productivity workloads (to stream your unabridged desktop). At when nosotros tested information technology, Moonlight suffered from an iOS bug that hides your mouse cursor, making information technology tough to navigate Windows. Steam Remote Play doesn't have this effect.

The real takeaway: in-domicile streaming is completely viable. Use your mobile devices equally clients, coupled with a capable PC and an entry-to-midrange router and you're ready to go. We've definitely come a long fashion from the Splashtop days.