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

Just as importantly, the idea of streaming media is at present embedded in the public conscious: We've got Netflix, we've got Spotify, then why non games, likewise?

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

Remote game streaming withal has a means to go though: not everyone has gigabit internet, and some corporeality of latency is unavoidable unless yous're physically close to the servers.

But what about in-habitation streaming? In these homebound times, "remote," more oftentimes than not means your sleeping room, every bit opposed to your workplace or a unlike town. In-home streaming solutions take come up a long fashion, too. But unlike remote streaming, a top-quality in-home streaming experience is inside reach, with modest hardware requirements.

Whether yous but desire to play Skyrim in bed, or have your your work apps with you to the living room, solutions like Steam in-home streaming and Moonlight offering a virtually-flawless experience. Equally a thing 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'm going to share my experiences with these two local streaming options. Which ane's better? How much does latency bear upon the experience? And really, can yous play Skyrim in bed?

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

If you lot're an iOS or Android user with an Nvidia graphics card, these are your get-to options for in-home streaming. They're both implemented differently, all the same.

Steam Remote Play is (obviously) tied to your Steam account and to the Steam app on Windows. You lot 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 exercise 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 lot don't need any boosted software on the host side, but you volition demand to download a game client on your mobile device. Yous 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 Store (iPad and iPhone)
  • Moonlight on Google Play (Android), also for Amazon devices and Chromebooks

Why would you pick 1 over the other? In our testing we tried to measure specific aspects of the experiences such as latency, loftier refresh rate support, image quality, compression and touch controls.

Our desktop exam 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 heed: a hardwired connection betwixt your PC and the router can bring latency downward considerably.

Our primary device for streaming was an iPad Pro 10.5" and an LG ThinQ G7 to test out Moonlight'due south input latency. Nosotros did this considering 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 or less standard usage conditions. Steam Remote Play's video quality setting was changed to "Fast." There is a slight boost to both image quality and latency if y'all select "Balanced" or "Beautiful" instead.

Latency

Both setups delivered remarkably similar results, with latency in the 20 ms range. This is an order of magnitude improve than the 150-200 ms latency in most Google Stadia titles. Moonlight performed slightly ameliorate, with gameplay occasionally running in the 18-20 ms range. Still, in exercise, 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. But without that frame of reference, it was very hard to tell.

Steam Remote Play on the iPad Pro 10.v

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

From a latency standpoint alone, it's a toss-upwards: both Steam Remote Play and Moonlight hand in as stellar results.

Moonlight on the LG G7 ThinQ

High refresh rate support

Manufacturers similar Samsung and Apple are increasingly using high refresh rate panels on flagship smartphones and tablets. This opens the door to silky smooth high-refresh game streaming if it'southward a supported characteristic. Unfortunately, Steam Remote Play tops out at sixty Hz.

Moonlight, on the other hand, supports 90 Hz and 120 Hz panels. We tried out Moonlight's 120 Hz mode on the iPad Pro's ProMotion brandish. This required a flake of fiddling with custom resolutions in the Nvidia control panel, but we were impressed by the results.

Perceived input latency was lower than Steam Remote Play at 60 Hz and very close to the native PC experience. Interestingly, motion mistiness was lower on the iPad compared to our 1440p QNIX monitor. This meant that, at to the lowest degree in certain respects, streaming image quality was better than native.

Image quality and compression

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

When streaming higher resolutions and framerates, HEVC is critical to ensuring a low latency experience. While yet frames held up well in both Steam Remote Play and Moonlight, nosotros noticed that Remote Play generally looked better in motion, everything else existence equal.

Despite the high pixel density of the iPad Pro's display, fast-moving scenes noticeably degraded image quality: it's important here to differentiate motility mistiness from compression artifacts. As we mentioned earlier, motility blur is lower on Moonlight when using its high refresh manner. But in the thick of the action, Steam Remote Play tends to hold upwardly a scrap ameliorate. The "Balanced" and "Beautiful" image quality modes further boost prototype quality at the price of 5-10 ms of latency.

Affect Controls

Steam Remote Play wins hands-downward here. Moonlight features extremely basic bear upon controls: substantially a virtual Xinput controller with buttons placed as they would be on an Xbox One controller. It'southward next to incommunicable to press multiple buttons at a time in Moonlight or even to aim reasonably well with the virtual thumbstick.

Guerilla'south official touch control configuration for Horizon: Aught Dawn

Steam Remote Play, on the other hand, features support for Steam Big Pic controller remapping. This gives you virtually unlimited flexibility to map touch controls, button combos, and aiming styles. Even better, yous get admission to community and developer-built touch control profiles.

In games similar 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'due south touch on controls are more adequate.

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

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

Closing Remarks

Both Steam Remote Play and Moonlight offer a solid (and costless!) in-home streaming experience. Both offering first-class input latency and epitome quality, to the point that streaming is equally good as or ameliorate than native mobile gaming. However, they both have their own sets of advantages and caveats. If you desire to stream games at a high refresh charge per unit, Moonlight is currently the simply selection. You will take to put up with slightly worse image 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 just way to go, considering Moonlight'south frankly atrocious default touch controls.

Steam Remote Play also appears to be a better option if you programme on using in-home streaming for productivity workloads (to stream your entire desktop). At when nosotros tested it, Moonlight suffered from an iOS problems that hides your mouse cursor, making it tough to navigate Windows. Steam Remote Play doesn't have this issue.

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