What Sunshine and Moonlight Actually Are

Nadia Dubois
July 22, 2026
22 min read

Nvidia killed GameStream in 2023, and the number of people who want to play PC games on a Steam Deck, a phone, or the living room TV never went down. That gap is why Sunshine and Moonlight turned into the default answer for self-hosted game streaming. Sunshine runs on the gaming PC and takes over the job GameStream used to do. Moonlight runs on whatever screen you want to play on, from a handheld to an old laptop to an Apple TV box, and pulls the video down over the network.

Both projects are free and open source, and neither needs an Nvidia card to work. This tutorial walks through the full moonlight game streaming setup in 13 steps, start to finish: installing Sunshine, picking an encoder, pairing a client, tuning bitrate and resolution, getting it working on Steam Deck and Windows handhelds, and reaching your PC from outside your home network. Budget about 45 minutes if this is your first time touching either app. Every version number, port, and config file name below comes from LizardByte’s own documentation or a source linked inline, and anything that couldn’t be confirmed is flagged as such rather than guessed at.

The appeal isn’t just nostalgia for a discontinued Nvidia feature. A self-hosted sunshine game streaming setup means your existing library, your mods, your save files, and your GPU all keep doing the work, while the screen you happen to be holding just becomes a window into that PC. No new game purchases through a cloud storefront, no monthly fee, and no dependency on a third-party data center staying online. The cost is that you have to build and maintain that setup yourself, which is exactly what the rest of this guide covers.

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What Sunshine and Moonlight Actually Are

Moonlight started as a reverse-engineered client for Nvidia’s GameStream protocol, back when GameStream only worked between a GeForce GPU and a Shield tablet or a handful of supported devices. Nvidia has since stopped developing GameStream, and outside forums that cover PC streaming, it’s routinely described as dead technology at this point. Moonlight itself didn’t go away. Instead, the community built Sunshine, an open-source host application from a group called LizardByte, to replace the GameStream server piece entirely.

The split is simple once it clicks. Sunshine is the host software that sits on the PC with the GPU and the games installed. Moonlight is the client that connects to it. Because Sunshine is a clean-room replacement rather than an Nvidia product, it works with Nvidia, AMD, and Intel graphics, encoding through NVENC, AMD AMF, or Intel Quick Sync depending on what’s in the machine, with a software x264 fallback if none of those are available. A 2026 Sunshine release also added Vulkan Video encode support as an alternative to VA-API on Linux hosts, which matters if you’re running a Linux gaming box rather than Windows.

Sunshine ships under a continuously-dated version scheme rather than the usual major.minor numbering, so a build might be labeled something like 2026.516.143833. That looks unusual next to something like “v3.2” but it just means the project cuts releases on a rolling basis. Check the Sunshine GitHub repository for whatever build is current when you install, and treat any specific version number you see elsewhere, including in this article, as a snapshot rather than a fixed target.

None of this requires touching a command line if you don’t want to. Sunshine’s entire configuration lives behind a browser-based dashboard, and Moonlight’s client apps look and behave like any other streaming app you’ve used. The technical depth in this guide, port numbers, config file fields, encoder names, is there for when something doesn’t work on the first try or when you want to push past the defaults. Skipping straight to Step 2 below and coming back to the reference material later works just as well as reading start to finish.

Prerequisites: Hardware, Software, and Network Requirements

Before installing anything, confirm the host machine and the network can actually support streaming. None of this is exotic hardware, but skipping this check is the single fastest way to end up debugging a black screen an hour from now.

Component	What you need	Why it matters
Host GPU	Nvidia (GTX 900-series or newer), AMD, or Intel with Quick Sync	Enables hardware encoding via NVENC, AMD AMF, or Quick Sync instead of slow CPU-based x264
Host OS	Windows 10/11, Linux, or macOS	Sunshine publishes installers and packages for all three
Client device	Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Apple TV, Fire TV/tablets, ChromeOS, or Steam Link hardware	Official Moonlight clients exist for each of these platforms
Network (local)	Gigabit wired LAN recommended, Wi-Fi 6 acceptable	Wired connections cut latency and avoid Wi-Fi interference entirely
Network (remote)	Router access for port forwarding, or a mesh VPN like Tailscale	Needed only if you want to stream from outside your home network

If you don’t have a dedicated host PC yet, our gaming PC build guide covers picking parts that also happen to make good streaming hosts, since encoder quality tracks GPU generation fairly closely. If you already have a machine, run its driver updater now. New GPU drivers periodically unlock encoder features (AV1 support, Vulkan Video) that older driver branches simply don’t expose to Sunshine.

A few things people worry about that don’t actually matter much here. CPU speed barely factors in as long as a hardware encoder handles the video, since that work happens on the GPU’s dedicated encoding block rather than the processor cores. Storage space on the client device is close to irrelevant too, since nothing gets downloaded or installed there beyond the small Moonlight app itself. The games stay entirely on the host’s drives. What does matter more than most guides admit is your router. A five-year-old ISP-supplied router with a weak Wi-Fi radio will bottleneck even a top-tier GPU and gigabit fiber line, so if streaming feels rough after following every step here, the router is worth checking before anything else.

Sunshine and Moonlight vs. Steam Link, Chiaki, and Cloud Gaming

Sunshine and Moonlight aren’t the only way to get PC games onto a second screen, and picking the wrong tool for the job wastes more time than any config file ever will. Before settling on a moonlight game streaming setup, it’s worth seeing how it actually stacks up against the alternatives people usually mention in the same breath.

Option	What it is	Cost	Needs your own PC?	Client platforms
Sunshine + Moonlight	Open-source host and client pair	Free	Yes	Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Apple TV, Fire TV, ChromeOS, Steam Link hardware
Steam Remote Play	Built into Steam itself	Free	Yes	Windows, macOS, Linux, Steam Deck
Steam Link	Valve’s official streaming client	Free	Yes	Android, iOS, Apple TV, Fire TV, Steam Link hardware
Chiaki	Open-source PS Remote Play client	Free	No, needs a PS4/PS5 instead	Linux, Windows, macOS, Steam Deck, Android
GeForce NOW	Nvidia’s cloud gaming service	Free tier plus paid tiers	No, runs on Nvidia’s servers	Most devices with an app or browser

The trade-off is straightforward. Sunshine and Moonlight require you to own and leave on a capable PC, but in exchange you get your entire existing library, your own save files, your own mods, and zero subscription cost. Something like GeForce NOW removes the need for a host machine entirely, at the cost of a monthly fee and usage caps on some tiers. Steam Remote Play, sometimes searched as Steam Deck remote play, is the easiest on-ramp if you only ever stream between your own Steam library and a Steam Deck, but Sunshine covers more ground: any launcher, any app, any client device with a Moonlight port.

Latency is the other variable people underestimate when comparing these options. A stream that never leaves your own house travels a few feet of cable or a single Wi-Fi hop, while a cloud gaming service routes input all the way to a remote data center and back before a single frame renders. That physical distance is why a well-tuned local Sunshine and Moonlight setup on a wired connection tends to feel more responsive than any cloud alternative, even one backed by serious server hardware. The gap narrows once you’re streaming over the open internet yourself, which is covered later in this guide, but a same-room connection is close to as good as playing on the host PC directly.

Step 1-4: Installing Sunshine on Your Gaming PC

Step 1: Confirm your setup meets the requirements above. Check Windows Device Manager (or your Linux distro’s GPU info) to confirm which encoder your card supports, since that decides which settings you’ll pick later.

Step 2: Download and install Sunshine. On Windows, the fastest route is winget from an elevated terminal:

winget install LizardByte.Sunshine

On Linux, Sunshine ships as a Flatpak, which keeps it sandboxed and up to date without touching your distro’s package manager:

flatpak install flathub dev.lizardbyte.sunshine

macOS users and anyone who wants a specific build rather than the latest rolling release should grab the installer directly from the Sunshine GitHub releases page instead. A plain web search for “sunshine download” will also turn up mirrors on sites likethat’s guaranteed to match the project’s actual

Step 3: Launch Sunshine and create credentials. The first run prompts for a username and password that will gate the web configuration UI. Set something you’ll actually remember, since this account also protects pairing requests. On Windows, Sunshine installs itself as a background service. As one walkthrough of the install process puts it, “once Sunshine is done installing, it will live in the hidden task tray icons,” which is exactly where to look if the app seems to have vanished after setup.

Step 4: Open the web UI and take the tour. Sunshine’s configuration page lives at a fixed local address, reachable from any browser on the host machine itself. A separate setup video summarizes it well: “if you don’t know how to get there, make sure Sunshine is running and then go to your browser and type https://localhost.” The full address is:

https://localhost:47990

Your browser will flag the connection as untrusted because Sunshine signs its own certificate. That warning is expected on a local address you control, so it’s safe to click through it. Inside, you’ll find tabs for Applications, Configuration, PIN pairing, and Troubleshooting, which is where Sunshine’s own logs live if something goes wrong later.

Step 5-7: Configuring Sunshine’s Encoder, Capture, and Game Shortcuts

Step 5: Pick your encoder. Under the Audio/Video configuration tab, Sunshine lists the encoders it detected on your GPU. Leave it on automatic detection unless you have a reason not to. Automatic detection picks NVENC, AMD AMF, or Quick Sync in that order of preference when more than one is present, and only drops to software x264 when no hardware encoder is available at all, which will spike CPU usage during a stream.

Step 6: Set up an audio sink. Sunshine needs to know which audio device to capture from. On Windows this usually just works against the default playback device, but if you want audio to keep playing locally while also streaming, you’ll want a virtual audio sink so the two don’t fight over the same output. This is also where to enable HEVC or AV1 output if your GPU supports it, since either codec squeezes more quality out of the same bitrate than the older H.264 baseline.

Step 7: Add your games and apps. The Applications tab is where you tell Sunshine what Moonlight clients are allowed to launch. Add an entry for Steam, another for any standalone launcher you use, and one generic “Desktop” entry so you can reach the whole PC rather than a single game. Every entry you save here gets written to Sunshine’s underlying config, split across two files: sunshine.conf for host-wide settings like encoder and capture options, and apps.json for the actual list of launchable applications. Here’s roughly what a working sunshine.conf looks like once the basics are dialed in:

sunshine_name = Living-Room-PC
min_log_level = info
capture = auto
encoder = nvenc
nvenc_preset = p4
nvenc_twopass = full
fec_percentage = 20
channels = 2
origin_web_ui_allowed = lan
upnp = off
port = 47989

You won’t normally hand-edit this file since the web UI writes to it for you, but knowing the field names helps when you’re troubleshooting from the Configuration tab and want to understand what a setting actually does under the hood.

Step 8-10: Installing and Pairing Moonlight on Your Client Device

Step 8: Install Moonlight on whatever you’re streaming to. Grab it from the Microsoft Store or the Moonlight GitHub project for Windows, from the Google Play Store for Android and for a Steam Deck running Discover, from the Apple App Store for iOS and Apple TV, and from the Amazon Appstore for Fire TV. It’s the same client app across every platform, just wrapped for that store.

Step 9: Add your Sunshine host. On the same local network, Moonlight typically auto-discovers any Sunshine host broadcasting on the LAN and lists it on the home screen. If it doesn’t show up, add it manually with the “+” button and the host’s local IP address, something like 192.168.1.50.

Step 10: Pair with the PIN. Tapping an unpaired host on Moonlight generates a four-digit PIN on screen. Switch back to the Sunshine web UI and open the PIN tab to enter it. One install walkthrough describes this screen plainly: “this Sunshine web page is where we can add Moonlight clients with the PIN tab.” Once the PIN matches, that device is trusted permanently and won’t need to pair again unless you reset Sunshine’s credentials.

Prefer the command line over a GUI for this step? The desktop Moonlight client also accepts pairing from a terminal, which is handy for headless client boxes:

moonlight pair 192.168.1.50

Step 11-12: Dialing In Resolution, Bitrate, and Frame Rate

Step 11: Set resolution and frame rate to match your display and your network, not the other way around. Moonlight lets you pick these per host connection, and the values that work on a wired gigabit connection will fall apart over a weak Wi-Fi hotspot. Community setups regularly show 4K at 120fps working, but only with a wired connection and often a virtual display driver rather than a physical monitor. On stock hardware over Wi-Fi, 4K60 and 1080p120 are the realistic ceilings, and pushing past that just trades smoothness for compression artifacts.

Step 12: Set bitrate deliberately instead of leaving it on a default. As one streaming setup video sums it up, “you’ll want to set the highest bit rate that your Wi-Fi can handle,” and the reverse is just as true: pushing bitrate past what your link can sustain causes stutter that looks identical to a bad connection, even on a fast one. Use this as a starting point and adjust from there.

Connection type	Suggested resolution	Suggested frame rate	Suggested bitrate
Wired gigabit LAN	4K	60-120fps	60-150 Mbps
Wi-Fi 6, same room as router	1440p	60fps	30-50 Mbps
Wi-Fi 5, average home	1080p	60fps	20-30 Mbps
Internet, good broadband	1080p	60fps	15-25 Mbps
Mobile hotspot / cellular	720p	30-60fps	8-12 Mbps

Treat these as starting points rather than fixed rules. Drop resolution before you drop bitrate if you’re still seeing artifacts, since a lower-resolution stream at a healthy bitrate almost always looks and feels better than a high-resolution stream that’s starved for bandwidth.

Step 13: Setting Up Sunshine and Moonlight on Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and Legion Go

Steam Deck

Moonlight is available directly through Steam Deck’s Discover software store in desktop mode, so there’s no sideloading involved. A Moonlight Steam Deck install works the same way you’d install any Linux desktop app: switch back to Gaming Mode or stay in desktop mode, and it behaves like the Android or Windows client, with auto-discovery on the LAN, PIN pairing against your Sunshine host, then a per-host resolution and bitrate menu. If you’re deciding how to split storage between locally installed games and a streaming setup like this one, our Steam Deck SSD upgrade guide covers the tradeoffs.

ROG Ally and Legion Go

Asus’s ROG Ally and Lenovo’s Legion Go both ship Windows 11 rather than SteamOS, so Moonlight installs and runs on them exactly like it would on any other Windows PC, through the same Microsoft Store listing or GitHub build used in Step 8. Neither device needs special drivers or a different client build. If you’re weighing these handhelds against a Steam Deck for this specific use case, our handheld comparison breaks down battery life and performance differences that matter once you’re streaming rather than running games natively.

Streaming Over the Internet: Port Forwarding vs. Tailscale and ZeroTier

Everything above assumes you’re on the same local network as the host. Reaching your gaming PC from outside the house, say from a coffee shop or a friend’s place, needs one more step. There are two common paths, and they solve the same problem differently.

Option A: Port forwarding. Log into your router and forward Sunshine’s ports to the host PC’s local IP. Per LizardByte’s own network configuration documentation, that means TCP 47984-47990, UDP 47998-48000, UDP 48010, and UDP 48100-48110. On a Linux host running ufw, opening that range looks like this:

sudo ufw allow 47984:47990/tcp
sudo ufw allow 47998:48000/udp
sudo ufw allow 48010/udp
sudo ufw allow 48100:48110/udp

Once the ports are open, you add the host in Moonlight the same way as on the local network, except this time you enter your public IP address instead of a local one. As one setup walkthrough describes the exact same step: “in Moonlight, we’ll go to Moonlight and click on the plus icon with the computer, and then we’ll put the public IP address over here.” A dynamic DNS service is worth pairing with this approach if your home IP address isn’t static, since it saves you from re-entering a new address every time your ISP reassigns one.

Option B: A mesh VPN like Tailscale or ZeroTier. Instead of opening ports on your router at all, tools like Tailscale put your host PC and your client device on the same private virtual network, no matter where either one physically is. Install the Tailscale client on both the host and the client device, sign into the same account on each, and Moonlight connects to the host’s Tailscale IP as if it were sitting on your home LAN:

sudo tailscale up
tailscale ip -4

This is the safer default for most people, since it avoids exposing Sunshine’s ports directly to the open internet. The tradeoff is a small amount of added latency compared to a direct port-forwarded connection, plus one more piece of software to keep updated on both ends.

Advanced Configuration: HDR, Virtual Displays, and Controller Passthrough

The steps above get a working stream running. These settings are what separate a working stream from one that actually feels good to play on.

HDR. Moonlight’s HDR support on Linux and Steam Deck clients has been documented since June 2024, and Sunshine later added its own HDR capture support on the Linux host side, as covered by SteamDeckHQ’s writeup of that update. To get HDR working end to end, your host needs an HEVC Main10-capable encoder, your client display needs to actually support HDR, and both ends need HDR toggled on in their respective settings. If the picture looks washed out or oddly grey rather than richer, that’s almost always a sign HDR is only half-enabled somewhere in that chain, not a bug in Sunshine itself.

Virtual displays. If your host PC’s GPU has no monitor plugged in, Windows may not render anything for Sunshine to capture at all. A cheap HDMI dummy plug or a proper virtual display driver solves this, and a virtual display also lets you stream at a resolution or refresh rate your physical monitor doesn’t actually support, which is how those 4K120 community setups mentioned earlier get built.

Controller passthrough. Moonlight forwards Xbox and PlayStation controllers connected to the client device back to the host as input, which covers the vast majority of games without any extra setup. Windows hosts sometimes need a passthrough driver installed so a game sees the streamed controller as a real Xbox controller rather than a generic gamepad, particularly for titles picky about input device type.

Making Sunshine an Always-On Host

A streaming setup only stays convenient if the host PC is actually awake and reachable when you want it. Two settings decide that: whether the machine sleeps when idle, and whether it can be woken remotely.

On Windows, open the power plan settings and set both “Sleep” and “USB selective suspend” to never while plugged in, otherwise Windows will happily put the machine to sleep the moment nobody’s touched the keyboard for twenty minutes, closing the stream from underneath you. On Linux, the equivalent is disabling suspend targets in systemd rather than fighting a desktop environment’s power applet:

sudo systemctl mask sleep.target suspend.target hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target

Wake-on-LAN solves the other half of the problem: waking a fully powered-down PC from a client device rather than leaving it idling around the clock. Enable it in both the motherboard’s BIOS/UEFI settings and the network adapter’s driver properties (look for a “Wake on Magic Packet” option under power management), and Moonlight’s client apps can send that wake signal directly before attempting to connect, so the host boots itself just in time for you to start playing. This matters more than it sounds for anyone trying to keep an always-on gaming PC’s power bill and noise down, since it turns “always on” into “asleep until needed” without losing any convenience.

Putting It All Together: A Complete Working Setup

Once every step above is done, the full picture looks like this: Sunshine running as a background service on your gaming PC, an encoder selected to match your GPU, an audio sink configured, a handful of apps registered in apps.json, at least one Moonlight client paired over the PIN flow, and either a forwarded port range or a Tailscale tunnel for anything outside your home network. That’s the entire project, and none of the individual pieces are complicated in isolation. Most setup failures come from skipping one of these rather than getting any single step wrong.

Sample output: what success looks like

When everything is working, Sunshine’s Troubleshooting tab log will show a clean startup sequence rather than repeated errors, roughly like this on launch:

[info] Starting Sunshine...
[info] Encoder: nvenc selected and validated
[info] Capture: auto (display 0 detected)
[info] Web UI listening on https://0.0.0.0:47990
[info] RTSP server listening on port 48010
[info] Ready for Moonlight connections

On the Moonlight side, a successful connection shows the host’s name with a green status indicator, and tapping it should drop you straight into the app or desktop you configured in Step 7 within a second or two, not a long loading spinner. If either side stalls well past that, jump to the troubleshooting table below before changing more settings.

Common Pitfalls When Setting Up Sunshine and Moonlight

Most first-time Sunshine and Moonlight installs hit one of the same handful of walls. None of them are hard to fix once you know what’s actually going on, but each one wastes real time if you’re troubleshooting blind.

• Running Sunshine without letting it install as a service. Running it manually from a terminal window works fine until you close that window or log out, at which point the stream just drops. Let the installer register it as a proper background service instead, so it starts on boot and survives you logging out of the host machine entirely.
• No display attached to the host GPU. A headless gaming PC with nothing plugged into the graphics card often can’t capture anything at all, producing a black screen on the client with no error message explaining why. A dummy HDMI plug costs a few dollars and solves this permanently, which is far cheaper than the hour most people spend assuming the software is broken.
• Chasing a 4K120 target on Wi-Fi. This combination needs more bandwidth than most home Wi-Fi can sustain consistently, and the result reads as “laggy” when the real problem is an unrealistic resolution and frame rate choice for the connection. Drop to 1080p or 1440p first and confirm the basics work before chasing a higher-end target.
• Forwarding only the TCP ports and skipping the UDP ranges. Sunshine needs both, and video/audio streaming specifically rides on the UDP ports, so a TCP-only forward will pair successfully but never actually show video. Double-check your router’s port forwarding rule actually covers both protocols rather than defaulting to TCP alone.
• Blocking Sunshine on the wrong Windows firewall profile. Allowing an app through the firewall on the Private profile but not Public (or vice versa) is a common half-fix that looks like it should work and doesn’t. Check both profiles in Windows Defender Firewall’s allowed-apps list rather than assuming one covers the other.
• Ignoring GPU driver updates. Newer encoder features like AV1 output or Vulkan Video encoding require a current driver branch, and an old driver will silently keep you on an older, less efficient codec path. Sunshine won’t warn you that a feature exists but isn’t available. It just won’t show up as an option.

Troubleshooting: 10 Sunshine and Moonlight Problems and Fixes

When something doesn’t work, resist the urge to change five settings at once. Work through the table below symptom by symptom, confirm each fix actually changed the behavior before moving to the next one, and check Sunshine’s Troubleshooting tab log after each attempt, since it usually states plainly what failed rather than leaving you guessing.

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Can’t connect / pairing times out	Firewall blocking Sunshine’s ports	Allow Sunshine through the firewall on both Private and Public profiles
Client connects but shows a black screen	No display attached to the host GPU	Attach a physical monitor, HDMI dummy plug, or virtual display driver
High latency or stutter over the internet	Bitrate set higher than your uplink can sustain	Lower bitrate first, then resolution, and prefer wired over Wi-Fi on the host
No audio on the client	Wrong audio sink selected in Sunshine	Select the correct virtual or physical sink under Sunshine’s audio settings
Pairing PIN gets rejected	PIN expired before you entered it	Generate a fresh PIN and enter it promptly, since the window is short
Controller works on desktop but not in-game	Missing passthrough driver on the Windows host	Install a gamepad passthrough driver so the game sees a native controller
Video looks blocky or smeared during motion	Bitrate too low for the chosen resolution and frame rate	Raise bitrate, or drop resolution/frame rate to match available bandwidth
HDR picture looks washed out or grey	HDR only enabled on one end of the connection	Confirm HDR is toggled on in both Sunshine and Moonlight, and that the display supports it
Frequent disconnects on Wi-Fi	Wi-Fi interference or adapter power-saving mode	Switch to 5GHz/6GHz, disable Wi-Fi adapter power saving on the client
Only software encoding is available, CPU usage spikes	GPU driver outdated or hardware encoder unsupported	Update GPU drivers and confirm NVENC/AMF/Quick Sync shows as available in Sunshine

Advanced Tips for Lower Latency and Better Image Quality

A few settings changes make a bigger difference than most people expect once the basic setup is stable. Switching from H.264 to HEVC (or AV1 on newer GPUs) usually improves visual quality at the same bitrate, since both are more efficient codecs, though very old client devices may not decode either one. Disabling frame pacing or V-sync inside the streamed game itself, and letting Moonlight handle pacing instead, tends to reduce input lag in fast-paced titles. On the network side, a wired connection on the host end alone removes a surprising amount of jitter even if the client stays on Wi-Fi, since it’s the upload side of a stutter-prone connection that usually causes the worst artifacts. Finally, closing background apps that saturate the same GPU encoder, like a second recording or streaming tool running at the same time, frees up encoding headroom that Sunshine would otherwise be competing for.

Two-pass encoding, when your GPU and Sunshine’s settings support it, spends a little extra encode time analyzing each frame before compressing it, trading a small amount of extra encoder load for a noticeably cleaner image at the same bitrate. It’s worth turning on for anything you’re not playing competitively, and worth turning back off if you’re chasing the lowest possible latency in a fast shooter instead. Testing one change at a time, rather than several together, is the only reliable way to tell which setting actually moved the needle on your specific network and hardware.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Sunshine and Moonlight completely free?

Yes. Both projects are open. The only cost is the electricity to keep your host PC running

Do I need an Nvidia GPU to use Sunshine?

No. Unlike the original Nvidia GameStream it replaces, Sunshine supports Nvidia NVENC, AMD AMF, and Intel Quick Sync encoding, plus a software fallback if none of those are present.

Can I use Moonlight game streaming outside my home network?

Yes, through either router port forwarding or a mesh VPN like Tailscale or ZeroTier, both covered in the internet streaming section above. A mesh VPN is the safer option since it doesn’t expose Sunshine’s ports directly to the internet.

Does this work on Steam Deck?

Yes. Moonlight installs directly from the Discover store on Steam Deck, and Sunshine’s own guides note it can be installed the same way if you want to use the Deck as a host rather than just a client.

What’s the actual difference between Sunshine and Nvidia GameStream?

GameStream was Nvidia’s own server software, limited to Nvidia GPUs, and Nvidia has stopped developing it. Sunshine is a community-built, open-vidia, AMD, and Intel hardware

Can I use a controller with Moonlight?

Yes. Moonlight passes controller input from the client device back to the host. Some games need a passthrough driver on Windows to recognize the streamed input as a native Xbox controller rather than a generic one.

Does Sunshine support 4K and HDR?

Yes to both, with caveats. 4K60 is a realistic target on a wired connection with a capable encoder, while 4K120 typically shows up in setups using a virtual display driver rather than as a guaranteed default. HDR requires an HEVC Main10-capable encoder on the host and an HDR-capable display on the client, with both ends toggled on.

Is it safe to expose Sunshine to the internet?

Sunshine’s pairing is protected by account credentials and a PIN exchange, but opening ports directly on a router always carries some risk. A mesh VPN like Tailscale avoids exposing those ports publicly at all, which is the more conservative choice if the host PC also holds anything sensitive.

Can more than one person stream from the same host at the same time?

Sunshine supports multiple paired Moonlight clients, but only one active game session runs on the host’s desktop at a time, since a single GPU is still rendering a single screen. Two people can each have the app paired and ready, but they’ll be taking turns rather than playing two different games simultaneously on the same host.

What happens to my keyboard and mouse on the host while I’m streaming?

Moonlight sends its own input over the network as if it were a second keyboard, mouse, or controller plugged into the host, rather than taking over the physical ones attached to it. That means someone sitting at the host PC itself can technically still use it while you’re streaming, which is worth knowing if you share a machine with roommates or family.

Final Thoughts

Sunshine and Moonlight took what used to be a single-vendor feature locked to Nvidia hardware and turned it into an open standard that works on almost anything with a screen. A working sunshine game streaming host paired with a moonlight game streaming client on the device of your choice takes about 45 minutes to set up end to end, and once it’s running, it mostly stays running without further attention, aside from the occasional driver or app update. Get the encoder and network basics right first, and the advanced tuning in the sections above is there whenever you’re ready for it.

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