Game streaming to other Android devices or PCs with Moonlight and GeForce Experience

Please don't ask for Moonlight help on Nvidia's forums! It's not their responsibility to support this app. Ask on this forum, another non-Nvidia forum, by email, etc

What happened to Limelight?/Why did you change your name?
On April 21, 2015, we received a Cease and Desist letter from Limelight Networks, Inc. They also do streaming services and were concerned about confusion between this project and their company trademarks. To comply with the terms of their C&D, we've decided to rename our project to Moonlight.

Quick Links
Main website: https://moonlight-stream.org
Help: https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-docs/wiki/Setup-Guide
Discord: https://moonlight-stream.org/discord
PC GitHub project: https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-qt
iOS GitHub project: https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-ios
Android GitHub project: https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-android
Android GitHub releases page (APKs): https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-android/releases
Embedded port (for Raspberry Pi and other embedded devices): https://github.com/irtimmer/limelight-embedded
GearVR port (for GearVR devices): http://sideloadvr.com/detail.php?id=14

iOS version
The iOS port of Moonlight is now on the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/moonlight-game-streaming/id1000551566

Windows, Mac, and Linux port
PC port binaries: https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-qt/releases
PC port source: https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-qt

Moonlight for Chrome OS
Download the latest version from the Chrome Web Store.

General Streaming Latency Information
The latency of streaming is dependent on the device you're streaming to and the network you're streaming over. Different devices have different H.264 hardware decoding latency. After streaming, a toast will show up with latency numbers. It will show the total client latency and the portion of the total client latency spent waiting for the hardware decoder. Note that the total client latency does NOT include network latency, so the real latency is higher than the number you see. The total client latency is a measure of the time that the first packet in a frame is received to the time that the frame is released for rendering on screen.

Anecdotal Hardware Decoder Latency Numbers
These are some latency numbers (from memory) I've seen on my test devices as of Moonlight Android 4.0.1. I'll try to keep updating this as I test.

Tier 1 devices:
Tegra 4 - Nvidia Shield - 5 ms - 1080p60 supported
Intel Atom/Bay Trail/Moorefield - Nexus Player - 8 ms - 1080p60 supported (may need a USB OTG Ethernet adapter for consistent performance)
Razer Forge TV - 10 ms - 1080p60 supported - H.265 supported
Tegra X1 - SHIELD Android TV - 10 ms - 4K60 supported - H.265 supported in hardware but needs changes in Moonlight to work well
Tegra K1 - Nexus 9 - 15 ms - 1080p60 supported
Tegra 3 - OUYA and Nexus 7 (2012) - 17 ms - 1080p60 supported

Tier 2 devices:
Broadcom VideoCore IV - Fire TV Stick - 20 ms - 720p60/1080p30 supported
Exynos 7420 - Galaxy S6 - 20 ms - 1080p60/4K30 supported - H.265 supported
Snapdragon S4 Pro (rebranded 600) - Nexus 7 (2013) - 20 ms - 720p60/1080p30 supported
Snapdragon 801 - HTC One M8 GPE - 20 ms - 1080p60 supported
Snapdragon 800 - Nexus 5 - 20 ms - 1080p60 supported
Snapdragon 600 - Fire TV (2014) - 30 ms - 720p60/1080p30 supported

Tier 3 devices:
MediaTek devices - Fire TV (2015) - 55 ms - 1080p60 supported - H.265 supported

Adding games/apps that aren't automatically found
You can stream any almost any game or app by adding the EXE file to GFE manually (if it's not found by the automatic app scan). Open GeForce Experience, click the Preferences tab, click GameStream on the sidebar, then click the add (+) button on the right. Browse to the app or file you want to add and click OK. You can rename the app using the edit button on the right (near the add button).

Using Moonlight as a remote desktop solution
You can stream the entire Windows desktop via Moonlight. Follow step 2 from this guide

Streaming over the Internet
Install the Moonlight Internet Streaming Helper on your host gaming PC to enable streaming over the Internet. If your router supports UPnP, you won't need to make any manual changes.

If the above tool isn't able to enable Internet streaming automatically or your router doesn't support it, forward these ports manually:
TCP 47984, 47989, 48010
UDP 47998, 47999, 48000, 48010

General requirements for current APK:
SoC capable of decoding H.264 High Profile in hardware (Snapdragon, Exynos, Tegra 3 or higher, Rockchip, and more)
Android 4.1 or higher
GeForce Experience with a GTX 600/700/800/900 GPU or GTX 600M/700M/800M (GT-series not supported)
Xbox, PS3 (with SixAxis app), Moga (B/HID mode), Shield, or Ouya controller (other controllers may work too in HID mode)
Mid to high-end wireless router (preferably dual-band 802.11n or better)
Good wireless connection to your Android device

Troubleshooting tips:
1. Make sure GeForce Experience is open, up-to-date, and that you've scanned for games.

2. Make sure your device is on the same network as your computer for initial pairing.

3. Try disabling any firewall software running on your machine.

4. Try rebooting your machine. Sometimes the streaming software gets into a messed up state where it won't work normally until the machine is rebooted.

5. Make sure your Android device has a strong wireless connection (and your PC too, if it's connected wirelessly).

6. For Internet streaming, make sure to install Moonlight Internet Streaming Helper on your host gaming PC, then run the Moonlight Internet Streaming Tester that it installs to troubleshoot further.

7. To check if GFE is working properly, try navigating to the following URLs on your GFE PC:
http://127.0.0.1:47989/serverinfo?uniqueid=1234
https://127.0.0.1:47984/serverinfo?uniqueid=1234

For those with latency issues, please see this post.

Device-related issues
Depending on the wireless chipset on your phone/tablet, you may have a bad streaming experience if Bluetooth is active while streaming. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about this. If you experience significant connection degradation with a Bluetooth controller connected, you could try connecting the controller to your PC (see the section above), a USB Ethernet adapter, or controller that connects directly to your Android device (assuming your Android device supports USB OTG)

Older Changes:


Demo video (a bit old now):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VOti83qZRU

Downloads:
I'd recommend downloading the app from the Play Store. Updates are automatically applied through the Play Store when they are released. Crash reports also get to us automatically if you use the Play Store version and click the Report button if Moonlight crashes.

Google Play Link

Sometimes APKs are more convenient for sideloading and other things, so they will continue to be posted.

You can find the latest APKs on the GitHub page here: https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-android/releases

Moonlight Chrome Test Build (Alpha 1)

Since there seems to be some interest in this Moonlight port for Chrome, I've decided to put a binary up for testing. Please report your thoughts on it.

Working:
- Pairing and streaming
- Hardware accelerated video decoding up to 1080p60
- Game controllers (currently limited to those for which Chrome has a built-in mapping, like Xbox and DualShock controllers)
- Keyboard and mouse input (with the caveat of Esc kicking the app out of full screen)

Not working:
- No feedback when starting a stream - just be patient and wait for the video stream
- mDNS auto-discovery of PCs
- (Very) Non-final UI
- A few settings are missing
- Error handling needs work
- Controller detection can be wonky at times (try fully exiting and restarting Chrome)

To install, drag the CRX file into the Extensions (Menu -> More Tools -> Extensions) page of Chrome.

To launch, use Chrome App Launcher, the Extensions page, or just search for Moonlight on your PC and you should see it installed like a normal program.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ml92xvot25yn23x/moonlight-chrome.crx?dl=0

Good News about Qualcomm Decoder Latency

I found by luck that the SDP attributes on the new GFE beta 2.4.0.9 allow the client to adjust video slicing parameters. I've released a new build that enables slicing on GFE 2.4 to reduce latency of Qualcomm devices (hopefully back to 2.1.3 levels). It will also improve the latency on the Fire TV as it's also a Qualcomm device.

The build is rolling out on Play Store, waiting for review on Amazon store, and up on GitHub now.

Remember, you MUST have GFE beta updates turned on and be running GFE 2.4.0.9 or higher with Limelight v3.1.4.

You can enable beta updates for GFE on the Preferences tab in the General pane.

Another GFE 2.1 status update: success!

I've figured out secure pairing and encrypted input (required for GFE 2.1) and implemented them in Limelight-common. There's just a bit more work to do for platform-specific support (certificate and private key generation and storage) on Android and PC. My PoC code was able to stream from a GFE 2.1 box over the Internet to a custom version of Limelight-PC.

I'm off for some much needed rest (4:54 AM here), but we're on the home stretch. Expect a release for Android and PC in the next day or so.

Update: It's done! Limelight Android version 2.3 is rolling out on the Play Store, waiting for approval on the Ouya store, and posted https://github.com/limelight-stream/limelight-android/releases. Limelight PC is released too https://github.com/limelight-stream/limelight-pc/releases

Moonlight Chrome Test Build (Alpha 2)

Changes from Alpha 1:
- Fixed Esc key kicking the app out of full-screen (press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Q to quit)
- Fixed sometimes requiring a restart of Chrome for gamepad detection to work
- Added mDNS auto-discovery of PCs

Working:
- Pairing and streaming
- Hardware accelerated video decoding up to 1080p60
- Game controllers (currently limited to those for which Chrome has a built-in mapping, like Xbox and DualShock controllers)
- Keyboard and mouse input
- mDNS auto-discovery of PCs

Not working:
- No feedback when starting a stream - just be patient and wait for the video stream
- (Very) Non-final UI
- A few settings are missing
- Error handling needs work

To install, drag the CRX file into the Extensions (Menu -> More Tools -> Extensions) page of Chrome.

To launch, use Chrome App Launcher, the Extensions page, or just search for Moonlight on your PC and you should see it installed like a normal program.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19391088/moonlight-chrome-alpha2.crx