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

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Rhedox

Senior Member
Sep 11, 2013
57
3
Any fix for the 'steam not found' error?

Sent from my GT-I9505 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
 

cgutman

Senior Member
Aug 14, 2010
485
430
It didn't work for me, but the 630 is no 770 :p so it might

Sent from my HTC One with OmniROM

If your laptop doesn't have Optimus, the mobile streaming hack in should work. http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=47843410&postcount=91

Any fix for the 'steam not found' error?

Sent from my GT-I9505 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

It could be anything. Try reinstalling GeForce Experience or clean installing the Nvidia drivers.
 
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Rhedox

Senior Member
Sep 11, 2013
57
3
My Setup: PC -> 1Gbit -> Router -> 802.11n Singleband 2.4GHZ 75% signal strength -> Galaxy S4 running CM11
Kainy runs much faster, even in 1080p mode than Limelight in 720p 30 FPS.
 

irtimmer

Member
Jan 7, 2014
17
8
Limelight-pi

I'm working on a port of the Limelight-pc code to the Raspberry Pi. In it's current state it is able to display the video with low latency using the hardware decoder. Sound is also working, but the Java Sound API is too slow for the cpu which will therefore result in lots of delays. Input is not working because I avoid using X and therefore need to port the code to use the evdev interface directly.

During the port I found some interessting details about the video stream. Currently the video codec hasn't set the bitstream_restriction_flag and the max_dec_frame_buffering property. At least on the Raspberry Pi this will cause huge delay's, becasue the decoder will buffer the frames in case it will find a B-Frame. By edditing the SPS NAL before give it to the decoder I was able to remove almost all delays on the Raspberry Pi. Maybe this will also work on some android decoders. I simply change some bytes in the stream so I will propably break when Nvidia change something in the streamer. See github.com/irtimmer/limelight-pi/commit/5b6ddd10ecdfbef6cea750da1e568ea73be4fbb3 for more information.

The code of the port is of course available online on github.com/irtimmer/limelight-pi. At the end of the week I hope to have sound and input working and will then propably release some binaries too.
 

cgutman

Senior Member
Aug 14, 2010
485
430
I'm working on a port of the Limelight-pc code to the Raspberry Pi. In it's current state it is able to display the video with low latency using the hardware decoder. Sound is also working, but the Java Sound API is too slow for the cpu which will therefore result in lots of delays. Input is not working because I avoid using X and therefore need to port the code to use the evdev interface directly.

During the port I found some interessting details about the video stream. Currently the video codec hasn't set the bitstream_restriction_flag and the max_dec_frame_buffering property. At least on the Raspberry Pi this will cause huge delay's, becasue the decoder will buffer the frames in case it will find a B-Frame. By edditing the SPS NAL before give it to the decoder I was able to remove almost all delays on the Raspberry Pi. Maybe this will also work on some android decoders. I simply change some bytes in the stream so I will propably break when Nvidia change something in the streamer. See github.com/irtimmer/limelight-pi/commit/5b6ddd10ecdfbef6cea750da1e568ea73be4fbb3 for more information.

The code of the port is of course available online on github.com/irtimmer/limelight-pi. At the end of the week I hope to have sound and input working and will then propably release some binaries too.

Huge thanks for the SPS hint. Fixing up the SPS completely eliminates the Tegra hardware decoder latency.

EDIT: I'll be making the SPS change in limelight-common before feeding data to the DecoderRenderer
 
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cgutman

Senior Member
Aug 14, 2010
485
430
This sounds like a break through change. No buffering needed and now frame rates should be perfect. Is this true?

For the hardware decoders that are behaving badly (Tegra), this is a breakthrough change. Older Tegra 3 devices will see the greatest benefit because their CPU cores aren't quite powerful enough to decode at a stable frame rate.

For hardware working well already, the effect should be minimal.
 
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ZenInsight

Senior Member
Jun 29, 2010
1,191
92
Kansas City
For the hardware decoders that are behaving badly (Tegra), this is a breakthrough change. Older Tegra 3 devices will see the greatest benefit because their CPU cores aren't quite powerful enough to decode at a stable frame rate.

For hardware working well already, the effect should be minimal.

Does it benefit Tegra 4? (Like the Tegra Note 7 tablet)
 

danielb7390

Member
Nov 3, 2013
36
4
Portugal
And check! Tegra 3(asus tf300) working perfect with hardware decoding 720p@30fps!!!
Many thanks for your hard work guys!

EDIT:since I'm already here... on the PC version i still get very macro blocks in complex images, it looks perfect on steam and the game intro but as soon i enter the actual game its a mess specially if i run! (assassins creed 3)
 
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cgutman

Senior Member
Aug 14, 2010
485
430
Does it benefit Tegra 4? (Like the Tegra Note 7 tablet)
It will a bit. I could notice a difference on the Shield.

And check! Tegra 3(asus tf300) working perfect with hardware decoding 720p@30fps!!!
Many thanks for your hard work guys!

EDIT:since I'm already here... on the PC version i still get very macro blocks in complex images, it looks perfect on steam and the game intro but as soon i enter the actual game its a mess specially if i run! (assassins creed 3)

Are you running 720p@30fps on your PC too?
 

rhx123

Member
Jul 3, 2010
20
2
Colchester
Decided to give this a try, it appears to connect OK but then I just get a black screen on my tablet.

Steam Big Picture launches, and touching the tablet moves the mouse on the screen, yet no video is displayed.
Same happens with software or hardware decoding.

Probably something I'm doing, but not sure what.

Seems to be something wrong on my host computer as connecting via the PC client has the same effect.

I'm on the latest drivers and the latest GeForce experience.
 
Last edited:

irtimmer

Member
Jan 7, 2014
17
8
Limelight-pi (Alpha)

I have my first alpha version of Limelight-pi ready. It's available on https://github.com/irtimmer/limelight-pi/releases

Currently only keyboard and mouse input is supported, because I don't have a gamepad to test with. To use keyboard and/or mouse input you have to run as root and specify the /dev/input/event[nr] device using the -input paramater. To find out which event device correspond with which input you can look at the symlinks in /dev/input/by-path.

The OpenJDK JVM is too slow on ARM so you need a Oracle JVM. Oracle Java SE7 is available in the repository's for Raspbian. For other linux distributions you need to download a pre-release version of Oracle Java SE8 or Oracle Java SE-Embedded 7.

I have tested the software on ArchLinux in combination with Oracle Java SE-Embedded 7, but I hope it will also work with other combinations.
 

hjuo

Senior Member
Aug 4, 2011
76
71
I have my first alpha version of Limelight-pi ready. It's available on https://github.com/irtimmer/limelight-pi/releases

Currently only keyboard and mouse input is supported, because I don't have a gamepad to test with. To use keyboard and/or mouse input you have to run as root and specify the /dev/input/event[nr] device using the -input paramater. To find out which event device correspond with which input you can look at the symlinks in /dev/input/by-path.

The OpenJDK JVM is too slow on ARM so you need a Oracle JVM. Oracle Java SE7 is available in the repository's for Raspbian. For other linux distributions you need to download a pre-release version of Oracle Java SE8 or Oracle Java SE-Embedded 7.

I have tested the software on ArchLinux in combination with Oracle Java SE-Embedded 7, but I hope it will also work with other combinations.
Great, I always wanted to stream my games to my pi. When I have time I will try installing it, now I have just RaspXBMC on it so I can't test it. In the future if it will support the 360 gamepad it will be complete!


On the Android side, anybody has tried this on a x86 pad? I tried with on a galaxy tab 3 10.1 and with hardware decoding there's video lag, the input is instantly received on the pc side as I see on the pc screen but on the tablet I see the image with a delay, If I use software it doesn't work right, the image is very bad and there is delay.

Also I had problem with streaming from the pc with the sound, every time I tried connecting it showed the audio panel on the pc, interrupting the connection. If I disabled a sound peripheral on device manager it started connecting but without any sound.
 

mungus

New member
Jul 10, 2009
2
0
Firstly, thanks for this awesome PC app! Have been waiting for people to somehow take advantage of the stream spewing out of my nvidia (if someone could make something to stream it to a TV by DLNA that would also be awesome).

So the only problem is that I can't get it to work. At all. I set both the host and client PCs up, pair them without any issues, hit 'Start Streaming'. I instantly get the error 'Failed to launch application' followed by 'Starting app failed'.

My host PC vitals:
- Windows 8.1 64bit
- Geforce 780 Ti
- Latest GFE and drivers
- Latest Java 64bit

Things I have tried:
- Reboots all round
- Reinstalling Java on client
- Reinstalling GFE on host
- Disabling firewalls on both client and host

Clients I have tried:
- Windows 8.1 laptop
- Windows 8.0 PC
- Windows 7 HTPC

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!
 

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    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:

    Update 12 - March 13, 2014:
    Significant video quality improvements. Lower video latency. New UI that makes it easier to choose the best streaming settings. Transient messages are displayed while streaming if network or device problems are detected.

    Update 11:
    Tegra hardware decoding latency bug is fixed. Hardware decoding is now used by default on Tegra and Rockchip devices. Performance is vastly improved on Tegra devices (1080p60 decodes in real-time, even on Tegra 3). The parser bug causing additional artifacts and image corruption is (finally) fixed.

    Update 10:
    Added options to force either hardware or software decoding. Reduce audio decoding CPU usage. Fix image quality and performance regressions from update 9.

    Update 9:
    Reduced CPU usage of video decoding. Added options to choose target resolution (720p or 1080p) and FPS (30 or 60).

    Update 8:
    Added a checkbox to choose image quality vs performance (only for CPU decoding). Optimize CPU decoding further. The frame rate is now playable on the Ouya with its Tegra 3..

    Update 7:
    Connectivity issues should be resolved now. Update to the latest APK if you were experiencing connection failures with the last couple of releases.

    Update 6:
    There's now GUI feedback when connecting. The whitelist for hardware decoding (that only included Qualcomm decoders) has now been replaced with a blacklist (currently containing TI and Nvidia decoders). The Exynos decoder in Exynos 5 Octa has been confirmed to work.

    Update 5:
    The app will now request a new reference frame if packet loss occurs on the video stream. This means that the stream will recover from blockiness and artifacting that occur when video packets get lost. CPU decoding for non-Snapdragon devices is a bit better. Fixed back button on Shield.

    Update 4:
    Added multithreaded CPU H264 decoding support for non-Snapdragon devices with ffmpeg. Both landscape orientations now work. This grows the APK significantly so don't be alarmed when this download is larger than previous builds.

    Tegra 4 is now very smooth in the games I've tested. Tegra 3 works significantly better than before, but still not perfect (and won't likely ever be as smooth as Snapdragon or Tegra 4).

    For Qualcomm devices, a dual-core SoC (even as old as Cortex-A8 stuff) is sufficient due to the hardware decoder. For other devices, CPU decoding will now be used. These devices will need more CPU horsepower (a quad-core Tegra 3 is almost enough).

    Look forward to keyboard support and a better GUI coming in the next several days.

    Update 3:
    Frame pacing improvements for Snapdragon and Tegra devices, although Tegra still has more latency than Snapdragon devices. If you have issues with blockiness or discoloration in the video stream, make sure that you have a good wireless connection. Moonlight doesn't currently deal with packet loss as well as the Shield streaming app.

    Update 2:
    PS3, Xbox, Shield, and Moga Pro controllers are working with the latest APK.

    Update:
    Audio is now working. Video is working pretty well on Snapdragon devices (with some lag on Tegra devices). I've attached the current APK here for those that want to test. Due to the framework we're using for video decoding, this app requires Android 4.1 or higher. This is still in alpha so expect bugs.

    Original post:
    Here is a demo of a WIP app that uses the same Shield streaming technology to stream to any Android device. Controller and mouse input works. Keyboard input isn't implemented yet. Video support works (minus some artifacts at rare points and minor frame pacing issues). Audio doesn't work yet (not sure what format it is).

    We've had success with very low H264 decoding latency on Snapdragon S4 Pro/600 devices (like the 2013 Nexus 7 and HTC One), but the Tegra 3/4 decoder has a high latency per frame (~1 second) that makes streaming more laggy on devices like the Ouya, 2012 Nexus 7, and even the Shield itself.

    The next big step to a release-ready app is audio support (and the obligatory code cleanup). I'd be happy to respond to any questions about the way the app or the GFE streaming protocol works. If there's significant interest in this, I'll try to put more time into finishing it ASAP.


    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
    6
    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
    6
    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.
    5
    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
    5
    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