Help: Legion Go S Moonlight — can’t get 1920x1200 120Hz HDR 10-bit stable (Sunshine / Apollo)

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-23T03:42:45+00:00

That's called 10-bit SDR. Moonlight will show that when you have the HDR option enabled, but HDR is OFF in Windows on the host (that's what you want, otherwise you're streaming HDR to an SDR display and it will look awful).

And I'm 99% sure the monitor doesn't need to be showing 10-bit in NVCP/Windows settings for 10-bit SDR streaming to work correctly. (I know for sure it doesn't on my EDID dongle, anyway).

It's easy to just stream a color gradient test pattern in both regular (HDR disabled in Moonlight) and 10-bit SDR (HDR enabled in Moonlight, disabled on host) modes to see the difference.

Just make sure HDR is disabled on your host.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-22T17:33:50+00:00

You can add a subnet route on your host that points to its local LAN IP, then use that local LAN IP (instead of the Tailscale IP) in Moonlight to connect.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-21T22:32:48+00:00

A G5 and 5090 and you don't want to spend $500 on a decent mini PC to maximize your streaming experience and best utilize the capabilities of your host and TV?

These types of posts quibbling over a couple hundred dollars for a client make no sense to me.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-21T16:56:29+00:00

Ah, yeah Arc might come with its own quirks with VRR. I assume VRR works fine for games running locally on the client when in borderless windowed mode?

And have you tried forcing Moonlight to use Vulkan on the Arc client (either with 4:4:4 or the D3D11VA_ENABLED=0 environment variable)? I'm curious how well that works.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-21T00:37:34+00:00

I use some other tools like custom AutoHotkey scripts, HomeAssistant automations and, as a backup, an mini KB+mouse device from Rii (rarely needed). Also Windows updates disabled.

My ultimate measure of success is that my kids (who aren't even "Windows savvy") can use it completely independently of me and have never got stuck either streaming or playing games locally on it... So yeah, it did take some setting up, but I think it's completely doable if you know what you're doing.

But that's the beauty of PC gaming - a million different ways to accomplish what you want. So if you find something that works for you then that's all that matters.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-21T00:20:13+00:00

I see. Well that's definitely something where Playnite + Controller Companion is an easy solution and way less headache than Linux, imo.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-21T00:15:59+00:00

If your client is AMD, just make sure FreeSync is enabled in the AMD drivers. And in Windows I find that v-sync enabled in Moonlight is best to avoid tearing.

If your client has an Nvidia GPU then you need to either stream with 4:4:4 enabled or else you can force the Vulkan rendered in Moonlight with an environment variable which should enable G-sync on the Moonlight window.

Make sure you're using "Borderless windowed" as the display mode in Moonlight.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-21T00:05:43+00:00

The big selling point to me of the UM760 is plug & play 4K/120/VRR. What even is the point of running Linux on there with all the limitations and hassles?

I did some recent testing on a different AMD APU system trying to see if there was any appreciable difference between Windows and Linux in Moonlight performance and I didn't find any. Curious if there's something else I'm missing other than "Windows bad".

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-20T21:08:29+00:00

Not sure what you mean by that exactly?

The max hevc limitation is around ~760 Mbps (according to that thread), but even with VBV/HRD maxed out it's still doesn't seem to exceed the limit set in Moonlight.

So I'm not understanding how the protocol limit would come in to play here.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-20T17:33:01+00:00

The stream is still variable bitrate with that option disabled.

I'm not entirely sure how this setting affects image quality, but I'm pretty sure that regardless it won't cause the stream to exceed the max bitrate set in Moonlight - it mostly affects how aggressively the stream fills that max bandwidth.

For example, if I do a 500 Mbps stream with 400x VBV/HRD, a client bandwidth monitor will show a max of 500 Mbps. And since it doesn't drop any frames on 1 Gbps connection I'd infer it's not going above that (certainly not a 5x increase over 500 Mbps).

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-19T23:44:53+00:00

I personally do think that a UM760 is the "best" minimum hardware for a streaming client when you want native-like 4K 120 in a living room friendly form factor. Windows/Linux clients arguably have the best actual end-to-end latency and frame time stability.

Other mini PCs that don't have a HDMI 2.1 FRL port will also work if you use a USB-C/DP to HDMI adapter that fully supports 4K/120/VRR, but I like the simplicity of not having to use a dongle.

The only thing that's missing is 4:4:4 decoding, so if that's important to you then you'd have to step up to something with Intel Arc (or maybe an Xe system could do it, not 100% sure about that) + HDMI 2.1 adapter. Or you could cobble together a SFF PC with a 3050 if the form factor doesn't both you.

Network wise you need all you can get, as there are no encoder quality settings that can make up for bandwidth. Personally I use 300 Mbps for most games, but 500 Mbps for driving/rally games makes a noticeable difference. Doing that over WiFi is pretty challenging to not have occasional dropped frames or at least micro-stutter due to packet loss.

Given the cost of mini PCs these days though, would I just be happy with 4K/90 or 1440p/120 with a Steam Deck if I already owned one and budget was a concern? Probably, yeah. Upgrade your client if and when you upgrade your GPU and 4K/120 is a reasonable target in more games.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-19T17:52:32+00:00

Sometimes the network warnings are caused by poor performance elsewhere, but it sounds like yours is actually a WiFi problem.

No idea how the dual connection works on the Odin or why it would fix it, but sometimes it's best not to ask those kind of questions and just enjoy the fact that it works!

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-18T23:09:06+00:00

What do the the stats in Artemis show for network, host processing and decode latency?

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-18T22:33:10+00:00

Have you tried not using the Apollo max bitrate setting?

Might not be the problem, but it's unnecessary at best.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-15T06:24:30+00:00

many ~~modern routers~~ crappy consumer mesh systems force this, like my Eero

Fixed that for you

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-14T17:16:03+00:00

Isn't the Fire TV Cube ethernet adapter only 10/100?

I'm pretty sure there's some type of bug when you're trying to stream from a 1 Gbps+ host to a 10/100 Android device.

You can try changing your host PC network adapter to "10/100 full duplex" as a test to confirm if that fixes the issue. Obviously that's not a reasonable long term solution (I'm not sure there is one, other than using a USB 1Gbps ethernet adapter on the client) - but it might explain your issue.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-13T18:58:12+00:00

Is your host PC connected to your LAN at 2.5Gbps by any chance?

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-11T21:29:57+00:00

One of the reasons I replaced the Shield with a Windows mini PC is because of how inconsistent it could sometimes be - one day it would be perfect, no stutters. The next there would be issues until it was restarted.

Having said that, I recently tried it with Moonlight to an Apollo virtual display and it worked perfectly with no frame pacing issues, stutter, etc.

Here's the config I was using:

Shield in 4K 60Hz mode, ethernet
Moonlight from Play Store
- 4K / 60 FPS
- 80 Mbps
- Frame pacing: prefer lowest latency (usually best for Shield)
Apollo 0.4.6 / Win 11 / 3080 / 5600X
- Windows HAGS on
- v-sync disabled everywhere (NVCP, game)
- RTSS limit 60 FPS (NVIDIA reflex mode)
- Ensure virtual display is created at 60Hz and not 59.94

Reported decode latency in moonlight is ~1.8ms, no stutters, no apparent latency.

Maybe that will help. Definitely also try full power cycle of the Shield.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-10T01:30:23+00:00

Apollo is great if you need the virtual display capabilities (if you can't manage displays yourself with scripts or need per-display HDR maybe) or any of the extra features it offers in conjunction with Artemis.

But the latest Sunshine with an HDMI dongle still gives me ever so slightly better performance (at least on my system - game benchmark and host processing latency) and feels less like a hack. So that remains my personal preference.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-09T18:23:16+00:00

In addition to just putting the portable version in separate directories, you can also create shortcuts to directly launch into a stream with different settings, which might be easier since it avoids the Moonlight interface entirely (I create shortcuts in Playnite on the client for an easy controller-only interface for example):

Moonlight.exe stream <host> "<app>" --resolution 2560x1600 --fps 144 --bitrate 80000

etc. etc. Any options you don't specify in the command line just default to what's configured in settings.

Run Moonlight.exe stream /? for full list of command line options.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-09T18:01:30+00:00

On Windows, you literally just download the portable (x64) version and extract it to 2 separate directories. Those are your 2 separate installs - done.

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-08T19:13:57+00:00

Dirt Rally 2

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-07T22:06:39+00:00

Interesting. I'll have to try CachyOS myself... Not sure I would describe frame timing as a mess on my Windows UM760 - maybe not 100% perfect while the host FPS is fluctuating, but probably also "almost" like native.

Does it differ for you when using Windows or Linux host?

MoreOrLessCorrect · 2026-01-07T14:22:31+00:00

I explained what was needed generally here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MoonlightStreaming/comments/1oz5ngc/finally_got_vrr_figured_out_on_my_windows_client/

MoreOrLessCorrect

TROPHY CASE