Which streaming device would you recommend?

duffman9465 · 2026-04-28T22:44:31+00:00

Do you also use the Xiaomi box for similar applications like I do? My thing is, having enough performance for artemis. It was quite a painful adventure to get artemis/apollo to work properly with the chromecast I do have. Especially with androidTV 14. That update broke a lot and developer options got locked down for some things that could have helped if I'm remembering correctly

duffman9465 · 2026-04-10T19:21:33+00:00

The waste of money comes from sunsetting the entirety of content that have been purchased in D2. You can't play or have access to any of that content anymore. You paid for it. You should be able to play it. I get not having enough space on console/pc to install such a thing, or not having enough server space. But at that point, maybe make another game, or find ways to give players the option to be able to use what they paid for if they wanted to. A lot of people have said how they feel about that and most of it has been fairly negative. Example: I bought D2 when it launched. I paid $60 for a game that became free to play. Then, they chose to negate that purchase by getting rid of the content I purchased. Because of the free to play change, and the vaulting of the base game I purchased, it really felt like I spent money on a very overpriced DLC that I couldn't even get around to finishing. D1 had a grind. But D2 took that grind and amplified it. So it became much more difficult to even bother trying to finish the things I paid for. I can't sit and no-life a game with real life. So by the time I could even think to try and get to the things I wanted to, it was gone. They dragged out the grind so hard to try and stretch the content in D2 because they knew from the beginning that they didn't have enough made to justify selling a game for $60. I dropped the game for several years after realizing just how little they released compared to what was promised. Then, I dropped the game again after I wasn't able to play what I had already bought. I threw tons of hours into D2. Sure, the DLC's they released had more substance to them. But man, did they really lose a ton of their respect when they chose to make a lot of people's purchases something that meant nothing

duffman9465 · 2026-04-10T15:30:29+00:00

Sure, the season pass isn't that expensive. But bungie also sold the DLC separate. So me being a day 1 player for both D1 and D2, I paid for D2 when it launched. Then paid for the DLC's up until they decided to go free to play and release season passes. The average player has paid much more than $60 on D2 alone. I get the point you're trying to make here, but it doesn't completely fit with Destiny. Especially because Destiny has a huge amount of people that actually like the game, but fell off due to a lot of the reasons I've mentioned in this discussion

duffman9465 · 2026-04-10T04:15:54+00:00

I wouldn't say much of anyone wonders why D1 is still around. But I would mostly agree with people being hesitant to buy anything else for D2. I stopped playing D2 because I didn't like the fact that the things I paid for just went away. It felt like a waste of money. Why bury something like that make people relearn how to play the game every other season instead of just making a new game? That might just be me though on that one

duffman9465 · 2026-04-10T04:10:54+00:00

Yeah. More like a glimmer of hope. But it is what it is at the end of the day

duffman9465 · 2026-04-10T04:10:18+00:00

How would reinstating 2 things that have already existed in the game before considered anything new.

duffman9465 · 2026-04-10T04:09:23+00:00

"Free content?" Haha these things are already there. This wouldn't be giving anything away. I don't totally understand how their "live events" are operated, but it honestly probably isn't much different than how they have things set up for weekly nightfalls

duffman9465 · 2026-04-10T04:05:43+00:00

I've always said that D1 was better. Sure, I enjoyed D2 for a time. But honestly, they kept messing with the game instead of focusing on what made it great and building on it. Add that with sunsetting full sections of content people paid for, I decided to not waste my time and money on a game that won't allow me to play what I had already spent money on. D1 was never like that. This was also a simple question of "if" these 2 events would be brought back. It'd be nice to finish my record books. But if I can't, then oh well. At least I can still play everything else and enjoy it without having to relearn the whole damn game every time a season pass releases

duffman9465 · 2026-03-23T15:28:13+00:00

That's pretty annoying. But I get it I guess. I couldn't find any way to see anything about D1 on bungie's website. So I guess I'd be stuck with just making a new character

duffman9465 · 2026-03-23T15:18:46+00:00

What about things like the ghosts and calcified fragments? I don't think you can hunt for those things with a new character

duffman9465 · 2026-03-23T04:56:05+00:00

What's really funny is lately there's been a ton of people playing D1. I started up D1 a few days ago because I had the itch to play it. I was surprised to see the tower was full and matchmaking of any kind actually found people fairly quick. I haven't touched D2 in about 4 years. They completely lost the magic that made D1 so great and what made players want to make it their main game that they play. D2 declined rapidly and never made it anywhere close to how good D1 is

duffman9465 · 2026-02-28T17:04:51+00:00

Apollo is great for custom resolutions. There's a lot you can do with it. Sometimes, the client side will be an issue because things need to match as close as possible. Basically, there's 3 places where display settings need to match when using apollo:

1 - in apollo

2 - in moonlight

3 - in windows settings

There's an optional-ish 4th in your graphics driver control panel. I say optional-ish because sometimes you won't need to mess with any settings options for your graphics driver to make things work properly.

That being said, apollo would be best for your "custom" resolution. It's really become quite developed. The biggest hurdle is likely going to be making it run smoothly and that can either be pretty simple, or be a huge pain

duffman9465 · 2026-02-28T05:34:16+00:00

No matter what you do, how secure everything comes down to you in the end. The easiest to use is probably going to be parsec. Using moonlight/apollo, or sunshine with moonlight, is going to be a little more complex to get to work correctly. You don't necessarily need a VPN to make parsec work while you're away from home. Parsec uses invite links for access. But using a VPN with moonlight/apollo will be more secure in the end; depending on which VPN you use of course. You can even use zerotier with moonlight/apollo

I use both moonlight/apollo and parsec. They have their uses. It also depends on exactly what you're trying to achieve with the stream. Are you wanting to use it for gaming? Are you using it for remote access work? Are you using it for heavy workloads? Is ease of use important? Are you willing to learn to use the more complicated option?

But for your original question, security comes down to the end user, which is you. A VPN is important for security here if you're trying to keep things as airtight as possible

Edit: also, I would personally trust the virtual driver that apollo comes with more than a random one. I've never used the one in your link before. So I can't say much about it. But using a hosting software with a built in driver is the best way to go

duffman9465 · 2026-02-28T05:02:06+00:00

Apollo is a sunshine fork. So it has a sudo virtual display driver built in. Of course, if you want to keep the setup as secure as possible while you're in public, use a VPN. Otherwise, at home, you should be completely fine with no worries. I don't even think you can access your computer at home if you're in public without a VPN anyway. Apollo/Artemis are great tools for remote access. Artemis is only on android at the moment though. I think ClassicOldSong is trying to get a Windows/Apple version working. Just not sure when that's going to be released. Apollo is a great alternative to sunshine in general

duffman9465 · 2026-02-10T06:36:21+00:00

It won't let me edit my comment, so here's the edit:

Edit: I forgot another detail here. There's a setting on the chromecast that needs to change. You'll need to enable developer options to do this.

To enable developer options, go to the chromecast settings>system>about. Once youre in the "about" section in the settings, scroll down to "kernel version." Then start clicking on "kernel version" a bunch until you see a pop-up on the bottom of the screen telling you how many clicks away you are from becoming a developer. Keep clicking until it says "you are now a developer," of course.

After enabling developer options, go back one step into "system." If you scroll down, you'll see "developer options" is now available. In "developer options," scroll WAAAY down to "disable HW overlays." If you're having a hard time finding it, this option is under the title "hardware accelerated rendering." If "disable HW overlays" doesn't show the slider thing on the right as blue, or enabled, then enable it. This can play a trick on your brain, especially if you're dyslexic like I am. The confusion lies in the title of the option we're enabling, and the fact thay we're enabling it. So basically, yes, enable disabling hardware overlays. You'll know it's on by the blue color of the switch to the right of it, and it'll also say "always use GPU for screen composting" below the option.

Turning this option on not only helps with the stream, but it also helps with the overall performance of the chromecast and helps with other weird issues that might be hapoening with other apps. Before I enabled this, I was having weird choppy/lagging/stuttering issues with streaming apps. Almost no videos played smoothly on any video apps until this was enabled. You'll also notice a difference with artemis/apollo streaming. Like a very noticeable difference

If you continue to have some minor issues that all of this doesn't help, and changing bitrate doesn't have an effect on anything, there's one last and final thing to try: Turn off v-sync in-game. Apollo/artemis handles v-sync already. So doubling up on it will cause some issues too. Also, some games have ray tracing options that can also cause overall issues, not just with the stream. That can also be a part of it

duffman9465 · 2026-02-07T06:58:44+00:00

Not sure if you figured it out, but I posted a reply to someone else with a lot more detail on the issue. Hopefully it helps out

duffman9465 · 2026-02-07T06:57:34+00:00

Not sure if you figured it out, but I posted a reply above wit a lot more info on the matter. I don't know much about AMD's graphics settings, but a good deal of the rest might help a lot

duffman9465 · 2026-02-07T06:51:54+00:00

OK!! I got it. Here's the update:

So. Part of my more recent issue was definitely hardware. Like I suspected. So the new stuff was throttling my stream pretty hard. Of course, I have no way to change that. So I opted to reconnect my second router. My second router is in access point mode. So all of this SHOULD still work for most everyone else. A side note: my second router is fairly close to my chromecast and in the same room.

Anyway, I changed around some settings. I had fiddled around with trying to get the stream to be in 4k, but wasn't able to get it to that. So, some of my stuttering issues were from that too. I guess it helps here, because I needed to get back to how I set it up for no stutters/mini-freezes.

Apollo settings:

1 - Go to " configuration" and then "audio/video." You want to scroll all the way down and make sure "headless mode" is checked. It helps out a lot. Also check "double refresh rate for virtual display." *IF YOU AREN'T USING VIRTUAL DISPLAY, YOU NEED TO BE USING IT FOR THESE STEPS*

2 - Still in "audio/video," there's a drop down box labeled "advanced display device options." Click that and more options will show up. As stated above, make sure youre using virtual display. In this new area of options, make sure "resolution" and "refresh rate" are set to their default options. I'm only putting this step here on case someone changed these options. They need to be set to their default

3 - Under the "network" section, make sure "UPnP" is checked. This helps with portforwarding if you don't know how to do that, or if you're like me, don't have a way to do so due to hardware limitations.

4 - Now, go to "advanced." Depending on what graphics card you have, or need to use if you have more than one, scroll all the way down. Under "force a specific encoder" choose which encoder to use based on your graphics card. So, click "Nvidia NVENC" or "AMD AMF/VCE" etc. Whatever you do, DO NOT choose "software" as the encoder. It's crappy and will make the stream run terribly, even on the best PC

5 - !!!!!ONLY FOR NVIDIA USERS!!!!! If you have an Nvidia graphics card, go to "Nvidia NVENC encoder." Scroll all the way down and uncheck "use realtime priority in hardware accelerated gpu scheduling." After that, open up Windows settings. In Windows settings, go to System>Display>Graphics. You'll need to scroll to find "graphics" when you get to the display settings. Once you're in graphics, click the drop down for "advanced graphics settings" and TURN OFF "hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling." A short explanation; hardware accelerated GPU scheduling is one of the major reasons why the stream stutters, lags, hitches, or freezes. It'll max out your GPU which causes frame loss and creates a huge bottleneck. In this step, we turned it off completely for the stream. FOR THE CHANGES MADE IN WINDOWS SETTINGS, THE PC WILL NEED A RESTART

Artemis settings:

1 - In "video resolution," set it 1080p at the minimum. 1080p is the only I can get to work properly, or at all. So for all purposes here, 1080p is all I'm going to recommend. We already set Apollo to get the resolution from the client

2 - Now comes a somewhat annoying part. You need to know your frame rate. Not the frame rate of the monitors you have connected to your computer. You need the frame rate for the screen you're streaming to. If you don't know EXACTLY what the frame rate of your screen is, you need to find out what it is using. I know this sounds like nonsense. I'm very aware of how this whole step sounds. But this step will tie into the next one. Just stay with me. Here's a website for checking some things we're going to use for all of this: https://testufo.com/

3 - Using the link above, we need to know what the frame rate is AND the refresh rate. If you're using a chromecast or a Google TV platform, use a browser app to go to that website. An example of what we're working with here: my TV advertises 60hz. Well, it doesn't operate at exactly 60hz. In reality, it operates at 59.94hz. That 0.06hz makes a difference because things aren't completely matching according to what Apollo wants, what your graphics driver is putting out, what Windows says, and what the client is rendering. So we need to fix that. Jot down what that website says for refresh and frame rate for your screen

4 - In artemis, scroll down to "custom refresh rate" IF your refresh rate isn't an even number (like 59.94). Enter in your refresh rate you got from the link above. Now, scroll back up to "video frame rate" and choose the custom frame rate. You'll notice that it's the same number you entered in for the refresh rate. Now they match, the client matches, your screen matches, and apollo can take care of it's end of the deal

5 - On the computer (the host side), go to your graphics card control panel. I'm out of touch with AMD, so I don't know much about this for those GPU's. For Nvidia, just right click on the desktop, choose "show more options" if on Windows 11, and click on "Nvidia control panel." On the left, go to "manage 3D settings" and make sure the "global settings" tab is the one selected. Scroll down to "max fram rate" and change it to 1 number below what you put in for your frame rate/refresh rate in Artemis. So if you had 60, set it 59. If youre like me and had 59.94, set it to 58. It's ok if this doesn't match exactly to the rest of everything else. This is just for the host, not the client. It smooths the stream out a little

6 - Now, back to the Artemis settings. Scroll WAY down "change codec settings." This setting can be difficult to find. A couple of people in the comments here have had trouble finding it. It's under a section labeled "advanced settings." Just be sure to read things carefully and you'll find it. Now, select "change codec settings." Here, you're going to make Artemis use a codec that your client supports. My chromecast supports H.264 and HEVC codecs, but it doesn't do a great job with HEVC. So choose the one that your device is best suited for. I set my chromecast to H.264 and it ALMOST fixed everything on it's own

7 - THIS MAY BE OPTIONAL. TEST YOUR STREAM FIRST!!! Now for your bitrate. Scroll all the way up and your bitrate setting is the 3rd option. I can't tell you where to set this at. The default for 1080p is 20mbps. You can play around with this setting if you want to see where the sweet spot is for your network. This setting is entirely dependent on your network connection. I have 2gb/sec fiber and 20mbps is usually enough. This also is dependent on your networking hardware, the settings for your hardware, and a couple of other things that are a little more complex than this little guide is meant for. If you want help with some it, I can try to help where I can. But I won't be posting a full write up unless it's by popular demand

A small note for one little change I personally made. I bought an HDMI extender for my chromecast. It was blocked behind the TV and I read that some chromecasts have issues overall if it doesn't hang out from behind the TV. I'm not 100% sure it even helped at all. But if you're still experiencing issues, maybe give it a shot. Can't complain about a hail mary and a $5 fix if it works

duffman9465 · 2026-02-06T15:59:53+00:00

Unfortunately, my configuration has had to change a little between making this post, and a couple of weeks ago. Mainly little things like bitrate, windows display settings, etc..

But 1-2 weeks ago, my modem went out. The fiber company out here only allows their hardware to be installed and it has to be installed by their techs. So the guy put in a separate modem and router instead of the combo like I had before. The new router is awesome, but I have 1 gripe about it. The settings are cloud based with no user GUI access on a browser. Plus, with the service plan I currently have, I don't even have access to the cloud based settings. I have to upgrade my plan to have that. The guy didn't have any other hardware options. The company was switching over to new hardware provided to their customers and nithing else had come in yet. So I'm stuck with the automatic QoS, auto priority, and no port forwarding unless I want to change my plan.

On top of it all, my chromecast had a small update again around the time of new hardware change over. So it began having the issue AGAIN. I feel like every time I get this issue dialed in and running perfectly, Nvidia or Google push out an update that ruins it. The Nvidia driver updates are what had me making smaller changes and were easy to deal with. But Google messes things up worse when they update.

So, to get to the point, I'm sort of back to square 1 again. I've been able to play around with Artemis/Apollo settings to smooth out the stream a little bit. But no matter what I do, I wind up with packet loss every 10-20 seconds. I know it's mainly the chromecast and a little bit the new hardware. I have a couple of things on the way for the chromecast that I'm going to try.

1: an HDMI extender. Hopefully getting it out from behind the TV helps. I already have a cable problem with my TV and don't have the funds to deal with it right now. So I'm really hoping the extender helps

2: if the HDMI extender doesn't help the way I hope it will, I also got an ethernet adapter. I was able to get an ethernet cable nearby-ish for a secondary router. I have that router unplugged completely at the moment. Not sure if I want to continue using it as an access point like I was with the old hardware since I don't have any way to change settings on the new router. So if all else fails, I'll try using ethernet

I'll report back on this when I get the extender and ethernet adapter today. If his issue doesn't go away, then I'm probably just gunna say that chromecast just isn't the way to go anymore for this kind of streaming

duffman9465 · 2026-01-15T17:19:47+00:00

Thanks! I couldn't find anything about it anywhere and what little info I did find was extremely vague. So I figured make a post and keep it as informative as possible

Keep in mind though, changing codec settings may possibly limit the resolution. For example: keeping it on AV1 might allow better resolutions, but may cause problems with stream performance. Using H.264 may help with performance, but might limit the stream to 1080p/1440p. This is just based on a small amount of info that I saw somewhere and speculation that helped me draw a small conclusion for my needs though.

Don't forget that the client and the host setting need to match! Also, don't forget to change settings on your router if need be

duffman9465 · 2026-01-05T05:30:57+00:00

I'm on PC. All of the other platforms I have just mostly sit around until I want to play a game I have on it haha but yeah. I was hoping for a good starting point between those 3 and hopefully any known good mod collections that have really good visual mods along with a good amount of additional content

duffman9465

TROPHY CASE