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Sunshine game streaming tool adds Vulkan encoding plus XDG, Pipewire, and KWin direct screencast capture
(www.gamingonlinux.com)
this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
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Can I ask for those of you who have been using Sunshine (and specifically Moonlight) without issue - is there some part of your setup that you upgraded or had to troubleshoot specifically to get it to work well?
I have tried it on 802.11ax and with my Steam Deck, same household & router & network, and playing anything that requires a modicum of reaction timing was frustrating and inconsistent. I mean, 10ms or so of lag is playable, and 20ms could be in a pinch, but I was feeling rubberbanding into 50+, lag spikes, etc.
My solution: I have a second, older (wifi 5 tho) router in access point mode plugged into my computer’s Ethernet port, and when my pc is on it forwards internet from its wifi connection to it. When I’m streaming to a device, it is the only device connected to that network. That also lets my computer have a wired connection to the router.
Additionally, I analyzed the network utilization near me to find which WiFi channels had the least congestion. Tbh tho, as long as the channel is different from your main router, you’d probably be fine.
I originally set it up for streaming wireless pcvr to my Quest 2, but I’ve found it works perfectly with Sunshine + Moonlight.
Thank you, that's a novel idea. Have you noticed any spikes, lag, or it's just rock solid?
On modern devices (pretty much anything that supports 5Ghz) it feels rock solid to me. I can forget I’m streaming. Even my old laptop from like 2013 gave me really good results. In my case I usually stream to something in the same room as that router, so ymmv.
I’ve tried the moonlight homebrew on my “New 3DS” though, which only has 2.4Ghz WiFi, and had less success, even with the ridiculously low resolution. I usually can play for a minute or two, but as soon as there’s one lag spike it’s like it can’t catch back up. I need to try it again though, a recent update may have helped, I just didn’t test it thoroughly. But that’s, like, pretty niche haha!
I tweak the streaming quality settings to sacrifice quality until I’m happy with the lag. I find that the default settings err heavily on the side of quality.
For example, moonlight typically defaults to 20mbps for 1080p@60. I wouldn’t put that higher than 10mbps, and it’s acceptable as low as 5mbps albeit with significant artifacts.
Everything on gigabit ethernet and everything is perfect. Wireless clients are ok but the occasional stutter. I wouldn't even try the host being wireless. It's more reliable that steam for me.
I only do 1080p60 streams because I'm playing on a TV if I'm not at my computer.
Ethernet is the way to go. At least try it if you can to see if that improves things or if it's another component of your network.
Mine is 1ms at all times, it's such an amazing app. My network is also very much not typical, but Ethernet should help a ton for you.
I've been using Sunshine/Moonlight for a couple of years now. Over wifi to my client device (NVIDIA Shield) it worked ok but would have a 0.5-1.0 second lag spike every few minutes. I tried all kinds of suggestions I could find but nothing properly fixed the issue. Besides that though the latency was fine enough.
Switching to ethernet resolved all issues and further improved the latency and it's been perfect streaming at 4K 60Hz. I've only ever done local streaming though.
Thank you. Seeing a theme here with ethernet. I do wish there was a reliable wifi solution, but I guess that's more than technology can deliver right now.
My biggest issues on wifi were random hitches and stuff. I'm on ethernet over coaxial now and it's basically flawless.
For me, it took a lot of troubleshooting to get it working reliably. But one key step was having the host with a wired connection, better still, the clients, too. But at least the host. Even with a fast, well covered WiFi network, it was too unpredictable to use regularly. And don’t even get me started on macs, using a specific WiFi channel to broadcast handoff, relentlessly…
I have yet to make it work well enough over wifi. I am planning on running cat6 down to my tv
cat6 is overkill for 4K streaming, but it's future proof. I went for cat5e since it was half the cost at the time and most of my equipment is gigabit anyway.
Will I regret "only" having 2.5gbps cables instead of 10gbps? idk. Seems unlikely.
But, regardless, yes. Wired is so much better.