For much of my life, I’ve been a PC gamer, but I’ve always seen the appeal of consoles. In fact, I have all the major consoles — Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and Switch 2 — and I’ve found myself using my PC far less than I used to. The big reason for this is that I do most of my work on my PC, so I want to use something else in my free time, and that’s why I’ve been gaming on Android handhelds and consoles lately.
However, I still want to use my PC for gaming now and then, mainly because it’s much more powerful than my consoles. One way to do that is to simply lug my PC into the living room and plug it into my TV just to get out of my office. That’s fine for some people, but I don’t really want to do that with any regularity. Thankfully, I found a way around that, and it’s by streaming.
Streaming from my PC has actually worked very well
Stable connection, believe it or not
The apps I use to stream are Moonlight and Sunshine. The way it works is that the Sunshine app is installed on my PC, and it acts as the host. Then, I installed the companion Moonlight app on my Xbox Series S, or any device you want to stream on. My Xbox Series S then connects directly to my PC, and I’m able to control my PC using an Xbox controller, complete with mouse controls. If I want, I can plug in a mouse and keyboard, and it feels just like using a PC. It’s very painless to set up, and the reason I use my Xbox Series S for this is that it offers low latency, and I can download the app directly from the Xbox store for free.
What’s really cool is that I don’t even need to play a game if I don’t want to. If I ever feel like using a 65-inch monitor, I can stream to my Xbox, hook up my mouse and keyboard, and start working on some articles. Now, I don’t really do that very often, mainly because I already have a setup where I do that, and I don’t like to mix where I work and play. It’s just cool to know options like this exist, but I mostly use it for gaming.
A lot of people like having a lot of screen real estate to work with, and obviously, that’s nice for watching a Twitch stream or a YouTube video. In the case of Twitch, I actually understand, since that’s an app that’s typically only available on a game console these days, so it’s difficult to watch a stream on your TV without one.
The elephant in the room for many people is latency, however. I have a Fiber internet connection, and I stream these from a PC that’s connected via an Ethernet cable to an Xbox Series S that’s operating over Wi-Fi. You might think that’s a recipe for disaster, but I’ve actually noticed minimal problems. Many games feel like I’m playing them natively, and my picture quality is far more likely to be the weak link. I’ve noticed that fast-moving games such as Forza Horizon 6 don’t look as good as they would natively.
For web browsing, it’s a near-perfect experience, and I’d recommend it to anybody. Hooking up a mouse and keyboard to my Xbox is very easy, and from there, it just feels like I’m using a large monitor with my PC. I don’t personally like to use it in that way, but the option is there for people who don’t mind. You also don’t necessarily need an Xbox to use this app. The Moonlight app is available on the Google Play and iOS app stores, so don’t feel like you’re locked to a console to do this. While I’ve been hyping up the Xbox Store version, I get far more use out of the mobile version. Both are great options, but since I prefer to do most of my gaming handheld these days, the mobile Moonlight app has been a great find.
Moonlight is even better on my phone
The desktop is small, but it works
After I learned that streaming PC games to another device works great, I couldn’t wait to try it out with my phone. As it turns out, it works exactly the same way as it does with my Xbox. No matter the platform, you can download Moonlight and get going within minutes. It connects the same way, and if you have a telescopic controller to hook up to your phone, then it feels a lot like a dedicated game console.
Now, there are some clear drawbacks here, and it’s mainly that Windows isn’t meant to be seen on a screen this small. Navigating the desktop isn’t easy to do, and I definitely wouldn’t recommend this for web browsing. Fortunately, your phone already has a way of doing that, so there’s no need to rely on this for something like that. What I try to do is open Steam or the Xbox app on my PC before starting the stream, because both of those apps play nicely on a phone screen, while clicking on icons isn’t easy to do.
The nice thing is that PC games often let you change the resolution, so I can often find a way to get an aspect ratio that matches my phone — 1604 x 720 in the case of the Moto G phone I’ve been using for this. This allows the image to properly fill the screen in a way that a 16:9 aspect ratio wouldn’t. Not every game lets you do this, but I’ve appreciated the ones that do.
Of course, streaming is not without its drawbacks, and it’s only recommended if you have a solid internet connection. If you’re doing it fully over Wi-Fi, I imagine you’re going to run into some trouble. In my specific situation, I’ve loved doing it, and since I have an AMD Ryzen 7 7800XD and an RTX 3070 Ti powering my PC, I can get performance on games that my PS5 and Xbox can’t compete with. The only problem I run into is when I’m running games at high frame rates because I don’t think streaming is quite there yet, at least for me. Then again, I played Ninja Gaiden 2 Black entirely over streaming, so it’s not like it’s impossible. Games that require precise inputs probably aren’t the best for streaming, but it certainly didn’t stop me from having fun.
