How to Stream ALL your PC Games and Emulators the EASY WAY! | BigBox + Moonlight/Sunshine Tutorial

[@iamLucid]

I’m 100% doing this, you’ve just solved such a huge issue in my head

[@dylanmacintosh]

Awesome, that’s what I like to hear!! Thanks for watching and commenting 🙏

[@nitsuamai9727]

Havent even watched it yet but i have had this idea in my head for months now. Glad to see someone else was thinking it too

[@dylanmacintosh]

Those are the best kind of videos! I’m glad I can share that kind of video to you. Cheers!

[@TheIrishCreamy]

Thanks man...I really appreciate the actual "real life" rundown. This cleared out the BS that I keep finding!

[@dylanmacintosh]

You’re very welcome, thank you for watching! I just posted a new video where I also give a “real life” rundown of a self hosted game streaming stress test at a remote cabin- feel free to check it out if you have the time.

[@zuko9085]

One pain point for me is turning the computer on to stream games. Are you leaving your computer running at all times?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question! While I’m in the house Moonlight actually has a “WakeOnLAN” function at the Host selection screen- if the Host is asleep, you can tap/click on it and select “Wake On LAN” and it will attempt to wake it up. As long as your PC has “Wake On LAN” enabled in its BIOS settings, and “Magic Packet” enabled in its Windows Settings, then you should be all set to use WoL. Otherwise sometimes if I’m anywhere near my office I will actually pop in, tap the power button on my PC to wake it up, and put in my password just because it can be faster than using the virtual keyboard on the controller while streaming lol. Past that, if I’m leaving the house for the weekend or something and want to be able to stream games at any time, I will actually turn the PC’s sleep setting to Never before I leave the house so that I can connect anytime without worry of it going to sleep. I hope this helps!

[@zuko9085]

@@dylanmacintosh I appreciate the response! Turns out it was bios settings stopping me all along.

[@dylanmacintosh]

Awesome!! Glad you found that pesky BIOS setting!

[@Denime]

​​@@dylanmacintoshHow do you bring up the virtual keyboard with a gamepad please? Also I'm guessing you run the "Desktop" Sunshine application first to wake the PC up and sign in to Windows? As you probably wouldn't be able to run the Bigbox exe and access your games as the System user that the Sunshine service runs as, it wouldn't be signed in to Steam for example. Thank you for these videos by the way, they're so well informed and laid out - it has saved me so much time. I'm still in awe that this is even possible, ten year old me probably wouldn't believe it.

[@dylanmacintosh]

@@Denime hey, thanks for watching and great questions! The virtual keyboard will be different on each client device- on touchscreen devices like iPhone and iPad it’s a triple finger tap on the screen- but if you have a device other than those you can look up the command in the Moonlight docs. Also unfortunately, some clients like the Apple TV tvOS Moonlight app does not have a virtual keyboard as of yet. I really wish it did 😅 To unlock my PC also depends on the client device, typically the same as which ones have a virtual keyboard. For instance on my iPhone it’s no problem, I launch BigBox like normal, and when it connects the PC will be at the login screen when it’s locked. No bother, I just use the virtual mouse mode to select the login password box and triple tap the screen to use the virtual keyboard to type in my login PIN. When the PC logs in BigBox will continue launching, no need to launch Desktop from Moonlight first, although you could if you want to I suppose. However for devices without a virtual keyboard, like the Apple TV Moonlight app, I cannot complete the process from the Moonlight tvOS client alone. For this, I use another remote app like Google Chrome Remote Desktop, TeamViewer etc to pop in quickly to my PC and punch in the login PIN. This is not ideal, but saves my lazy self from getting up anyways 🤣 I agree with your 10 year old self- I still can’t believe I’ve achieved a full library of my retro and current games accessible from virtually anywhere on almost any device 🤯 it’s really awesome and I enjoy it, and making videos about it, a lot 😁 Cheers!

[@RussellSchaare]

I am so stoked to have found this video - answered about 5 questions I had on things I thought must have been possible but had no idea where to start. Absolute killer 😁

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thank you for the kind words. I’ve learned a lot about self-hosted game streaming over the past couple years, so I figured I’d pass on the knowledge I’ve gained in this video. Please let me know if you have any questions as you progress with your game-streaming journey.

[@DonaldWyman]

That is so crazy that you just made this video when I was just looking for a way to do this. I was looking for a way to stream my game pass games on my retroid pocket 3+ since I wanted to play that new "Sea of Stars". I already had launch box and big box as well as sunshine, I just needed to know how to make bigbox a part of sunshine/moonlight. Thanks for the bit of help.

[@dylanmacintosh]

Amazing!! That’s the kind of setup that gets me excited about this stuff. Just instantly blowing the top off the capabilities of existing stuff you already own with the flip of a switch! Imagine telling people you’re playing Sea of Stars, or even Starfield, or an emulated PS3 game, on a Retroid Pocket 3- they must be so confused until you show them how kühl self hosted game streaming is 🤣

[@Vectorr66]

I have it all setup like suggested. I can launch launchbox on my PC no issue but when using moonlight/sunshine it opens on my tv and the app doesn't launch. I do have three monitors. Could that be the issue? Steam works though on moonlight.

[@infin819]

Can I turn my pc on and off or sleep/wake from my phone ?

[@dylanmacintosh]

That's a great question- I used to just set my PC not to sleep before I went on a trip, but these days I use the Wolow app. With the right configuration on the Wolow app, and your router, you can use that combo to wake your PC over WAN, for free.

[@IncorrectYouTubeUser]

Question about this setup and an issue I am running into. I am streaming moonlight to my firestick 4k max in my living room(ethernet) from my PC (ethernet) using Sunshine. I tried with Playnite and ran into the same roadblock as you, swapped to BigBox and I am 90% there trying Ryujinx and Yuzu. I cannot for the life of me get Ryujinx or Yuzu to keep the controllers recognized. I am using an Xbox Series X/S controller that pairs fine to either my PC or my firestick. I can open and close my PC games, and SNES games, but when I do the Yuzu emulator - I have to physically go to my PC and setup the controller in the program each time it opens. Ryujinx I had similar controller issues, but can’t remember exactly where I ran into the roadblock that switched me to trying Yuzu. With Yuzu I know the controller is recognized by the computer as it still can run the big box kill command and for “setup” it’s just a matter of going to the config and swapping to the controller that is now showing. What exactly is your controller setup that is allowing you to smoothly do this?

[@jossanymoura2481]

Hey, @IncorrectKZbinUser. Did you solve this problem? How?

[@IncorrectYouTubeUser]

@@jossanymoura2481 not sure if I ever solved it (pretty sure I didn’t)… I gave up trying. If you have a solution let me know.

[@Oneeyedpirate008]

Have you tried to use parsec for multiplayer with big box ? i imagine retro arch emulators will be best due to the automatic mapping of controllers?

[@rovo4261]

This is awesome! You’ve not only solved my problem but also made me realise there are so many old games I’d love to emulate and play on my Apple TV. Are there any resources you can point me to about how to set up all those emulators (interested in PSP, PS2 and switch) and safe places to get games? Great content, you’ve earned yourself a subscriber 😊

[@dylanmacintosh]

Glad you liked the video! Great question about emulators and games- in terms of emulators, there always seems to be multiple projects pursuing software emulation for any given console at any given time which can get confusing- but there is usually a front runner or sometimes a tie between two emulators where it doesn’t really matter which one you go with, or certain games may run better on one emulator vs another. I know, frustrating answer right? Welcome to software emulation!! So the short answer is for PSP you’d be looking for PPSSPP, for PS2 you’d be looking for PCSX2, and for Switch you’d be looking at Ryujinx or Yuzu. You can either read the setups guides on their websites, or search for KZbin tutorials. In terms of games- that turns into a whole topic of copyright laws, and any official legal stance from a KZbinr including myself or otherwise will say that you have to dump your own ROMs from your own physical games. You can search several Reddit communities for more info. Happy emulating and thanks for watching and commenting!

[@jaredemerson1485]

Very excited to try this out soon! Solves one of my biggest gripes with emulation: centralized server for all of my saves so I can keep things synced between PC and my phone. This is gonna be awesome! THANKS :D

[@dylanmacintosh]

Having all your game saves in one place is a huge factor in leveraging game streaming with emulators for me too- I’m already planning a new video for just this.

[@jaredemerson1485]

@@dylanmacintosh Thanks for the reply man! That alone always deserves the sub 😁 Looking forward to that vid too!

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thank you very much! You see the vision. I appreciate you!

[@mohammedm3202]

If I have 4 Bluetooth controller in another room how to connected to the PC ?

[@kilikclia]

Super helpful video! Thank you~ 🙏 Got a question: If I connect to a hotel's wifi or other public wifi, would I need a VPN? I don't understand much about how all this works over non-local connections

[@dylanmacintosh]

That’s a great question- no a VPN is not required. If you’ve installed Sunshine on your host PC, and you’ve paired your Moonlight client to that Sunshine Host PC at least once on the local (same) network, then you can connect that specific Moonlight client to that specific Sunshine host remotely over the internet at any time thereafter. This is configured by default by the Sunshine application at the time of installation. For Sunshine V0.22, end to end encryption is enabled by default for increased security while streaming over the internet. So, in short, it should “just work” as long as your PC hasn’t gone to sleep mode (or off for that matter) while you’re away and attempting to stream over the internet, since Moonlight can’t wake hosts over the internet, only on the local network. So, install Sunshine, pair your Moonlight client while you’re still at home, then leave your PC on/awake before you leave the house. Once connected to a different network, open the Moonlight app and connect. Moonlight will also tell you if the network is blocking streaming connections, as some networks like hotels choose to block those ports, but I haven’t run into any networks that block Moonlight so far and I’ve been to several hotels in different states and countries while streaming with Moonlight. I hope this helps, let me know if you have any more questions.

[@The44sasquatch]

I'm really thinking about trying to set all this up. Do you know how this handles HDR?

[@distractedreviews6198]

Great vid. When emulating 3DS do you have a hot key set up somehow on your controller to toggle between either screen so that you can play in full screen? Thanks!

[@dylanmacintosh]

That's a great question! I normally play 3DS games with both screens side by side, so I haven't run into this myself, but I know Citra has a hotkey ability to swap screens- I think it's F9 by default. So what I would do if you want to play full-single-screen 3DS games with the ability to switch screens via controller input is install a remapper software, something like ReWASD, and use some modifier combo to map to F9 on your controller. Probably multiple buttons together so you don't accidentally press it, something like that, but whatever makes sense to you. Then when you press that button combo on the controller, the ReWASD software will virtually press F9, and Citra will swap screens. I hope this helps!

[@SlowMoImpact]

Got my controller bluetoothed to the phone but how do I get it to work with Moonlight?

[@davep1060]

Are you able to have different clients use different resolutions? Using something like Aster?

[@dylanmacintosh]

That’s a great question! The Moonlight client application allows you to select your resolution and framerate, and therefore bitrate, from the settings menu. For instance if I have poor connection from my iPhone cell connection, I can lower my client settings to 720p 30fps to have a more stable experience, but if I switch to a client on my local wired network like my Apple TV 4K, I can change the ATV’s client settings to be 4K and 60fps. If your game is running on the host in borderless fullscreen mode the Gamestream protocol that sunshine is built on *should* be able to stream the game itself rather than display mirroring, so it should be able to display the full resolution and framerate of the game instance on your client regardless of the host monitor’s settings. I hope this helps and thanks for watching!

[@Primoit06]

Awesome video and tutorial! Are you using some nintendo switch emulator? Cause i'm trying to use the yuzu/ryu and both are current lagging or drop fps, have some additional config for those?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thanks for watching! I personally use Ryujinx, but the software emulation performance is really tricky, it really comes down to which game you’re trying to play and what the devs have done to accommodate that game. I’ve gone down the Reddit rabbit hole on a few different titles just to see what kind of performance was possible for that game, just to have the Ryujinx devs post an update and then it works great. So, tough question really without getting into first verifying that your hardware isn’t the bottleneck, which if it’s mid range desktop gaming PC it shouldn’t be an issue, and then diving into which game you’re trying to get more performance out of. I hope this helps!

[@Primoit06]

@dylanmacintosh, thanks for the answer! Actually, on my computer, all Switch games are running fast at 60fps on Ryujinx. Also, other titles like GTAV (PC) run smoothly. When I try to stream PC games, they run normally. It's just Switch games on Ryu/Yuzu that have this issue :/

[@dylanmacintosh]

@@Primoit06 Well that is very interesting indeed, I have not seen this problem before. I have had a kind of similar sounding issue with GBA games on Retroarch running at half speed if I disconnect and reconnect to Moonlight, but it is always solved with re-starting BigBox. I would try and test as many variables independently from each other as possible, for instance try launching the switch emulator on the PC first, make sure the game is running full speed, and then launch the default "Desktop" application on Moonlight and see if the game suddenly slows down, on the client monitor but also on the actual PC's monitor.

[@dawgyqq3264]

Do you know why ny bigbox ui lags during stream?

[@tparty2123]

i’ve been debating through different launchers and i might just have to try this. i love playnite but i play more emulation at this point i just love that pause screen. i used steam for a while only so i could use its pause screen but this looks like it might be the ultimate solution. the theme you have on here looks so good great video as always!

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thanks for the kind words! I would absolutely recommend this method over Playnite or Steam Link- even though it costs a little bit of pocket money it is definitely than those free methods better in every way! I’ve been enjoying my self hosted game streaming setup waaaayyy more since switching to BigBox and Moonlight, and the Pause Screen is really what brings it all together. I’m actually spending more time gaming now than troubleshooting my game streaming like I was before 🤣

[@Jack-xx3qg]

$30 for pause button?

[@dylanmacintosh]

@@Jack-xx3qg If I take your meaning correctly, I will add that I couldn't really care less about the artwork on the pause function itself if that's what you're asking- the true value lies in the "Exit Game" feature of the Pause Screen for use with emulators since the games do not have an Exit button in their menus themselves like PC games do. So, if you're streaming a game and decide you want to play something else, you're just kind of... stuck. So, I spent many hours to work around this issue, and came up with only half-baked answers which only kind of worked and were a pain in the neck. So, when I found this solution, yes, I gladly paid for the premium software which solves this problem for me, and does much more to boot. I hope this info helps you on your game streaming journey!

[@Jack-xx3qg]

Im just trolling dude. Thanks for the explanation anyways. Im just trying to set up moonlight in my spare rig just for PC gaming and plex so I wont be needing the premium feature@@dylanmacintosh

[@dylanmacintosh]

@@Jack-xx3qg LOL you got me. I get a lot of well meaning people asking really pointed questions so I honestly can’t tell who’s trolling these days or just not a native English speaker or something… but yeah a spare PC is a great way to get Moonlight up and running! I hate to throw away a computer so yeah use it til it croaks!

[@hyg71886]

Gonna try this out as I’m redoing my emulation rig this weekend thanks for that

[@dylanmacintosh]

Awesome!! That’s a great weekend project 🙌

[@hyg71886]

@@dylanmacintoshquestion, so I have 2 servers one for emulation running a 8700k and a new one I built last year running a 5800x. Is there any benefit to moving the system over to the amd? It’s used for a storage server and plex media server atm. I also had a lifetime license before that was a thing (2013) I think it was 25 bucks back then. They’ve VASTLY Improved the app over the years.

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question, I would say as a lazy man if the current rig is running the way you like it, then it's probably best not to mess with it as that time might be better spent simply playing the games you want to play- but if you see a need to upgrade performance have at it. There would be no big difference of intel vs AMD processing. I would also say either CPU should be more than enough for most retro emulators and games, but if you're doing anything more heavy lifting it would really come down to what GPU you have over the CPU. So, it might be worth a look to upgrade your GPU in your emulation rig rather than move it over entirely. But, sometimes it can be good to have a clean slate if you're feeling like it's time for a retro refresh. So, at the end of the day I would say no, no big difference between the AMD and Intel platforms for something like this use case, but if it's a project you find enjoyable then spend as much time as you like tinkering. I hope this helps! @@hyg71886

[@StevieMacVFX]

So if you have Launchbox running with a pad on PC do you need to redo all your pad inputs for each emulator for it to work over Moonlight/Sunshine the other end e.g phone ipad etc? Or if you use the same pad on Ipad/Phone etc and you use the same pad on PC it all works as it was setup on the PC? Thanks

[@dylanmacintosh]

That’s a great question! Most emulators can switch to whatever the current input is, and re-use the same mappings, so no worries there with MOST emulators and games. However there are specific emulators (and PC games for that matter) that stray from the norm, and it just comes down to the way that the devs choose to code their emulator or game. Specifically, Ryujinx emulator gives me problems with controller input when switching between sitting in front of my PC, and streaming with Moonlight/Sunshine because of the way it handles controller inputs- for example if you set up your player 1 controls with Device ID 12345, but then you switch to streaming, it will actually see it as a virtual controller with a different ID for example 67890, and the controls won’t work unless you re-map the player 1 controls to device ID 67890… if that makes sense. Again, this is usually not a worry, but when you’re dealing with a bunch of different emulators, they can each have their own ways of setting up controls. I hope this helps!

[@StevieMacVFX]

So do you have to set up the pad every time or is this a one and done thing? Would it be better to have one pad for PC and another for streaming? Or maybe 2 BigBox setup folders that use the same roms? So one BB for streaming the other for PC at home? Thanks for the info!

[@davescobedo]

Streams just fine but as soon as a game starts the controller stops working. What am I missing?

[@Dsuds23]

Do you think this set up would work with the lg g cloud device?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question! I haven’t used one myself, but I’d wager the Logitech G Cloud would be an excellent form factor to stream to, and even though they market it for Xbox Game Pass and GeForce Now cloud services, it could work great for local game streaming with Moonlight. I’ve been doing a similar thing, streaming games to with Moonlight to my Asus ROG Ally. I hope this helps!

[@thomas8630]

Am I able to play play my steam library like this, and play online?

[@magenof1440]

Great video, have you tried this with a steam deck?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Video incoming… 👀

[@user-zc9zt2vl5s]

I am using the same method but instead of streaming to an iphone i am streaming to an Apple TV 4k. Everything works except my xbox controller which is paired directly to my ATV doesn't seem to work with games. I am running switch games in Big Box. The controller works when navigating Big Box, but not in the game. Any ideas on how to fix this?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Sure- For Switch emulators like Ryujinx and Yuzu specifically I’ve noticed that the emulator is looking for a certain controller device ID. What this means is you might have to connect your streaming device via Moonlight, then for just the first time configuration walk back over to your PC, open the settings of the emulator, and map the emulator controls to the controller while it’s still connected to the Moonlight client. From then on, the emulator will have its controls mapped to the streaming controllers device ID. I hope this helps!

[@user-zc9zt2vl5s]

@@dylanmacintosh could you please make a video tutorial on how to do this? I am using moonlight on my ATV and sunshine on my PC. When I go to my input settings in ryujinx, what do I select under the pulldown menu? I only see keyboard, and disabled. I don't see my xbox controller at all.

[@dylanmacintosh]

@@user-zc9zt2vl5s sure, I can make a video!

[@user-zc9zt2vl5s]

@@dylanmacintosh please do. I would totally appreciate that. I am struggling to get my xbox wireless controller working when playing any games inside Launchbox.

[@BrassHex]

Do you use retroarch for most of your games? If so, what solo emulators do you use? Thanks for the inspiration! I’m working on getting mine set up now

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thanks for watching! And great question: I try to use Retroarch as much as possible on older systems for simplicity, until I have a problem or there isn’t a core available for a particular system. So, for instance I use Retroarch for all older systems like NES, SNES, N64, GB, GBA, NDS, MD, Saturn, Dreamcast, but for anything PSX or newer I tend to use standalone for the improved performance and features. But it’s not a hard and fast rule. I use Duckstation standalone for PSX, PCSX2 standalone for PS2, and Dolphin standalone for GameCube / Wii. But for PSP I just use the PPSSPP Retroarch core for simplicity since I’ve never had a problem with it. Then for newer systems, there just typically isn’t a Retroarch core available or it’s in beta or something, so I use the standalone emulators for those. I use Cemu for Wii U, Citra for 3DS, Ryujinx for Switch, Vita3K for PS Vita, RPCS3 for PS3, Xemu for Xbox, and Xenia for Xbox 360. So I guess whenever there is a Retroarch core available, I’ll give it a shot- but if I have any issues or want the extra features I’ll switch it to the standalone emulator if that makes sense. Again, thanks for watching and commenting and best of luck on your emulation journey- if you have any more questions, fire away!

[@cddude]

So what's an alternative to Launchbox that works on Mac?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question! I’ve heard of Pegasus and it looks nice, but I’ve never actually used it myself. Maybe time for a new video on it!

[@PerfectFin]

How do you use your controller on your phone? What device is that? Great vid, thanks!

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question! I’m using an Xbox Series controller connected to my iPhone with a controller clip from Amazon- here is the link if you’re curious which one exactly but there are plenty of options. I only bought this one because it was white to match my controller colour, I’m sure they are all nearly the same though: amzn.to/3UsyKx0

[@Fuchso]

Do you have any solutions to start the pc from far away?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question! My solution so far has been kind of 2 things. The first option I use is to turn off sleep mode on my gaming PC before I leave if I know I’ll be traveling. Past that, I have another computer on my network that I can access remotely even from sleep mode (Mac mini) and I run a Wake on LAN program on there so I can remote in, run WoL and type the local IP of my gaming PC and wake it up that way. I’m still looking for a more elegant solution, but so far this is the simplest I’ve thought up 😂 I hope this helps and thanks for watching!

[@Fuchso]

Thanks :)@@dylanmacintosh

[@DragónTest]

Hi, it is possible to make it work with Windows mmorpg games for example PAXDEI, very grateful I want to try.

[@dylanmacintosh]

I don’t see why not, especially if you own through Steam, paxdei should just load into launchbox with the rest of your Steam games if you have that configured. Otherwise if there are more hoops to jump through you can always use mouse emulation mode to click around the launcher until the game is fully running. For some games that have more going on with launchers and logins and pop ups, it’s sometimes easier for me to just launch a plain desktop setting and just click around outside of BigBox, but those games are very few and far between for me. Still just nice to have that option as a fallback.

[@DragónTest]

@@dylanmacintosh The truth is that I was already able to run it on Steam stream, it works well, the truth is I was very surprised, but it is much better to have purchased the game on Steam.

[@waterm3lonlover937]

Any 65" tv recommendations for this? I know that in the previous tutorials, my tv wasn't compatible with the software :( but I'm looking to buy new tv's right now so I want to make sure evyerthing is compatible...!

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question! You can always purchase a streaming device which supports the Moonlight app like a Google TV with Chromecast, or Apple TV, as well as Bluetooth controller support to work with any tv without relying on the built-in apps. BUT if you’re looking to forego the streaming device and connect direct to the TV and use built-in apps, you will need to make sure the TV you purchase has a Moonlight app available as well as Bluetooth controller support. If that is the case, then I would recommend finding a TV within your budget that utilizes Google TV built in- I don’t have one to test, but if I had to pick one for you to check out on a budget I would say the TCL 65” 6-Series with Google TV built in looks to be Bluetooth capable, and it will have the Moonlight app available in the built-in Google Store just like the standalone hdmi device Google TV with Chromecast. If you select a different tv with a different operating system such as lgOS or Samsung’s Tyzen OS, then you would need to side load the moonlight app, past making sure the tv itself has Bluetooth controller compatibility (some TVs even list Bluetooth compatibility but it’s only for headphones or speakers and not controllers). However it will be much simpler and greatly open your options if you select the TV that has the best picture for your budget, and then tack on the separate streaming device such as Google TV with ChromeCast or Apple TV afterwards, so I suppose that is my “official” recommendation. That way, you are guaranteed to have the picture you like at the budget you have with guaranteed Bluetooth controller compatibilty and the Moonlight app available. I hope this helps!

[@waterm3lonlover937]

@@dylanmacintosh wow, thanks for the amazingly detailed reply! =D

[@dshifty_]

Hey dude, thanks for the great video. I have setup Playnite instead of this one with Sunshine and Moonlight. While I can access the games normally and use the touch screen of my phone to navigaate the fullscreen mode of playnite, the inputs stop working as soon as im in the game (using Ryujinx emulator btw). The same thing happened to me when connecting a controller as well... I am not sure why I am losing all input once the ryujinx game is launched. Could you please help? Am I missing something?

[@jossanymoura2481]

I have the same problem. Did you solve it?

[@rorynolan2322]

My main gripe with using something like launchbox specifically for pc games is as you tend to download and delete pc games fairly regularly it just becomes extra hassle to keep launch box up to day with the games currently on your computer. For roms it works nicely though and have the pause screen options and a unified way of doing save states and things like that is handy.

[@dylanmacintosh]

I agree, downloading and deleting games is such a hassle! I have so many games now I just kind of assume none are going to be downloaded if I click on them, I know I will have to install it 9 times out of 10 🤣 that’s modern gaming for ya 🙃

[@rorynolan2322]

@@dylanmacintosh ye but in the old days you had to get up!! Then probably blow on a cartridge or turn your PS1 upsidedown lol. Tbh steam is so quick at downloading even the biggest of games are less then 10 mins so it's not a huge problem though I wish PCs could have console like functionality where they can be in a low powered state but still download games. Like on the PS5 I can be able work looking though all the games and pick any to buy and download them it's ready for when I get home. To do that on PC it has to be fully on

[@tjssack48]

Dylan - I am having an issue with my controller inputs being passed through from bigbox to yuzu. I am able to launch bigbox from my apple tv as well as launch a game, however, the inputs drop at that time from the gaming controller I am using. Any thoughts? I am at somewhat of a loss. Thank you, this has been extremely motivating and encouraging. I went out and bought a new PC specifically for this. It seems to be an issue with controller input from bigbox to ryujinx/yuzu while using moonlight.

[@dylanmacintosh]

First of all thanks for watching and great question! I have experienced a similar sounding issue with Ryujinx. Essentially, other emulators can pick up any device and assign it to “input 1” automatically on the virtual console, however Ryujinx does not. If you change input devices it will require you to go into the Ryujinx input settings and re-setup your controls. This is a double-edged sword as it conveniently locks in your assignments per device, but also frustratingly makes it more difficult to switch to different inputs. So, the way I fixed it while BigBox streaming was to launch moonlight on a streaming device, then launch BigBox like normal, and launch a Switch title so that Ryujinx is running. Then, once everything is running (though controls won’t work yet), walk physically over to your PC and use your keyboard and mouse to go into the Ryujinx input settings and manually re-setup your controller while it is still streaming through your client device. The device ID for the “streaming controller” will probably show up as a long string of random characters, but all you really need to see is that it is setting up as a different device rather than whatever was setup while you were just setting up on your PC itself before streaming. Please let me know if this sounds like your issue and if this helped you at all. And again of course thanks for watching and commenting!

[@tjssack48]

@@dylanmacintosh this worked! Thank you so much for this video as well as the others, you have truly opened my eyes to the possibilities!

[@dylanmacintosh]

Of course happy to help, and thank you for the kind words! Happy game streaming 🙌

[@thecozypainter]

Are you still using the Apple tv? Can it run moonlight and the launch box?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Yes! I’m still using my Apple TV every day as my main multimedia box- specifically it’s the first gen Apple TV 4K from 2017 and it hasn’t skipped a beat in all these 6 years. Moonlight is available right on the tvOS App Store and it works great!

[@davidmcgurty1691]

Can I use a cromecast on my TV to do this

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question, if you’re referring to the current model “Google TV with Chromecast” hdmi dongle thing then yes! I currently use that model to great success using the Moonlight app downloaded straight from the Google TV App Store, super easy, and has Bluetooth controller support throughout the entire interface at that- completely controllable with say, an Xbox one controller connected to the GTVwCC over Bluetooth. If you’re referring to casting your phone or something to a tv with built in Chromecast (not Google tv) then I’m not sure if that would work but even if it did I wouldn’t recommend it due to the lag involved with casting. Hope this helps!

[@seppy3272]

can you play steam games through launchbox?

[@dylanmacintosh]

But of course! You can import Steam games to launchbox / BigBox easily with the built-in importer tool that pops up when you first open launchbox, or from the menu options.

[@Rj39fj29wkr9]

Works with steam games as well?

[@dylanmacintosh]

It sure does.

[@omara2823]

This video was awesome but any idea why moonlight can’t stream when not in the local network? I can’t for the life of me figure it out

[@extremawesomazing]

For me, moonlight does stream outside my local network, but only if I leave the screen active on my host PC. I don't own a gaming rig, just a home laptop that I prefer to keep closed, but even without putting Windows in sleep mode, keeping the system awake constantly, Moonlight relies on the screen being active as well. There could be other reasons it won't work for you like there was for me at first, but this has been the hard limitation I've run into personally. I've yet to try a headless HDMI dongle to trick the graphics hardware in my laptop to remain active while the laptop is closed.

[@tcghunter9196]

2 questions some folks here or Dylan you may know. 1 - When running a game does it also mirror run on your desktop. I'm thinking for if I'm on my desktop playing something on steam, can the Mrs. then also play something hosted on my machine. Assuming you have the hardware to run both of course. 2 - Has anyone set this up for access outside of your network? Not really "needed" but would be pretty sweet.

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great questions! 1 - Yes, the host’s monitor will be showing the game as well as your remote device. So no- you can’t run two games simultaneously on the same PC unfortunately. 2 - Yes, when Sunshine is installed with the Windows Universal Installer, remote access is available, and it is awesome. I believe the latest Sunshine update has some Sunshine settings you might need to change before you get started for security reasons such as enabling UPnP if you don’t want to do the port forwarding yourself, but yes it’s all ready to go should you choose to enable it, nothing else needs to be installed other than Sunshine. All you need to do is pair your Moonlight client at least once on the local network, and then you will be able to connect remotely with that client thereafter. All remote connections are encrypted by default. You will either need to turn off sleep settings ahead of time, or have some other method of remotely turning on your host PC. I hope this helps!

[@ThePerfectBalls]

Edit: Resolved. I “Forget” the WiFi network on both pc and steam deck then readded it back. Need help troubleshooting… Upgraded to windows 11 and now my steam deck isn’t seeing my pc. Added nvidia GeForce to firewall, tried to disable firewall. Uninstall/reinstall both sunshine and moonshine on pc and deck. Tried to manually enter ip address. Verified they’re both on the same network. Tried wired with WiFi connection and just WiFi connection. Steamlink immediately sees my pc/deck and works fine but moonlight doesn’t see my pc. Only an issue since upgrading to win 11. Any ideas?

[@dylanmacintosh]

That’s a great question, I’ve only had similar problems with Sunshine once in the past, and it was solved by resetting my network settings on my Windows 11 host PC as described here: m.majorgeeks.com/content/page/how_to_reset_network_settings_in_windows_10.html I believe what you are referring to as the GeForce in the firewall is not necessary but couldn’t hurt. Next, I don’t think you are doing this, but just a note for everyone, if you are using Sunshine, you should *not* have Nvidia Gamestream enabled in the Nvidia Experience, the Nvidia Gamestream options should be turned off in the Nvidia Experience software since you are using Sunshine “instead”. I think if you have Gamestream enabled and open Sunshine there is a pop up box telling you to turn off Nvidia Gamestream before you can use Sunshine. And finally, it could be an issue on your router. Sometimes when upgrading from Windows 10 to 11, the router sees the PC as the “same name” but as two separate devices, so they overlap. I’ve had this happen to me and it’s very annoying, but you can try simply renaming your Windows 11 PC to anything else like “My PC2”, you can try turning OFF IPv6 on your adapter settings on your Windows PC, or if you are able to you can completely reset your router to default settings and set it up “fresh”, but set it to the same wifi SSID and password (so that all your devices simply reconnect once the router is back online). I hope these troubleshooting steps help you, if not please let me know how it went and I’d be happy to provide further troubleshooting tips. P.S. I’m compiling the most common issues for a dedicated troubleshooting video to help more people. And of course thanks for watching! 🙏

[@ThePerfectBalls]

@@dylanmacintosh Appreciate your in-depth response and your channel has a lot of potential. hope to see it grow. subbed.

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thank you for your kind words and for doing “the KZbin things” to help out the channel!

[@east99thst]

What theme is this on big box it looks great!

[@dylanmacintosh]

COLORFUL - DARK ! It’s my favorite I’ve seen by far. 😎

[@east99thst]

I love it! I’m currently setting this up and gonna use that theme. I have a jailbroken Nintendo switch running android on it and I set up moonlight and remote play for my ps5 and series x on it. Gonna test it all out also on Apple TV in my room!

[@dylanmacintosh]

Amazing! The possibilities are endless!!@@east99thst

[@tharealmb]

My biggest issue with PC gaming and streaming with moonlight is the constant issue with Launchers getting in the way of playing a game. The amount of times i have to log in again is very annoying, with multi factor authentication and stuff it's just very difficult to use.

[@dylanmacintosh]

Ugh I know it’s such a pain. If you’re sitting at the computer it’s easy enough to click around the pop ups and type in the logins but on my phone it’s terrible… I suppose I’m glad I can navigate around it at all on my phone, but yeah it’s one of my least favorite things to do while game streaming for sure. 🙃

[@soiltek2015]

Great video!

[@dylanmacintosh]

Well thank you! I appreciate the kind words.

[@antoninog692]

hi friend I'm writing to you from Italy because no one talks about this fantastic moonlight/sunshine... I apologize in advance for this English but I'm using Google Translate... For now I'm using Playnite to start games but now I have a big favor to ask you how can I enable HDR in games without having hdr monitors? I have a 4k HDR TV

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thanks for commenting and great question! I haven’t done this myself but it sounds like you’re looking for a “dummy display plug” I’m not sure if that’s the official term, but if you search for something like that I think you’ll see what I mean. Most of them don’t support HDR but this reddit post describes a dummy plug brand that has extra functionality of “cloning” any display you can plug it into in order to trick your PC into thinking that the display you cloned is plugged into your PC, allowing you to have HDR over gamestream if you clone an HDR display: reddit.com/r/ShieldAndroidTV/s/bbAxrNa7Nx I hope that makes sense and now I kind of want to try it too!

[@ptiter08]

Can you provide name of your controller, please?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Sure, the controller attached to my phone in this video is the Xbox Series Controller, with an iPhone clip from Amazon amzn.to/4cojmYZ I swapped the faceplates on my Pulse Red Xbox controller with my Robot White Xbox controller to get the custom white / red button look for this particular controller.

[@TheNarutokun85]

this or batocera?

[@koolkiwikat]

thank you for sharing the love, excellent tutorial

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thank you for the kind words!

[@cedricknapp2889]

Just wanted to say, I love your attention to detail. You answer the types of questions that come up, rather than just showing a high level setup. Question for you... Would a viable alternative be using steam link + xbox game streaming app directly on a tv if you're not planning on doing game emulation?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Thank you for the kind words! The short answer is yes- if you’re not including emulated games then those apps will work great! Just using Steam Link is where I started, and if all I had was steam games, I could’ve just stopped right there, done deal, easy peasy. Same for Xbox, if that’s all you need to play then boom- you’re done! That’s what I love about those platforms, they make it very easy to just get playing. So, of course if that’s all you want to play then no need to worry yourself about looking further. Hope this helps!

[@nelsonmesa6785]

Man I’ve been trying to do this all day to no avail. And only have steam games loaded but I try to boot up a game like Divinity Original Sin 2 and Bigbox freaks out. The controller inputs change and now I’m sad I spent the $30 having a miserable experience

[@dylanmacintosh]

Sorry to hear that you're having this issue! The controller inputs being passed through easily is one of the primary reasons I switched over to BigBox, so I'm honestly surprised to hear this. So, when you load up BigBox on your PC itself (without attempting any game streaming), does everything function as you'd expect? It's only once you start game streaming over Moonlight/Sunshine that it freaks out, is that correct?

[@nelsonmesa6785]

I’m using a DualShock 4, getting two 8Bitdo Pro 2s this week to test those out. I’m also using Moonlight on Apple TV and also Nightly Build of Sunshine (people said it had better latency), two wired connections to PC and Apple TV and pairing controller to Apple TV. On PC it works fine just loads slow but once streaming it all goes downhill. I was very excited since I sold my PS5 and OLED switch to have one central hub. I might just get a steam deck and call it a day depending on next few days

[@dylanmacintosh]

Gotcha, that all sounds good- so once you're streaming what is freaking out and going down hill? Just the controls? Or something graphical you're seeing on screen?@@nelsonmesa6785

[@nelsonmesa6785]

@@dylanmacintoshyeah it will either not launch BigBox, or when it does launch controller won’t work well. I’m considering going back to regular sunshine build and using BigBox more for Emulation. The main issue I had with steam big picture Mode was the latency on my controller. It was minor but enough for it to drive a seasoned Souls/Hollow Knight player made lol I am also completely new to the emulation/streaming space moving away from traditional consoles

[@dylanmacintosh]

Okay gotcha- yeah there's definitely a lot of moving parts when you're diving into game streaming and emulation at the same time- it's easy to feel disheartened or discouraged but the payoff is truly great. It took me months to sort it all out for myself, which is why I started making these videos. So when you launch a Steam game from BigBox, it naturally launches Steam itself, usually just running in the background. And the biggest issue with this is that Steam has its own ideas of how inputs should be handled, called Controller Configurations which you may or may not be familiar with. The point being you may need to open those up in your Steam settings and change the configuration- for me, I had to open up the "Desktop Configuration" and change the controls to be like, a regular games controllers so to speak, rather than the default which is like for navigating a menu and such. So give that a look, but also when I've had problems in the past it was because I had some other controller mapping softwares installed from my previous battles with game streaming. So if you've installed anything like a Joy2Key or ReWASD in the past, it's best to just uninstall any of that to make sure they aren't conflicting. The only thing you need is the ViGEmBus which installs by default if you used the Sunshine for Windows Installer (and didn't decline it thinking it was bloatware like I did the first time I installed Sunshine lol), but one time I did have an issue with it and reinstalling just the ViGEmBus was able to fix that, so give that a shot as well just in case: github.com/nefarius/ViGEmBus/releases I'm really thinking we can work together to come up with a solution for you. If you want more synchronous communication with me, feel free to DM me on Instagram or Threads (deleted Twitter/ X) or whatever you've got and we can come back and post the solution on these comments for others to see. @nelsonmesa6785

[@duppy9012]

My desktop is not showing up on moonlight... its really annoying

[@dylanmacintosh]

I hear ya, are you referring to the initial pairing process? This has happened to me before, and if Moonlight can’t “auto-find” your desktop then you can manually add your PC to Moonlight via your desktop’s IP address, given that both of your devices are on the same network. Otherwise, once your Moonlight client is paired to your Sunshine host whether via auto-find or manual it should show up every time after that initial pairing. I hope this helps!

[@duppy9012]

Yeah ive tried that aswell just says "unable to connect to specified PC" its a real headache, ive gone through the fixes on the website and nothing works@@dylanmacintosh

[@dylanmacintosh]

Hmmm it sounds like a network issue, do you have your own network or are you by chance using one provided to you like from an apartment complex or school?

[@duppy9012]

Have my own, its weird ive tried troubleshooting it, i can ping both ways so theres definitely connectivity.@@dylanmacintosh

[@PrinXeP1]

can i wake my pc from my device?

[@dylanmacintosh]

Yes, the Moonlight client has Wake on LAN ability 😎

[@TboneDuggins]

$30 one time it's more like $30 for 1 year and $15 per year after that if you want updates and future support

[@BigFourHead]

why not EmulationStation

[@dylanmacintosh]

Great question! I’d heard of EmulationStation before but never actually used it, so I’ll definitely have to give it a go!

[@TCAuno]

Nah I can’t wait to go home and do this now!!!

[@dylanmacintosh]

Now that’s the excitement I’m looking for!!

[@ScorpionF1RE_USA]

Yeah but nah, the new Steam Deck has a gorgeous 90hz, 7.4" OLED screen, has steam controller 2.0 (built-in), and its awesome)), can be taken on the go, save/load states, instant resume from sleep, no windows crud, no launchbox needed, great speakers, great wifi, and can stream sun/moon beautifully. and list goes on... I play AAs, emulators, and indies on deck, and stream AAAs. Deck OLED is sickkkk brother.

[@dylanmacintosh]

True! Steam Deck OLED looks dope af... especially the limited edition with the transparent shell 👀 Great news is I’m really stoked to say there’s so many great options these days. We’re really spoilt for choice! I think I might get a Steam Deck / ROG Ally, one of those anyways just because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@33go0se]

Big box won't load for me when I put the path in the right place

[@hypnotize107]

Hallo Bruder 🇩🇪🫡 Your videos have stopped me from buying the ROG Ally or the Logitech G Cloud, thank you! I will try to use my iPhone 11 Pro Max + matching controller (The Backbone accessory or rather Xbox controller with the attachment you use in your videos?). I have questions: How can I avoid having to turn on the PC first and log in to Windows? And how can I turn off my monitor and stream at the same time? keep up these videos, they are great!

[@dylanmacintosh]

Well firstly I am glad to have saved you some money! Secondly, I would certainly recommend the Xbox controller with phone clip over a clamp-style controller. And thirdly for your questions. To avoid turning on the PC, first I change the Windows sleep settings to turn the screen off after a few minutes, but leave the "When plugged in, put my device to sleep after" setting to "Never". If you would like to leave your monitor off or even unplugged to save power while you are streaming, I would recommend a 'dummy adapter'. You can plug the dummy adapter whether it is DisplayPort or HDMI into your graphics card and leave it in there. Your PC will think a monitor is connected so you can still stream, but you won't need to leave your monitor on for fear of power consumption or burn-in. You can set the monitor to 'duplicate' your display in the Windows display settings, so no matter if you are sitting physically at the computer, or turn it off or unplug it and leave to start game streaming it will show the same screen anyways. I hope this helps and of course if you have any more questions please let me know!

[@hypnotize107]

@@dylanmacintosh thank you very much, ill try that !