Moonlight Game Streaming Reviews

by AquariusBat

I just wanted to play games (from Steam) more comfortably than just sitting up at my laptop for hours; which will just make my back sore.

After hearing so much praise for MoonlightGameStreaming, I thought I finally found an app that’ll would actually work and stream from my laptop (which has my games) to my phone. Of course it wouldn’t work because it’s only designed for people who have this graphics card or whatever…thanks for nothing and getting my hopes up I guess…

App opens up and basically doesn’t do anything…

by Alfredopoohead

Games run really well while streaming on my iPhone. However, the stream is interrupted every 10 to 15 min or so with a “slow connection issue” and it sours my experience. In fact I have opted not to use MoonlightGameStreaming until this is fixed.

I have another device that I use to run Moonlight on and all runs perfectly…and it’s a hacked nintendo switch (which is a port program) I run both my phone and switch on the same network and my switch beats out my phone every single time in the area of stream stability. Leads me to conclude that there is either something in MoonlightGameStreaming or something about IOS devices that needs to be re-evaluated.

I’ve tried disabling my Bluetooth and location services on my iPhone to help but it doesn’t seem to work.

Please advise or fix :)

It’s a Great App!!! I just wish these problems were resolved.

by Cabalex4

This is an awesome app for when you don’t feel like getting out of bed to play some PC games, but it could be better. For instance, the controls are very restricted. It’s either NO controls (you move your finger around to move the cursor), SIMPLE controls (just 6 buttons, in the RB LB configuration, seen on the top of controllers, plus two other buttons), and FULL controls (freaking PS D pad, shoulder buttons and bumpers, TWO thumb sticks, an XYAB button configuration, and start/select near the bottom edges). In my opinion, it’s either not enough or WAY TOO MUCH, as in a lot of cases only need two thumb sticks, XYAB, and start/select (ok, maybe the bumpers and shoulder buttons). The rest is just covered up screen space. Please add an option to set custom button layouts and sizes, and to choose what buttons you need. It would greatly increase the usefulness of MoonlightGameStreaming. Other than that, that’s pretty much the only complaint I have. It’s responsive, but I probably wouldn’t use it for FPSes, and tweakable bitrates from 0.5 mbps to 50 mbps (default 10 on 720p, 20 on 1080p), and framerates either 30 Hz or 60 Hz. I would recommend 20 Mbps at 1080p 60Hz, but you could go for a lower setting. Overall pretty OK app, let down by the controls.

By the way, it works pretty well on my laptop:
Inspiron 15 i5577
i5 7th gen 3500hq
GTX 1050
8 GB ram
2.4 GHz 20 MBPS down / 5 MBPS up
Although you probably want 5 GHz.

by Zaronx

First, MoonlightGameStreaming is so simple to use, if you have nvidia gamestream and are connected on the same network, it works seamlessly, also happy that they’ve included a lot of windows functions like a keyboard, right click functionality, scrolling, dragging, I basically dont even have to turn on my monitor to unlock my pc and get to gaming. Only thing I would like to see now is support on iOS for 120hz and maybe a 1440p resolution, 1080p looks fine but I usually stream a tad higher, and 4k looks sharper but it takes too much bandwidth when I’m not even displaying 4k on my games.

by AzteKEmperador

Love MoonlightGameStreaming so far but by this point I feel like things such as custom controller configuration support and an option for changing resolutions, etc should be there. All in all good though, my preferred app for streaming games.

by MatthewGand

I appreciate the hard work for this open source free app, but bugs appear here and there. I believe the worst feature of MoonlightGameStreaming is the navigation, mouse feature is terrible and right clicking turns into scrolling? Very confusing. The keyboard is missing a ton of features (tab, function keys, etc.), and it gets very tedious when getting in the way of windows. (PS Windows 10 has Tablet mode embrace the feature?)

by Mac Addict 42

I LOVE MoonlightGameStreaming, I use it on my MacBook, iPad and iPhone to stream games from my PC when I travel. Works perfectly for slow paced point and click RPG’s and the like.

BUT I can’t use it for certain games like Disco Elysium that don’t have controller support, unless I use my laptop as I have no way of hitting Esc to access the menu and save.

PLEASE add common PC button control options for Esc, Tab, function keys, etc. This would make it perfection!

by ChuckoMay

They added keyboard support! Also (as crazy as this may sound, it works): I am able to stream my Xbox to my PC locally then my PC to my tablet over WAN. I can now play my Xbox anywhere with minimal delay. Great for single player games like RedDead, or survival games with you buddy’s like ARK and Conan (my friends don't have a PC).

Overall, MoonlightGameStreaming is the best. Updates have been filling in any small blanks. Keyboard support is amazing.

by Jeffy777

MoonlightGameStreaming is truly incredible. If you get lag, go to your ios settings turn off Location Services and Background App Refresh.

I was getting some stutter, but now that I’ve made those changes It’s now smooth as butter on my local 5Ghz wi-fi.

by DaAngryAnt

To be totally honest. I’ve never had any issues with MoonlightGameStreaming . Just wish it had a way to make it full screen on the iPhone 11. I don’t care about the notch being in the way. Just seem like a waste of screen. Other than that, no complaints here.

by Lollichop

It works well and is pretty easy to set up. Writing this review to ask you guys to please make the touch controls more customizable. I would pay for an upgraded version with customizable controls. Like removing and rearranging buttons and tap for mouse control. But other than that it works great.

by AJBats01

MoonlightGameStreaming’s recent update finally made it seriously usable as a desktop gaming streaming option for ios. They added keyboard support! MFI controllers may not have L3 and R3, but you can limp by with their “auto” on screen L3/R3 buttons. Overall I’m very pleased with the performance and low latency of this streaming app.

by OrangeQuill

Honestly, was a pain to get it working, but only because the computer I’m streaming from is on a school network. Thing is, now that it’s set up it works real near perfect as long as I’m on a half decent Wifi.

Supports my PS4 controller perfectly and lets me comfortably play games from my X with no stuttering. I’m definitely a fan of playing Monster Hunter on my breaks at work instead of milling about on my phone.

by Cadelover91

My kids, particularly my youngest, are awful sleepers and need near constant help, so when bed time rolls around I’m often stuck in bed cuddling/holding one of them. I can’t play on my PC anymore. MoonlightGameStreaming changed that. Bought a Rotor Riot controller, Bluetooth headphones and I now have PC gaming in my hands from bed. The streaming quality is amazing! It even uses the iPhone’s OLED capabilities so the display quality is also amazing. Thank you Moonlight!!! Thank you for giving gaming back to me 😭

by Raygan

This is easily the best way to stream your PC’s screen to iOS, for gaming or nearly any other purpose. The latency is noticeably lower than any other option, and it handles game controllers, mice, and keyboards as expected. The Apple TV app is particularly nice if you have a gaming pc in a different room from your TV and want to extend your games to a new location. If you have any issues make sure to check their website or join the Discord, where solutions are available for many common problems.

Thank you for your work on MoonlightGameStreaming, and for keeping it free and open source!

by 116567477

Being able to put the screen resolution as custom completely changed the phone experience. Please add the ability for the phone to respond to controller vibrations! I’m using the game sir x2 which doesn’t have vibrate but I’d love to still get some feedback from the iPhone itself. Beyond that being the 7.1 surround support to the iPhone too that is on the Apple TV since the newer iPhones have Dolby atmos virtualized. Lastly please check ps5 controllers for iOS and Apple TV. They change the status light from blue to orange which is super sad. On Apple TV it is orange until you start an Apple Arcade game but with moonlight it just stays ugly orange.

by Nick Kids Shahs

I love MoonlightGameStreaming, allows me to play 1080p 120fps on iPad with little input lag, it the best quality and input lag compared to other streaming services in my experience. The UI is decent, I like the settings slider and it seems additional settings have been popping up with some updates. It works almost flawlessly with both the host and client on WiFi (same network) for me. Cheers to the development team and looking forward to any future updates. I have yet to try using a wireless mouse and keyboard, I use an Xbox one controller, so I can’t comment on this aspect yet. You can press 3 fingers on the screen to bring up the keyboard (on iPad at least) and do basic keystrokes and stuff which I’ve been using to chat in games.

by Krulas88

Five star rating explained: I have used MoonlightGameStreaming for literally years. It is incredible and lightweight. In short it does what you would expect and allows for a seamless remote access experience.

MoonlightGameStreaming used to work perfectly over the public internet. Sadly this is no longer the case and it is not the fault of the developer. Apple has modified their App Store terms that make it impossible to both allow access over the internet and to be on MoonlightGameStreaming Store. The developer has made the choice to remove what for me was the core reason to use MoonlightGameStreaming. I do not feel the developer should be penalized with a poor rating for Apple’s choice to limit my use of my device through their App Store limitations.

by MaximusRanger

I don’t even have a Nvidia graphics card and successfully got this to work on AMD GPU using a program called sunshine on the host PC just because this is the first free app to add the new point lock mouse support. I had to go out and buy a lighting to camera adapter (it’s just a USB port) to use the new mouse API since it’s only on certain Apple mouses for now as of writing this review. Apple should address this issue in a minor update to iPad hopefully soon so that all Bluetooth mouses can run the new GameCube mouse support in iPadOS 14. The adapter fixed the problem if the new mouse mode isn’t working for you. Any Apple adapter that has a USB should work. It has the new mouse feature needed for point lock to work for example playing first person shooters.

by Alexaiezza

The bugs and crappy design decisions of MoonlightGameStreaming have finally been phased out. This team did a great job at listening to its users and have finally delivered an excellent, flexible app that is worthy of some serious praise.

They’ve gripped a technology that is still very new and done an incredible job delivering it users in an intuitive way that I frankly cannot get enough of!

I hope and pray that continue keeping an ear out for their users as they continue rolling out features.

I’ll say it right now, I would easily have paid for MoonlightGameStreaming and should it ever become a paid app, I am finally able to say I would gladly support this team.

Thank you guys! Seriously, there are not enough people like you in the tech industry.

by Gravity Hits

Would prob be perfect app if you could adjust the on screen controls more. Mainly just being able to move and or resize L3 R3 start select buttons or just have the disappear when screen is not touched