I've had the best luck with Moonlight (OSS client) and Sunshine (OSS server replacement for GeForce Experience's "GameStream") -- very minimal latency (almost completely undetectable) from my RTX 3090 PC to my Nvidia Shield.
If your server is Linux and you have an NVIDIA card, I would also recommend applying the NVFBC consumer card restriction removal patch[1] to your driver libraries to allow you to capture directly from the GPU rather than X11/Wayland. Sunshine will automatically detect this and use it and it reduces the latency even further.
Following up here - Moonlight/Sunshine is the best remoting experience by far on a local network. Windows to Windows is virtually transparent, supported via almost all GPUs, and lagless. Linux to Windows is slightly harder to set up (The NVidia host has been the lowest-latency for me, but you really do need the NVidia driver patches).
Moonlight and Sunshine is great, but I couldn't figure out how to get HDR working on the Nvidia Shield- perhaps changing the Sunshine codec settings from the default was needed- I didn't bother fiddling with it.
I switched to using my Steam Deck. Moonlight on a docked Steam Deck with Sunshine works perfectly with HDR on an Ethernet connection. The Steam Deck should also have better controller support than the Nvidia Shield- I've been using the official Xbox wireless adapter, there's a community supported driver to use it with the Steam Deck- a video on Youtube says how to get it working.
This is my current setup as well. While on the subject of Raspberry Pi 5, if you are using RPi5 with Raspbian as a Moonlight client and want to capture window manager shortcuts like `alt+tab` but unable to do so, Wayland is the problem. I'm trying to put this knowledge out their in the hopes of a search engine indexing it.
A few months ago I found out my FireTV enabled smart TV supports Steam Link. I had to sideload the APK, but once it was installed the game streaming worked great at 1080p.
You can get a surprising amount of hardware to work as a game streaming frontend if your internet is fast enough. Moonlight-Switch is also interesting if you've got a jailbroken Switch sitting around like I do:
What Pi 5 is good for? It doesn't look like a portable because of high power consumption, nor it's a desktop class system because of its weak compute and high price. Pi 3 or 4 is still a better choice for almost anything including retro gaming and Linux education.
Pi 5 is still good if you want a modern, supported device to run Linux and any Linux-y things with either a small quiet fan or a passive heatsink/case. 3D Printer control, retro gaming with more grunt than Pi 4, small 'micro' server, etc.
It's in a middle ground between Pi 4 (which is cheaper and can idle a tiny bit little lower) and N100 (which is nominally more expensive—varies greatly by region, but is faster with better IO and more compatibility, though integrating with GPIO-related stuff is more annoying). The CM5 makes more sense for a lot of use-case specific purchases though, like I upgraded my Home Assistant Yellow from CM4 to CM5 and the performance difference is noticeable.
Other manufacturers make much faster (and more efficient, though similarly-priced, accounting for performance) SBCs now, but the support side (e.g. I download an image and it runs 2, 3, 5, or 10 years from now) is much worse, unless you're used to hacking on Linux kernels and following device-specific forums to resolve your issues.
N100 is not more expensive. It’s about the same price.
8GB pi5 is $80
Power brick around $15
Decent cooled case $20
Heat sink $8
SD $15-20
And this is all excluding NVMe hat with NVMe drive, ie you’re stuck with absolutely miserable storage I/O.
Or you can N100, 8GB (replaceable and expandable RAM, 256GB NVMe (also replaceable) for $140.
Pi5 does not make any sense in this day and age, unless you specifically need GPIO for your tinkering.
You can save $30 by going with the 2GB pi5 option but that seems the wrong direction to go.
N100 is more than 50% better performance with similar or lower cost and better support for off the shelf ram and ssd.
I think GPs point is if you need more horsepower you might as well get a used small form factor, and if you care about the GPIO and other interfaces you might as well get a PI 3 or 4. I get what you're saying it's a computer it could do all sorts of stuff.
I think the stronger argument/usecase is it's a drop-in replacement for the pi4. So if you're already dedicated to that form factor...
For anyone building a little homelab or whatever, especially in the US where triple the (low) power consumption from 3 to 9W+ isn't a big deal, a used SFF/mini PC is a better value proposition. Especially if you want to add storage, 2.5 Gbps networking, etc.
But for people integrating a computer into a larger project (robotics, automation, controls, etc.), or buying a little 'IoT' device to tinker with, buying used gear that is often much larger and usually requires a large external power brick might be a turn-off.
The high power draw didn't turn out to be that much of an obstacle in the end. A strong enough step down regulator with a USB-C decoy board and it runs fine off any decent battery.
I was sceptical at first too, but in the end the Pi 4 now feels like the Pi 3B+ felt against the Pi 4 (and that was just a 30% perf boost, this is 3x). I.e. just hopelessly slow in comparison, and the few I've got will be relegated only to the least demanding projects. The Pi 5 is now the standard Pi.
It idles down to 2.7w. Obviously it's not a desktop class system still, even when consuming its max rated power draw. But it idles low enough to be a fantastic little local server for simple applications.
Low power consumption and good Linux support makes it a good home server for your OCI containers. Would also be a capable surf machine to complement my power hungry desktop machine.
I have a Steam Link and a Chromecast with Link installed, and neither of them works. Whenever I launch Link, the sound will come through, but the video just stays stuck on the splash screen. It's a pity, Steam is great otherwise.
Have you verified that this is a client side issue by using another client? (ie the one built into your phone).
I’ve seen this happen to me, and a combination of plugging in a dummy HDMI dongle into the GPU, toggling on/off nvidia nvfbenc (hope I’m spelling this right) fixed it for me.
I have the same problem, whether using a Chromecast or a Samsung Galaxy S10 Ultra as a client.
I got as far as "It looks like it is using software encoding and it should be doing nvenc or something, but it Works Fine for everyone else so nobody ever writes about how any of this shit actually fucking works so troubleshooting it is more effort than it is worth."
And it isn't clear to me -- at all -- how plugging in a dongle that acts like a monitor is going to help anything at all.
I already have three fucking monitors plugged in. All different shapes. A fourth one cannot help.
It can help with other solutions like Sunshine/Moonlight because a EDID plug advertises all the possible resolutions and refresh rate combinations under the sun so that it can be configured by the stream server to match the remote client display. Your attached monitor(s) may not support the same resolution/refresh rate as whatever client you are trying to stream to. Needing hardware for this is likely because of the graphics stack and virtualization restrictions of your graphics card if it isn't an enterprise one. Otherwise they could just use a virtual display buffer that isn't output on any screen.
All that said, I don't think steam link does this automatically, but there are probably tools that have been made for switching your main display to the dongle and setting the correct resolution for it when you initiate a streaming connection. At least I know there are helper ones for Sunshine so I am assuming it is true for Steam Link as well.
Not that this would fix an encoding issue if that is your problem.
What’s the current top choice if I want to occasionally with low friction play games, but don’t want to actually be running the game myself (seems like for this you still use your PC). I have symmetric fios 1Gbs, and want to play either on Macbook, or on tv connected to appletv/firetv stick.
Would GeForceNow be the best, or any other better options?
Why not try them all and settle with what works for you? I've used Game Pass Cloud a couple of times to try out a game before I commit to downloading it to my xbox, but I cant comment on whether its better or worse than the others.
Xbox Game Pass is awesome, assuming you're happy with that and not PC games specifically. It's pretty seamless and performs well and they support heaps of devices. Plus it has Halo which automatically makes it the best one.
There is GeForce Now, Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Amazon Luna. Those are the most prominent services (if not the only ones, but I'm not sure about that)
I tried the GeForce one last year and it was unplayable, and I have gigabit internet. I’m just not sure streaming will ever be viable, meanwhile running things locally becomes increasingly easy.
Surely your proximity to the nearest GFN PoP is more important than your connection speed? Gigabit isn't going to help if the bits need to take a >100ms roundtrip.
Huh i never realised that Steam link was also for 2D. Thought it was VR streaming only. I mostly game in VR so I guess I'm a bit too focused on that with the news
Yeah, it actually started out as a hardware device. You'd buy a small box with an HDMI port to connect your PC to your TV. It wasn't terribly successful, but it did work well, if on wired LAN.
