The Tool Desk
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A practical starting configuration
Begin with settings the entire streaming pipeline can sustain: the PC must render and encode the game, the network must carry the stream consistently, and the Android device must decode and present it. A high-capacity internet or LAN connection does not guarantee that a phone’s video decoder can handle an extreme bitrate.
- Resolution: Use the Android display’s native resolution or a lower supported option. Higher resolution increases host and client work.
- Frame rate: Choose a rate the game PC can sustain consistently and the Android device can decode. Do not assume that 90 or 120 FPS is automatically better.
- Host encoder: In Sunshine, leave encoder selection at its default unless you find a measured compatibility or performance problem. Use a supported hardware encoder where available.
- Moonlight frame pacing: Start with Balanced if delivery or presentation looks uneven. Compare Prefer lowest latency on a stable connection when responsiveness is the priority.
- Bitrate: Increase gradually only while network latency variance and network-dropped frames remain low.
This is a baseline for tuning, not a universal preset. Record the overlay readings and change only one variable per comparison so you can tell what helped.
Which Moonlight Android frame-pacing mode should you use?
The modes trade immediate presentation against smooth, regular frame delivery. Moonlight’s FAQ describes the following behaviors:
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| Mode | How it presents frames | When to compare it |
|---|---|---|
| Prefer lowest latency | Renders a frame immediately after decode, dropping the previous frame if it has not been displayed; keeps display refresh as high as possible. | Try it when the connection is stable and responsiveness matters more than perfectly even presentation. Jitter or irregular delivery may be more visible. |
| Balanced | Uses Android’s Choreographer frame callback and can buffer up to one frame to smooth network jitter and host/client V-sync drift. | Try it when motion looks uneven or the network has some jitter. The added buffering can make delivery feel steadier, though it may be less immediately responsive. |
| Balanced with FPS limit | Caps FPS at display refresh minus one and never drops frames; if stream FPS exceeds display refresh, it behaves as Balanced. | Compare it when matching delivery to display refresh is useful. Moonlight notes variable-refresh-rate devices may have issues because display refresh can fluctuate. |
| Prefer smoothest video | Never drops frames, including when stream frame rate is equal to or higher than display refresh. | Use it when avoiding dropped frames matters more than responsiveness; retaining frames can trade responsiveness for smoothness. |
Do not judge modes by their labels alone. Try the same game scene and stream settings in each relevant mode, and choose the behavior that works best on your device and connection.
How to read Moonlight’s performance overlay
Enable the on-screen performance statistics in Moonlight Android and watch the metrics while playing or moving through a repeatable scene. They reveal useful parts of the stream pipeline, not total input-to-display delay. Moonlight explains these measures in its FAQ.
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| Metric | What it indicates | What to try if it is high or erratic |
|---|---|---|
| Network latency | A client-host-client packet round trip representing input sent to the host and resulting audio/video returning. It can rise with distance or when bitrate exceeds what the connection handles; cellular networks tend to have higher network latency than traditional internet connections. | Reduce bitrate if the path is overloaded, or use a more stable connection. Geographic distance can also affect the result. |
| Network latency variance | Packet-to-packet variation, or jitter. High or erratic variance points to an inconsistent path. | Lower bitrate or stabilize the connection before increasing bitrate for image quality. |
| Decode latency | Average time the Android device takes to decode a frame and ready it for rendering. It varies with client hardware, bitrate, FPS, and resolution. | Try a lower resolution, bitrate, or frame rate if the device is struggling. Moonlight notes that raising the stream to 90 or 120 FPS may reduce decode latency on some devices, but that is not guaranteed and increases host and client demands. |
| Frame-queue latency | Time decoded frames wait to render, often because the previous frame is rendering or waiting for V-sync. | Check synchronization and presentation behavior. Moonlight says it should generally stay below one frame interval: 16 ms at 60 FPS. |
| Render latency | Time to present the frame; with V-sync, it typically includes a V-sync period. Moonlight gives 16 ms at a 60 Hz display as an example. | Compare pacing modes and consider display refresh and client rendering load. |
| Network-dropped frames | Frames lost in network delivery. Elevated counts can indicate an unreliable path, such as 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi or powerline networking, or a bitrate the path cannot support. | Reduce bitrate and test a more consistent path; these counts should generally remain near zero. |
| Jitter drops | Frames that arrive too early or too late relative to presentation. | Compare Balanced pacing and investigate network variance or presentation timing. |
Use the metrics as diagnostic clues, not as a complete end-to-end latency measurement. Client platforms expose different subsets, figures are not directly comparable across unrelated clients, and compositor, display, and input-device delay may not be measured. External measurement hardware is needed for the most accurate end-to-end result.
Tune bitrate and network stability together
Raise bitrate only while network variance and network-dropped frames stay low. If either worsens, lower bitrate or improve path consistency; extra image quality is not useful if delivery becomes erratic. Raw bandwidth speed tests alone do not predict stream quality. Sunshine’s troubleshooting documentation emphasizes low latency, low variance, and minimal packet loss over pure bandwidth.
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For a deeper check, Sunshine suggests testing a UDP stream with iPerf3 for 60 seconds from the Sunshine host toward the client and observing jitter and packet loss. Its stated ideal test output is below 1 ms jitter and under 5% packet loss. These are troubleshooting targets, not a guarantee of smooth gameplay or imperceptible latency. The same guidance suggests PingMaster as an Android troubleshooting tool.
Sunshine also explains why a fast link can still struggle: a 60 FPS stream may emit video packets in bursts every 16 ms. A slower segment can fill its buffers and drop packets even if another segment has a faster link rate. Its documentation says versions after 0.23.1 include improved networking code intended to alleviate this condition. Advanced NIC-rate or traffic-shaping changes should be based on version-specific guidance, not treated as baseline tuning.
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If both devices support it, a wired Ethernet connection is a useful comparison against Wi-Fi, not a guaranteed improvement over a clean wireless path. An Ethernet cable or USB-C Ethernet adapter may help isolate a wireless-path problem; neither is required for every setup.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Choose host encoding without adding avoidable delay
Sunshine documents NVIDIA NVENC, Intel Quick Sync, AMD VCE, VA-API for AMD or Intel, and CPU software encoding. Hardware availability and suitability depend on the host. Check observed encode performance rather than assuming software or hardware encoding is always faster.
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For NVENC, Sunshine’s configuration documentation describes P1 as the fastest preset and P7 as the slowest: higher preset numbers improve compression at a given bitrate but add encoding latency. Sunshine recommends changing the preset mainly when network or decoder limits are the problem; a similar quality effect may be achieved by raising bitrate. A slower preset is therefore not a latency optimization.
Sunshine’s max_bitrate setting is the maximum encode bitrate; zero means Sunshine uses the bitrate requested by Moonlight. Its minimum_fps_target setting controls the lowest effective frame rate during static or low-frame-rate content because some clients expect a constant video stream. Sunshine uses variable-frame-rate encoding that matches content updates, up to Moonlight’s configured maximum, so a low FPS reading on a static desktop is not by itself evidence that gameplay is slow.
Treat codec choice as device-specific
Sunshine can advertise HEVC and AV1 profiles based on encoder capabilities, but software encoding with these codecs may be more CPU-intensive. The available documentation does not establish one codec as the lowest-latency choice across Android devices. Compare only codec options supported by both host and Android hardware decoding, and use the overlay to see whether the change affects decode or network behavior. Avoid forcing a codec profile without a device-specific reason.
A measurement-led tuning order
- Set a sustainable resolution and frame rate. Start at the Android display’s native resolution or lower, with a frame rate your PC can sustain and the Android device can decode.
- Confirm host encoding. Use Sunshine’s default encoder selection unless measurements or compatibility indicate a problem; prefer an available suitable hardware path.
- Compare frame pacing. Use Balanced when jitter or uneven presentation is apparent; try Prefer lowest latency when the path is stable and responsiveness is the priority.
- Adjust bitrate in small increments. Stop increasing it if latency variance rises or network-dropped frames appear; reduce it or test a more stable route.
- Use the overlay to locate the bottleneck. Network variance points toward path or bitrate; decode latency toward Android capacity or stream settings; frame-queue or render latency toward presentation, synchronization, or client rendering.
- Compare one change at a time. Repeat the same scene and mode after each adjustment, so the observed improvement or regression has a plausible cause.
Controller feel is part of perceived responsiveness, but the overlay does not measure controller and input-device latency end to end. Moonlight supports gamepad input; compatibility and latency vary by controller and Android device, so the general documentation does not establish a particular model as best.
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