PC gaming has always been my preferred way to play. It’s where my entire Steam library lives, where I tweak settings, and where the sheer flexibility of the platform continues to win me over. Even so, there’s no denying that consoles still offer a certain kind of experience that’s hard to replicate on a desk setup. Ever since pairing my PS5 Pro with a new 4K 144Hz TV, I’ve been reminded just how enjoyable it can be to simply sit back on a couch and play.
Until recently, that TV was reserved mostly for PlayStation exclusives, while the rest of my gaming happened on my desk and monitor setup. But with a PC library that includes Elden Ring, Forza Horizon 5, and even path-traced Resident Evil Requiem on PC, I started wondering why those games couldn’t make their way to the big screen as well, without a 100-foot HDMI cable in play. That’s where streaming solutions like Moonlight and Apollo entered the picture.
6 reasons I’m excited for the future of PC gaming
PC gaming is already huge, but I’m looking forward to what’s next.
Steam Link was my first attempt at couch-style PC gaming
It technically worked, but it never felt like the right solution
Steam Link was the first method I tried, and truth be told, it just didn’t seem to work the way I’d hoped. For starters, it took quite a bit of handiwork to get going properly, and even after dialing things in, the experience always felt limited. The biggest problem was resolution and frame rate, where 1080p/60fps streaming was smooth, but 4K game streaming simply became impossible to play without jitters.
Compatibility was another headache. Playing non-Steam games through it was far from seamless. My GOG non-Steam games would sometimes refuse to work entirely, occasionally greeting me with nothing more than a black screen. Then there were the random connection slowdowns that Steam Link seems oddly fond of introducing into the mix. Taken together, those issues made the whole setup feel unreliable, which is ultimately what pushed me toward trying Moonlight paired with Apollo instead.
5 infuriating problems with Steam Link I wasn’t prepared for
Steam Link fails to work half the time, leaving me clueless and fuming
Sunshine and Moonlight used to be the go-to combo
The one-two punch is now improved with Apollo replacing Sunshine
As such, I decided to explore better methods, moving on to a combination of Apollo and Moonlight. The more popular combination used to be Sunshine and Moonlight. However, Sunshine often requires a dummy HDMI plug into your PC case in order to create a second virtual desktop, which is not a requirement if you host with Apollo instead of Sunshine. Secondly, there’s also the fact that Apollo offers better HDR support.
Apollo is a fork of Sunshine, which is a self-hosted game streaming service you install on your PC, while Moonlight is the client app you’ll download and install on to the device you want to play your streamed games on. This is what you want if you want to stream your PC games onto your TV with near-zero latency, and great frame rates. It’s not going to be as good as natively running things on your PC, but it’s close enough, and more importantly, it’s good enough.
The first step was to download Moonlight through the Google Play Store on my Google TV. Thankfully, I didn’t need to sideload the app, since it was just available for a quick and simple installation on my new 4K 144Hz TV in the living room. Another great thing about the service is that all the configuration and tweaking happens solely on the PC, or the host streaming device, which means I just have to tweak and set up all my configurations once, and I can then proceed to download Moonlight onto whichever device I wish.
This $3 HDMI dummy plug solved my headless server GPU problems
Saying farewell to failed boots and uninitiated GPUs.
Apollo lets me stream in 4K HDR to my TV at almost no cost
It’s pretty much Sunshine, but better
After installing Apollo on my desktop, it took a quick setup process to get started. By default, the app hosts your desktop and Steam’s Big Picture Mode, which is pretty much enough to run every game I have on my PC. Once the WebUI is ready and opens up on your default browser, you create an account (and remember its credentials). Run Moonlight on your destination device (a TV, in my case). As soon as you select your PC via Moonlight, it will display a PIN code for you to enter on your host PC.
Head over to the Apollo WebUI on the PC, and head to the PIN tab. Enter the PIN displayed on your TV, and give the device a name (“Living Room TV” works just fine for me). Once you press Send, your PC’s icon on the Moonlight app on the TV will now be unlocked, and you’ll be good to go.
Now, for the final touches, get back to your (host) PC, and through Apollo’s WebUI (it should always be running), head into the Applications tab. You can go into each one of your application’s individual settings by selecting the Edit button. Now, here’s where it got interesting for me. Every guide under the sun (pun intended) told me to make sure that I went into individual settings in the Applications tab and ensure that the “Always create Virtual Display” option was checked. However, it wasn’t until I unchecked it that I began successfully streaming Steam’s Big Picture Mode straight to my TV.
If that’s a problem you end up running into, I’d suggest checking and unchecking the option in the application settings to see what works for your setup.
The final step was to connect my gamepad, the DualSense controller, via Bluetooth to my TV. A simple enough procedure, especially thanks to the DualSense’s latest update where each face button corresponds to an individual device. After that, it was just a matter of running Moonlight on the TV, and selecting Steam’s Big Picture Mode through it.
I’ve still made some compromises, though
4K HDR streaming requires a few graphics tweaks
Nvidia has really made 4K gaming mighty accessible with their DLSS 4.5 update, which means that I now find myself happily selecting DLSS Balanced or even Performance for games while streaming 4K to the TV. Thankfully, Apollo’s improved HDR support over Sunshine makes it all look even prettier. Still, there’s no denying that the couple of games I do have on both my PC and PS5 look considerably better running directly from the PlayStation instead of streaming from the PC.
I’ve plugged a LAN cable into my TV just for the express purpose of having a faster, more consistent connection for Moonlight, but even then, 4K streaming does tend to stutter once or twice every few minutes, which breaks immersion like nothing else. By and large, though, this is still the best way to play my PC games on my TV two rooms away, and if I ever need to get away from the committed position of the PC, Moonlight is always a click away.
This streaming setup has left me pleasantly surprised
This setup has quietly blurred the line between my PC and console, making gaming feel a little more flexible.
In the end, what surprised me the most was how well this setup worked, and how naturally it fit into my gaming routine. My PC is still the heart of where I play, tinker, and experiment, but being able to casually drift into the living room without leaving that ecosystem behind feels strangely liberating.
It’s the same library, the same saves, and the same games, but now I get to experience them from a different seat in the house. Not having to replace the PC or console, I’ve managed to quietly blur the line between the two in a way that makes gaming feel a little more flexible.