Homebrew RELEASE Switch Remote Play - Stream your PC to your Switch

[Moehammered]

Welcome to Switch Remote Play.

Yet another PC streaming application for the Switch.

I'd like to immediately start off saying thanks to jakibaki for In-Home-Switching and DevL0rd for SkyNX.

The main goal of this project came about from the small inconveniences of the predecessors. I didn't like having to get up to configure the PC application as some games I'd need to drop the settings to get smoother images, etc. I also didn't like that if the Switch ever slept, I'd need to inject the payload again. So, I made this to try and move all the configuration to the Switch's side and have it be as convenient as possible.

Download:

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• Source: https://github.com/Moehammered/switch-remote-play
• Release: Switch Remote Play latest releases
• Windows: Switch Remote Play [Windows]
• Mac Prototype: Switch Remote Play [Mac PoC -- Not in development]
  • Limited functionality. TLDR: No virtual gamepad drivers = no gamepad support.

Features:

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• Configure stream settings directly from the Switch
• No system crashing when going to sleep (stream will disconnect though and application is closeable)
• Use ffmpeg to stream video and audio to the Switch
• Stream input from the switch to remote connection
• Allow manual configuration of Switch to PC connection
• Automatically connect Switch and PC stream applications
• Automatically mute PC when audio is streaming to the Switch
• Disconnect / Reconnect stream at will
• Toggle Input Mode to Mouse
• Toggle Input Mode to DS4(PS4) controller
• Toggle Input Mode to Xbox controller
• Rich configuration options for h264 CPU encoder
• Rich configuration options for h264 AMF encoder (AMD hardware encoder)
• Multiple Controllers (up to 4, including individual JoyCons)
• Touch Screen Support

Changeset

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Version 1.0.0

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• Multiple Controller Support (up to 4 players)
• Touch Screen support (as PC touch input, or a simulated trackpad)
• Simulated keyboard bindings
• Mouse scrolling and middle-click
• Configurable 'home/guide' button assignment
• Monitor selection
• Improved configuration experience using built in Switch Software Keyboard
• For full details, see the release page

Version 0.9.0

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• Invert Controller Analog Axis for left and right sticks
• Delete deprecated Switch HID input API usage
• UI Refactored to be easier to add configuration parameters
• Configuration file refactored into multiple configuration files
• Encoder configuration overhauled
• H264 AMF (AMD GPU) encoder support added

Version 0.8.3

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• Instructions have been updated to include more troubleshooting steps related to automatic network discovery
• Fixed some bugs related to the switch gamepad data being read partially from the PC application
• Fixed the Xbox 360 controller mode's 'minus' mapping to be 'back' instead of 'guide'
• Fixed a potential overflow issue with the virtual controller analog sticks
• Added diagnostic info to the PC application to help when users report issues and to display basic networking information
• Added Manual IP Mode Enabled to the switch application's config file. Now you can configure Manual IP Mode once, enable it, and you'll never need to touch it again! (Unless your PC's IP changes of course...)
• Added broadcast address to the switch application's config file. This is to allow those who wish to use the network discovery feature. The PC application will display instructions on how to configure this. Please follow the instructions for it.
• Now you can pretty much control the PC doing simple tasks with just the left or right joy-con alone!

Version 0.8.1

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• Instructions have been updated to include troubleshooting steps related to automatic network discovery
• Added extra options to the Controller Configuration menu
  • Left and Right mouse buttons can now be mapped to any of the Switch shoulder buttons
• Now you can pretty much control the PC doing simple tasks with just the left or right joy-con alone!

Version 0.8.0 (Major Improvements)

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• Re-wrote how the menu system works to make it less of a hassle to add more configuration screens
• Added Decoder Configuration Menu
  • Available decoder options that can modify how the Switch decodes the ffmpeg stream are available
  • Offers some good performance options to allow for better quality streams to come through
• Added Controller Configuration Options
  • Moved mouse sensitivity to the Controller Configuration screen
  • Added option to toggle if Mouse is default input mode on stream connect
  • Added Controller type option to choose between X360 or DS4 controller
  • Added button inversion options for XYAB
• Added X360 Controller support to the PC application (thanks theosirian)

Version 0.7.4

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• Added Mouse Sensitivity as a configuration option
• Configuration settings are now saved upon starting a stream
• Last saved configuration settings are loaded on application start

Version 0.7.3

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• More control over ffmpeg's arguments to control stream quality
• Fixed hbloader crash
• Increased input poll rate
• Fixed d-pad diagonal control mapping issue with diagonals being accidentally flipped
• Made UI more concise
• Updated icon!

Stream Encoder Settings Examples

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Considering a lot of people seem to skip or miss the encoder configuration screen entirely, or they just don't know what to do with the settings, I've put a simple suggestion on what configuration to choose for certain quality targets:

• Common Settings
  • Desktop Resolution: 1280 x 720
  • Switch Resolution: 1280 x 720
  • Vsync Mode: variable frame rate
  • Hardware Accel Mode: auto
  • Video Codec: h264
• Perfect Image Quality
  • Bitrate: 5120
  • Quality Control Factor: 0
  • Encoder Preset: very slow
• Low Latency quality
  • Bitrate: 5120
  • Quality Control Factor: 20(or higher)
  • Encoder Preset: ultra fast
• Balanced quality
  • Bitrate: 8192
  • Quality Control Factor: 8 ~ 15
  • Encoder Preset: medium or fast

These all depend on your CPU's performance and what you're running at the time. If you're having trouble, please make sure to include your machine's specs in your post. (CPU, RAM, GPU at minimum please)

Thanks

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• jakibaki for the original In-Home-Switching switch application
• DevL0rd for the updated streaming application SkyNX
• FFmpeg for an exhaustingly extensive library
• nefarius for the ViGEm Client SDK. It's such a nice SDK/library to use
• rdp for screen-capture-recorder. Made streaming audio via FFmpeg on PC very easy
• SwitchBrew for libNX
• devkitPro bloody legends for letting us have a toolchain to compile stuff for the Switch
• SciresM, TuxSH, hexkyz, and fincs for Atmosphere. Absolute madlads these lot are. Also a shoutout to the champs that help contribute to the repo.
• Jonathan Dearborn for SDL_FontCache
• cucholix for the app icon

Enjoy everyone!

 

[majoru]

sounds promising, thank you for your work !

 

[severhead]

I just tried it, I wish there would be some mouse sensitivity option because the normal speed is just too stuttery and slow, the quality of the video is good but there's only 720p, I tried every option on it but I can't get more than like 35FPS from the stream and I'm on fiber internet with 5GHz, it's still better than SkyNX but the audio is unusable for me, it sounds so grainy and distorted exactly like SkyNX was for me

 

[Moehammered]

I just tried it, I wish there would be some mouse sensitivity option because the normal speed is just too stuttery and slow, the quality of the video is good but there's only 720p, I tried every option on it but I can't get more than like 35FPS from the stream and I'm on fiber internet with 5GHz, it's still better than SkyNX but the audio is unusable for me, it sounds so grainy and distorted exactly like SkyNX was for me

Mouse sensitivity is planned. Look forward to it in the later updates.

The video quality setting for the switch is clamped to 720p for now because I mostly used it in handheld mode and 1080p would only be usable when it's docked so I focused on 720p initially. To render a 1080p stream I need to modify the rendering step. It's in consideration though

Sorry to hear that the mouse is stuttering. That means you might be having packet drops or connection interference. Internet connection is not important, just the router and WiFi network.

If the stream wont go higher than 35fps then it could be due to the CPU.

Could you please tell me:

• Your PC Specs (CPU, GPU, RAM)
• The game you're streaming
• How many devices are usually connected to your home network?

The audio issue occurs when the network speed isn't fast enough or when there's too much interference from a busy network. Usually when I restarted my PC the audio issue went away.

 

[Reploid]

Just played some tekken with it. And I think it's kidna good. Not perfect of course, but still.
No problem with sound, latency is alright, picture have disticnt compression artifacts, but what's you gonna do? Maybe add some GPU support with x265 codec, but it's much easier said, then done.
UI is pretty handy, not that flashy, but that super optional.
Anyway, I hope this project won't stuck in any limbo.

 

[cucholix]

Nice app, feel free to use it

 

[Moehammered]

View attachment 239353
Nice app, feel free to use it

Thank you very much! It looks very sleek. I'll definitely be using it.

Much appreciated

 

[Nerdtendo]

Haven't been able to start a stream yet. Do I need to be running the screen capture software?

 

[Moehammered]

Haven't been able to start a stream yet. Do I need to be running the screen capture software?

Sorry to hear that. Is windows firewall blocking it? Can you check to make sure switch-remote-play-host is an allowed app in the firewall list on your PC?

 

[hippy dave]

Good work, thanks. If the computer end is using ffmpeg I wonder if it can be adapted to work on Mac...

 

[Moehammered]

Just played some tekken with it. And I think it's kidna good. Not perfect of course, but still.
No problem with sound, latency is alright, picture have disticnt compression artifacts, but what's you gonna do? Maybe add some GPU support with x265 codec, but it's much easier said, then done.
UI is pretty handy, not that flashy, but that super optional.
Anyway, I hope this project won't stuck in any limbo.

Hey there, I've updated 0.7.3 with some extra options to help give more fine tune control over the stream quality. Please feel free to check it out! I tested it playing Tekken on my PC and thanks to that I found a D-Pad bug which is fixed in 0.7.3 too.

I hope this version helps make Tekken a bit more enjoyable

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Good work, thanks. If the computer end is using ffmpeg I wonder if it can be adapted to work on Mac...

It could, someone would just need to mimic or modify the windows-project to work on Mac. I don't have a Mac so it is not a priority for me at the moment. However if Mac can work through a VM then maybe after I am done getting the main features completed I will setup a Mac OS VM and try porting it over. Or I might port the desktop app to .Net Core and then it might be easier to port to Mac. But at the moment, sorry I don't have any immediate plans to port the windows-project to mac just yet.

 

[ucupetuks]

does not work on lite

 

[Moehammered]

does not work on lite

Sorry to hear that. Are you running Atmosphere on your Switch or SX OS?

If you're running Atmosphere CFW can you please tell me the Atmosphere version, system firmware version, and what is not working?

If you're using SX OS then I'm sorry but SX OS has major compatibility issues with the latest LibNX libraries. I also do not have access to SX OS to test, so it will be incompatible with SX OS until their homebrew compatibility is fixed.

 

[cucholix]

@Moehammered it would be possible invoke virtual Switch keyboard for inputs?

Also I use this app mainly to remotely manage my PC instead gaming with it, it would be possible map ZL as right click and ZR as left click?

 

[Moehammered]

@Moehammered it would be possible invoke virtual Switch keyboard for inputs?

Also I use this app mainly to remotely manage my PC instead gaming with it, it would be possible map ZL as right click and ZR as left click?

Invoking the virtual keyboard is one of the planned features. I tested in the prototype phase and had some issues with it but I shelved it to be revisited later. I'll be looking into it don't worry.

As for the mouse click buttons, as thanks for the lovely icon I'll add it first thing tomorrow. I would've done it now but I'm about to go to bed for work tomorrow. Consider it done by 24 hours

 

[LinkFan16]

Hey, first and foremost thanks for creating such a great app. With the well written instructions I got it working in no time at all. Streaming Videos and Games from my PC works great with little to no delay most of the time.

But is there any way to improve the audio streaming? Because for me PC audio will play only sometimes. 3 to 5 seconds later it cuts out entirely, returning in random intervals.

Edit: I just tried reconnecting a couple of times and now streaming audio works constantly... Maybe my connections wasn't good enough before

 

[Moehammered]

Hey, first and foremost thanks for creating such a great app. With the well written instructions I got it working in no time at all. Streaming Videos and Games from my PC works great with little to no delay most of the time.

But is there any way to improve the audio streaming? Because for me PC audio will play only sometimes. 3 to 5 seconds later it cuts out entirely, returning in random intervals.

Edit: I just tried reconnecting a couple of times and now streaming audio works constantly... Maybe my connections wasn't good enough before

Thank you for the kind words. Yeah audio streaming is one of the next things on my revisit list. The audio connection is done via UDP so any network issues results in audio interference. I will be investigating it soon.
When the audio refuses to stream well I find restarting my PC works out. I've only had to do that once so far.
Until I can determine the reason, the only solution I have is attempt restarting to see if the problem resolves. Sorry for any inconvenience.

 

[ucupetuks]

Sorry to hear that. Are you running Atmosphere on your Switch or SX OS?

If you're running Atmosphere CFW can you please tell me the Atmosphere version, system firmware version, and what is not working?

If you're using SX OS then I'm sorry but SX OS has major compatibility issues with the latest LibNX libraries. I also do not have access to SX OS to test, so it will be incompatible with SX OS until their homebrew compatibility is fixed.

SX OS, dang i think i need to switch gpu then, to use moonlight, skynx a bit lag on amd cards

 

[dgibb]

Love this, any chance you could include a Wake On Lan ping for the client?
There was some work done on this previously, Zedjones did a WakeOnLan_Switch in github

 

[Moehammered]

Love this, any chance you could include a Wake On Lan ping for the client?
There was some work done on this previously, Zedjones did a WakeOnLan_Switch in github

Thanks! I hope it becomes the most convenient way to remotely use a PC
I definitely will be adding Wake On Lan. The end goal I have for the application is to be able to have users assign the PC application as a startup app and never need to touch their PC to use it from the Switch. It's low priority until some other things are done but it will be added don't you worry. Thank you for the github link, that is perfect! Saves me heaps of time later.

@cucholix Hey mate, v0.8.1 is out for you (and everyone else haha). I'm a little bit late on 24 hrs but close enough Never mind, just made it
Hope it works well for you and let's you manage your PC more comfortably