RELEASE Switch Remote Play - Stream your PC to your Switch

If the stream isn't capturing your entire desktop then it means the host application failed to resize your desktop due to the selected resolution not being supported for your monitor.

Can you tell me:

• Your monitor's usual resolution
• Your monitor's aspect ratio and supported aspect ratio
• In the switch app, under Encoder Configuration what 'Desktop Resolution' you've tried

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To everyone else, the surprise is here. A Mac prototype version has been released. There are a lot of limitations and issues, but the short form is there are no virtual gamepad drivers and writing them is something I do not have the time for at all. There aren't even any open source C++ examples at all with how to use the 'DriverKit' or 'IOKit' framework with the recent driver development restrictions imposed.

Please do not expect extended support for this prototype. The prototype was to gauge how much work would be required. To summarise:

• I spent a week and half on it and every day there were countless frustrations
  • XCode, software compatibility, lack of drivers or open source examples (and too many obj-c and swift examples not mapping properly to C++)
• There are no virtual gamepad drivers.
  • The closest is foohid but it is not a virtual gamepad driver, it lets you create virtual devices which you still need to create the logic for pushing the data around
  • Apple is pushing for the usage of DriverKit framework which will cause deprecation of kext drivers.
    • Read up on Steam and controllers no longer working under Big Sur
    • The framework has no code examples at all. And open source examples are limited to virtual mice or keyboards (of which there is only 1 example I found on github).
    • Drivers written will require developer entitlements to be granted from Apple.
    • Debugging drivers written is an absolutely slow pain in the ass with system security prompts occurring and nagging every time I try to debug.
  • I have no desire whatsoever to write drivers for Mac OS. If someone does write a virtual gamepad driver with example C++ code on using it. I'll consider patching the Mac version.

Mac Prototype Release: https://github.com/Moehammered/switch-remote-play/releases/tag/v0.8.1-Mac

I'm gonna take a break now... I'm very tired. I hope the Mac users can at least use this to do simple tasks and manage their Macs.

For Linux users, the good news is, the main pain points for the refactor of getting the video to stream are simple and can be copied from the Mac version. But Linux will also have similar obstacles with:

• having to create a virtual gamepad
  • However, I discovered 'uinput' for Linux and it seems to at least make it simple to spoof virtual devices. All that'd be left is for me to find a virtual gamepad library or write a simple one using uinput for Linux.
• the other issue will be with desktop capturing differences between Wayland and X(org)

I don't have an ETA on the Linux prototype. I'm completely burnt out now and need a week or so to take a break. But a Linux build is planned. In the meantime if someone finds an open source example of using virtual gamepads in Linux please feel free to post them here for me(preferably in C++). It will speed up the porting process as that is the biggest pain point that will require a lot of time to do.

 

Hmmm at the moment the app only has 16:9 aspect ratio options. So maybe when it tries to set the resolution to 16:9 the games reset it.

If your game uses fullscreen mode, try setting it to borderless fullscreen if the option is available.
If your game also changes the resolution it will override the resolution settings of switch-remote-play, and the stream will not be streaming fullscreen.
I'd recommend making sure your game matches the resolution that is set in the switch-remote-play app.

As for changing the settings in the app, before you connect to your PC, if you press 'ZR' or 'ZL' you can change configuration screens. Go to the 'Encoder Configuration' screen and try changing the Desktop resolution settings there and see if it helps. To change a setting press the 'A' button. If you forget, the top of the screen shows a basic explanation of the buttons.

I hope that helps

 

Hey there, thanks for being patient. Can you please tell me:

• Encoder configuration settings on your switch
  
• Resolution of your pc monitor
• Gpu on your pc

Could you also screenshot your switch's network status settings (to see the ip) and screenshot switch-remote-play-host on your pc when you attempt to connect.
For the screenshots feel free to private message them if you're worried about privacy concerns. Hopefully we can fix this ASAP

 

It is listed in the instructions: https://github.com/Moehammered/swit...uctions/Instructions.md#virus-threat-detected

It is a false positive because there is a socket open for broadcast communication to allow network discovery and that it uses the CreateProcess windows function to open ffmpeg.exe. It being written in c++ and compiled for a release version causes some obfuscation too.

So only download it from the release page, and if you don't trust me then also download ffmpeg.exe from the ffmpeg website and replace the version bundled with the releases.

Hope that answers your question.

 

I've done little work in the past week. Been resting due to the burnout I got working on the mac prototype.

A few more people have been reporting odd network issues so I think I will be adding some logging to the application. Then I'll continue with the networking features.

Thanks for being patient.

 

I'm happy to hear you're enjoying it! Really appreciate the kind words.

Thanks for trying it out. To answer in order:

• What kind of prompt? If you have two monitors and a prompt comes up on the second monitor you will need to switch to mouse mode and use the mouse to close the prompt. (If you could give me an example I'd appreciate it so I can investigate when I have spare time)
  
• As for touch controls there are none as it is low priority compared to other things at the moment.
• The instructions give a hint already but basically if you just want a recommendation: preset - medium, quality control factor - 12 or less, bit rate 8000. They're the main settings to play with. Please note that moonlight streams via NVIDIA'S gpu settings. This streams via CPU so quality and performance are dependent on your CPU and network.
• The minus button is not designated as the end stream button. Try using the DS4 controller mode if you're having trouble with the xbox button mappings.
  
• To end the stream hold the plus button. The tips screen and instructions explain it as well just in case.
• The audio uses raw audio data streamed via UDP so your network is vital to it. If it persists, restarting my PC helped me so maybe try that?

Don't be afraid to give it a try. Moonlight has the advantage of utilising the NVIDIA software directly so if you have a gpu from them it's very convenient.

This streaming application is similar however its purpose is to allow any windows pc to work regardless of gpu. It gives you complete control over stream configuration. This is so people with different network and hardware set-ups can tailor the settings to their benefit. If you're on atmosphere feel free to head over to the release page and download it. Read the instructions and I hope you'll enjoy using it.

 

I'm guessing you're not playing a steam game? If so you'll need to use the xbox controller mode then only. However there is a bug with the minus button being incorrectly mapped to the 'guide' button on the xbox controller instead of the 'select' button.

To stop the stream you need to hold the + button for over 3 seconds. If it doesn't work then can you check the console applications output and see if there is an error message mentioning "failed to connect virtual controller"?

Ah those kind of prompts I cannot solve as when that prompt occurs windows displays an overlay onto everything. For example if you have a YouTube video open but then get that prompt the video will play but you won't see it until the prompt goes away. The same issue is occurring here. Ffmpeg is used to capture the desktop, but if anything draws over it or takes priority ffmpeg will not capture it and therefore the switch will not receive it.

That said, can I ask what game you're running? Does it need admin rights? Can you run it without being administrator so the prompt doesn't trigger?

 

Thanks! Yes hardware codecs are planned. I've done some prototyping with the AMD codecs and it was fairly hit and miss. Gotta work out the correct syntax and how the parameters affect the stream produced. The nvenc codecs will be tougher for me to test as I only have my old 1050ti available but it's enough to work with. The AMD codecs will be first as my 5600xt is the graphics card installed at the moment.

Adding them however will take a fair amount of work to changing the UI configuration screens. But they are planned.

The hardware h264 encoding on PC will only be available. The switch ffmpeg library only supports libx264 and is software decoded. So no support for other codecs will be explored.

Currently, adding some logging to help diagnostics, and improving the auto discovery network feature are the priority right now. Then looking at wake on lan support. Once the network features are modified then I'm going to be weighing up audio configuration and additional codecs(amd and nvenc). It'll be a while so please be patient.

Hope you'll enjoy using the app till then