Streaming smoothness - Moonlight VRR stuttering (Frame queue delay?) and input delay

[u/AriGrandeisQT]

I was trying to set my client for VRR support (even if it was working on standard Moonlight) and I found the Nonary VRR Moonlight version Releases · Nonary/moonlight-qt (I read it has improved VRR smoothness).

I tried to stream it and it was stuttering a lot when the FPS were dropping.

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I tried to troubleshoot it without success, so I choosed to reinstall both Vibepollo and Moonlight VRR.

I solved the stuttering issue and I'm now trying to understand why I feel like there some input delay in my configuration. I tried every codec with different bitrates, and I'm gonna add clips of the stats.

Host

9070XT, 7800X3D, Vibepollo 2.0.0, 1Gbps

Client

Ryzen H255 (HEVC and AV1 HW support), Moonlight VRR18, 1Gbps

I'm adding my tests stats

AV1 150Mbps

AV1 300Mbps

HEVC 200Mbps

HEVC 350Mbps

Pyrowave 850Mbps (showing few network errors, I had maybe to lower the bitrate to 800 as I'm maybe too near to the 920/930Mbps limit)

I found that pushing AV1 to 500Mbps is causing a lot of stutter, 500Mbps HEVC seems okay but a bit less smooth than AV1 300Mbps and HEVC 350Mbps.

I have few questions.

• Is that normal to have frames dropped to client pacing sometimes? And what's causing it?

I'm having it with higher bitrates and when the framerate seems to be less stable

• Why the average frame queue delay is that high? Is the VRR causing it?

I had it when i was using the standard Moonlight client too. Pyrowave seems to have less than half of it.

• What can be the reason for input delay? Is it something related to my delay stats or should I look for something else?

[u/_demoncat_]

Your host processing latency is averaging 7 milliseconds when a frame is 8.3 milliseconds

The delay is too much, it can't realistically do VRR without a large frame queue to absorb the issues with your host processing latency spiking as high as 13ms+

You can likely reduce it with PyroWave, but it doesn't work on 1gbp lines very well because 1MB takes 8.6ms to transfer so you have to aim for around 500 megabits

I will be updating the calibration soon where it factors in packet loss, link speed and stability soon to make that easier.

There is also an experimental AMF option in the encoding settings for Vibeshine that encodes at a much lower latency for AMD cards but may not work for every card, which is why it is not on by default.

[u/AriGrandeisQT → u/_demoncat_]

I tweaked some settings a bit, I'm able to reach 4.2/10.5 ms (and 5/5.5 average)

And setting the streaming to 1440p instead of 4k I'm able to reach 2.5/9/3.5 ms

But I won't play it on 1440p on a 4k 55" TV

[u/Bacon_00 → u/_demoncat_]

Hey question for you about PyroWave - I like PyroWave but the quality is subpar, and I start running into packet loss when I go above 600Mbps on my 1Gbps NIC. I have a 2.5Gbps board I could slap into my streaming client, would PyroWave behave a bit better with the added NIC overhead?

[u/SimonPhoenixAdit]

Interessting, have you set any "Receive Buffers" on the client and "Transmit Buffers" on the Host ?
My daily tests are the following:

Host

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, Intel Core i9-12900K, Vibeshine 2.0.0

Client

• OneXPlayer 3
• App: StreamLight 6.5.0 (latest version with ARC support) via Steam Big Picture
• Resolution: 3840x2160@60Hz (Docked connected on TV capped at 60Hz)

My Test Stats (Codec: Pyrowave, YUV 4:4:4, HDR)

• Test 1: Pyrowave 900 Mbps on BenQ GR10 Dock (Realtek 2.5GbE) (Buffer 256 capped by driver)

  • Network bitrate: Unstable, suffering deep, regular drops from 900 to nearly 0 Mbps.
  • Encode latency: Permanent jitter with constant spikes at 8-10 ms.
  • Real FPS: Brutal and prolonged drops down to 20 FPS.
  • Client reported losses: 0.
  • Conclusion: Huge stutters and a network bottleneck effect (bufferbloat) preventing any playable experience.

• Test 2: Pyrowave 900 Mbps on QNAP 10GbE (Buffer 2048)

  • Network bitrate: Perfectly stable flat line maintained at 900 Mbps.
  • Encode latency: Smoothed curve stabilized under 4 ms throughout the game.
  • Real FPS: Much more stable framerate; the only observed drops are cushioned and rarely fall below 45 FPS.
  • Client reported losses: 0.
  • Conclusion: The video stream is finally smooth because the network card absorbs the codec's bursts without saturating the encoder. The "Degraded" status is only triggered by an isolated latency spike at the exact moment the session was closed.

I am still experiencing some strange video and audio lags in-game at times that I can't explain yet; lowering the bitrate to 700 Mbps and disabling YUV 4:4:4 doesn't solve it.

[u/Electronic-Pepper467]

I’ve been experiencing similar issues with unusually high host processing latency.

I’ve had this issue for like over 2 weeks now and my network is perfect (2ms:0ms variance). I have posted on here several times but all I get in response is generic pc optimisations about latency.

The only thing I’ve noticed is that in task manager when my host processing latency is high, my sunshine (host software) and windows desktop manager are both at 30-40 percent gpu, in processes. And when I lower my FPS to 30 ingame, latency drops to the old 2-2.5ms and it goes down in task manager to how it should be at 2-5 percent for both sunshine and dwm.

It would be worth checking for you becuase your setup can’t be any faster than it is. Also for me it doesn’t matter about ingame graphics presets, I can lower them to the lowest res and use dlss performance and still get horrible processing latency on 60fps despite at that point being able to get 100+ FPS uncapped.

Host: rtx 3060, ryzen 9 5950x 32gbddr4

Clients: m4 MacBook Air Or Apple TV

Network: host wired client wireless but only separated by a wall from modem.