I mean overall, how responsive and lag-free is it? Should I expect an interface similar to Moonlight on my phone? How does the controller work, is it recognised as an Xbox controller in all games? Is aiming for 1080p 60fps unrealistic? Sorry for the onslaught of questions, just need to know if it will work flawlessly since it's the key reason I'm interested.
In my experience it's unplayable if you're playing a FPS or a racing game. There's a noticeable delay.
Is aiming for 1080p 60fps unrealistic?
It dropped down to 720p for me and would often skip some frames. Mind you this was over WiFi.
How does the controller work
I was using the controller connected to my computer (Xbox One controller).
From what I've read, you won't get a flawless experience even if you're doing this over ethernet. The delay kills it unless you're playing Solitaire. If your computer is near your TV, an HDMI cable would be the better option.
Working great for me. My home network is wired only with internet 90. I'm playing mostly bullet hell games in my living room and didn't notice lag inputs.
Fully cables from PC to shield and it plays beautifully
Limited use, but has worked fine for me. I'm not looking for perfection.. just not annoyingly bad lag during gaming.
I've been using it to mostly play casual games, I thought I'd be using it for streaming games from my PC but Geforce Now works just as well most of the time so I use that. There's also some pretty decent native Android games that are suited to TVs.
I have always had a better experience with the moonlight app, than with game-stream. There seems to be more options and customization with moonlight, resolution, bit rate, 120 fps support. My network is fully wired and i get no noticeable lag/input lag. I also have my Xbox one controller wired direct to my PC with an extra long cable to mitigate any possible input lag. I play mostly indie games with this setup as i prefer couch gaming with these games. Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Unravel, Ori and the blind forest and a good 200 hours of Final Fantasy 12 Zodiac Age have all been great experiences :)
tbh, Steam Link might not have as high quality as Gamestream, but the experience is so much less janky overall - both are free, if Gamestream gives you problems I recommend trying Steam Link
I'm completely wired, but I experience a ton of input lag and display lag on games like Rocket League compared to using a controller at my PC.
I can even see the displays on my PC from my couch and there's clearly a noticeable amount of time between something happening on my PC display and it happening on my tv.
Honestly, I wouldn't even use it playing platformers due to the input lag. However, I will say that it's alright for playing Jackbox games with large groups of people. But other than that, I wouldn't even play couch co-op games on it.
I had no problems whatsoever running it over WiFi when I turned my TV on to game mode. No delay at all.
Fantastic for any genre but online FPS which is mostly due to getting smoked by other players using mouse and keyboard.
It's low enough lag that I can play Dirt Rally or Zen Pinball just fine. Over about 100ms of latency (as seen on many TVs :() makes either of them impossible for me to play well.
If you're the sort to notice a couple of frames worth of lag, it probably won't be for you. Otherwise, it will probably work well for you if you're either wired or have a quiet radio environment for WiFi. If the channel is busy, whether due to your network or a neighbor's, the jitter from retransmissions will ruin your day even if packets aren't being completely dropped.
The controller appears to the games like an Xbox 360 controller if you launch them directly. If you launch through Steam it shows up as an Xbox One controller, but I'm pretty sure that's configurable in the Steam client.
Personally, the only problems I've had with Gamestream have involved trying to use crappy WiFi and problems related to my particular computer. The big one in that latter category being due to me using a 4:3 monitor but wanting 16:9 for Gamestream. The software workarounds were fragile or required configuring games manually, so I spent $15 on a dongle that pretends to be a 4k monitor and haven't had trouble with it since.
It is very dependent on the quality of ones internet connection (of course), but for times when my ISP doesn't suck I get a fun experience and very good quality. All other times I am pretty sure it is my ISP that sucks. (Boo COX)
It's getting there, and I am getting the feeling the common place experience of 5G service will really push this internet streaming style of gaming into the lime light. Once 1 gigabit speeds are more the norm and common place, then the discussions about streaming gaming will surely be different.
Right now... good, but still a bit of growing pains, I think.
It's awesome but uses too much bandwidth. I have a 1 TB monthly cap with Xfinity and blew through it pretty quickly.
Awesome, as long as it’s over Ethernet.
I can do 4K 60fps.
720p was the best I could have over wifi.