Artemis Qt vs Moonlight Game Streaming

Artemis Qt is a free client for streaming from NVIDIA GameStream, Apollo, and Sunshine servers on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It decodes video with hardware acceleration and supports H.264, HEVC, AV1, HDR streaming, 7.1 audio, multitouch, and gamepad play for up to 16 players, including local co-op. The client adds clipboard sync, custom server commands, one-time-password pairing, and UUID-based app launching, with a fallback to legacy app IDs when UUIDs are unavailable. Its in-stream menu includes fractional refresh-rate control, resolution scaling, and virtual display control. The project describes it as optimized for handhelds such as Steam Deck, with touch and gamepad navigation and power-efficient rendering. Downloads include Windows x64 and ARM64 builds, a universal macOS binary, and Linux x64 AppImage and Flatpak packages. AV1 requires Sunshine and a supported host GPU; YUV 4:4:4 is listed for Sunshine only. The project is licensed under GPL v3, and custom app ordering and input-only streaming are planned.

Moonlight Game Streaming sends games from a gaming PC to supported devices for remote play. It is a free, open-source implementation of NVIDIA's GameStream protocol; the listed plan costs nothing, with no subscriptions or paid versions with extra features. Clients are available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Apple TV, ChromeOS, Steam Link, and Raspberry Pi. On a capable client, Moonlight can stream a full Windows desktop at up to 4K with HDR. Its PC client supports up to 120 FPS and can disable V-Sync for lower latency. Users can host their own gaming server using options such as port forwarding, IPv6, ZeroTier, Tailscale, and NordVPN Meshnet. Moonlight recommends Sunshine as a host; GeForce Experience is also listed as compatible, though NVIDIA is discontinuing its GameStream feature. Wolf can stream games and applications running in Docker containers. There is no pure web client because the protocol requires raw TCP and UDP sockets that browsers do not support. The project began as a 2013 hackathon project by Case Western Reserve University students.