Steam's NEW streaming codec - at 4K - tested with Lag/image quality/gameplay tests - PyroWave now on the stable Steam client, streamed to Steam Deck - comparing to Moonlight. What's your setup?

[u/vanjonsen]

PyroWave is on the stable Steam client! I like it a lot, and I tested it by streaming from PC to my Steam Deck and outputting to a 4K monitor. I used a custom 240 fps lag test timer, a sustained gameplay test, and an image quality test. I also tested it vs Moonlight (Vibepollo/nonary moonlight fork). It's a lot of data, but here are the results!

Lag test (4K60 → Steam Deck LCD, median)

Link	Moonlight (HEVC)	Steam (PyroWave)
HDMI cable, no streaming	0 frames	0 frames
Ethernet	17 ms · 1 frame	17 ms · 1 frame
Wi-Fi 6E	17 ms · 1 frame	50 ms · 3 frames

Gameplay test (FF7 Remake Intergrade, host logs ingested/aggregated)

Link	Moonlight (HEVC)	Steam (PyroWave)
Ethernet	~59 fps · 86 Mbit/s · stutter at ~2 min	60 fps · 330 Mbit/s · no stutter
Wi-Fi 6E	~58 fps · 89 Mbit/s · stutter at ~2 min	60 fps · 329 Mbit/s · no stutter

Image quality test (VMAF 0–100, capture control = 94.5, same on both links)

Score	Moonlight (HEVC)	Steam (PyroWave)
Overall	81	80
Gameplay	82	82
Gameplay, worst 1% of frames	58	78
Desktop text	80	73

Opinion based on the data and the "feel"

For ethernet - I prefer PyroWave even though the frame lag was close - the picture just looked a little smoother and a little better to me! But I was impressed by Moonlight's latency optimizations for HEVC.

For wifi - unless you're really confident in your wireless setup I'd recommend Moonlight's HEVC (or Steam's) for most people you're going to have a better time. I put a lot of effort into improving my wireless network, but I still couldn't get the latency as low as I'd like. But I still prefer the PyroWave picture on wifi

notes

For gameplay / slow motion video and more details check this out if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VHGS0-4Fik

[u/Cooper120409]

Thank you for this data! I was curious how they compared. Do you mean Ethernet on just the host or do you mean both?

[u/vanjonsen → u/Cooper120409]

happy to hear it's helpful!

host gaming PC was wired via ethernet for both tests! for the ethernet test the steam deck was wired via the steam deck dock. for the wifi test the steam deck was connected to a 6ghz network

[u/fitnessfrog9]

I'm loving Pyrowave, it has been the smoothest streaming experience I've had so far; on top of the fact that the image quality is significantly better. Thanks for sharing!

[u/vanjonsen → u/fitnessfrog9]

I agree! picture feels really smooth and looks better to me. I'm having fun with it

[u/richpanda64]

Can steam deck even do 4k? It lags even in the default UI for me can't imagine streaming

[u/vanjonsen → u/richpanda64]

it works great for me! very smooth 4k 60. with pyrowave at least it doesn't have to do as much on the video decoding, because the host gaming PC sends the whole frame instead of a compressed one, it just uses a lot of bandwidth

[u/Lainio47]

Nice, thank you for doing this test. Do we have to switch a setting to use pyrowave now?