Its not directly iOS related, but this deal might be of interest to some of you: Amazon is selling the new GeForce GTX 950 for $139 right now, down from its usual $169 price. Why I’m mentioning this: because the GTX 950 is a cutting-edge Nvidia GPU, you can use it to stream games from your PC to your iPhone or iPad using Moonlight.
Using Moonlight, you can stick the GTX 950 in your PC and stream games directly to your iPhone or iPad. Streaming is 60FPS at any resolution, and has almost no lag or perceivable video compression. It is comparable to AirPlay, but beams games from your PC to your iOS hardware, instead of from iOS to your TV.
Performance-wise, Nvidia is pitching the GTX 950 as being comparable to the GPU performance of the Xbox One and PS4. For any game that doesn’t require massive amounts of memory, the 950 should be able to hold its own playing next-gen games.
You can spend a lot MORE than the GTX 950’s $139 price tag to get even more powerful GPUs that run PC games at even higher settings (the $195 GTX 960 4GB is particularly tempting). I might do that next year, but for now, the 950 is the perfect sweet spot in price-to-performance.
It begins. Only in Hong Kong for now, and only the iPad Mini version.
I wrote an extensive review of the Gamevice a few months back, after using prototype models since CES. It was the best MFi controller available at the time, and it still is the best MFi controller today. If you have an iPad Air or iPad Mini, the Gamevice is as good as it gets.
The Gamevice is already available today on Amazon, but a product like the Gamevice really needs to be used in-person to be appreciated. I expect once they start rolling out to Apple Stores, they’re going to sell like crazy.
At long last, the controller I’ve been waiting for is here.
For many, a Bluetooth controller, console-style, perhaps with a phone grip, is the perfect design. But while I’ve diligently reviewed these controllers, I’ve never particularly liked that form-factor. Even at it’s best, Bluetooth is finicky. Phone grips are nice to have, but the angle they hold the screen at has always been unpleasant to me. These controllers work great for playing on a TV, but to me, they just don’t feel suited to mobile play.
The Gamevice is the controller I wanted from the beginning. A purpose-built controller that actually feels designed for iOS. A controller that connects directly to the iPad, fits it like a glove, and doesn’t distract with random bluetooth disconnects or battery life concerns. A controller that gets out of your way and lets you play.
This review might re-tread familiar territory for those of you who’ve read my extensive Gamevice Preview article. But as this review will make clear, much has change between today’s Gamevice and the one I first used at CES. Pretty much every nitpick I had has been corrected, every rough edge polished, leaving a practically perfect controller.
In my opinion, the Gamevice is the best MFi controller ever made. But it’s also not for everyone. That statement might sound strange, but I’ll attempt to go over everything, good and bad, in this review, and explain exactly why I’ve reached the conclusions I have.
Design and Feel
Everything about the Gamevice feels premium. This should be expected from the $100 price tag, but is isn’t always the situation.
The plastic is nicely matted thoughout, with a surface texture reminiscent of the aluminum shell of the iPad itself. The buttons and triggers are a glossy, thick-feeling plastic.
Connecting your iPad Mini to the Gamevice is painless. Insert the iPad Mini (any version), Lightning-side-first, into the Gamevice, then pull the other half of the Gamevice outward and slip it around the other end of the iPad. The connection is snug – the Gamevice uses tension to pull both halves gently into the iPad, keeping it from wobbling. iPad cases are not supported, but I’ve never been a case person anyways.
Snap your iPad Mini into the Gamevice and start playing
The Gamevice’s shape is arguably its most unique – and controversial – feature. Unlike every other controller I’m aware of, the handles are angled away from your hands. Instead of your wrists facing inwards to grip the controller, they face outwards. The reason for this design was explained to me by the CEO of Gamevice as such: your hands grip inwards when holding a regular controller because of how small the controller is. Widen the controller, and your hands will naturally bend outwards.
That’s how it works in theory, anyways. In practice, I think the folks at Gamevice were a little too clever for their own good. The outward handles of the controller might make sense if the controller was wider than the distance between your arms. The thing is, an iPad Mini and a Gamevice just aren’t that wide – for me at least, they’re very close to the width between my arms. So my wrists end up being bent slightly outwards when holding this controller.
This isn’t the end of the world, but it gets a little unpleasant after several hours of continuous play, especially while lying down. Making the sides of the controller perfectly parallel would have made sense – indeed, this is the approach Nintendo took with their Wii U gamepad, and it’s the one Gamevice prototyped before redesigning their controller to the current form.
This inverted handle design might turn out to be more comfortable with the larger size of the iPad Air Gamevice. As it stands with the iPad Mini, they overthought this situation and made the controller a little bit less perfect than it should be.
The inverted handles contrast with traditional controller design
The Details
A good controller is more than the sum of its parts. But those parts still count for something. Many MFi controllers have been great in most ways, but suffer one fatal flaw or another in the details – the Stratus XL has terrible triggers, the PowerShell has a painful d-pad, the Stratus has flimsy analog sticks. Does the Gamevice have any deal-breaking flaws? Read on.
The Analog Sticks
The analog sticks establish what turns out to be a common pattern with the Gamevice: borrow the best aspects of the Xbox One controller. Just like an Xbox One controller’s analog sticks, these are pleasantly rubberized, concave, and full-size. They feature a ridged rim around the edges of the stick, creating an exceptionally grippy surface that your thumbs will never slip from.
The Gamevice uses concentric rings for the edges of the analog sticks. It isn’t quite as pleasant as the cross-hatched ridge on the Xbox One controller, but it feels almost identical, and it’s far superior to the stick design of any other MFi controller. In fact, it’s probably the second best analog stick design I’ve used, just behind the Xbox One’s.
After relatively heavy play for the past 9 months, the rubberized ridges show minimal wear, and still grip my thumb perfectly. This serves as a testament to how much better this stick design is to the Xbox 360’s, which wears down notoriously fast.
Perfect buttons, perfect joysticks
The ABXY Buttons
The face buttons on the Gamevice are perfect. They’re large – the same size as those on an Xbox controller, and slightly smaller than those on a PlayStation controller, making them perfect for pulling off difficult button combos. They’re rounded off, with a pleasant beveling that prevents the type of thumb pain I find my self getting after extensive gaming sessions on a Wii U gamepad. They’re double-shot plastic, meaning the colors on the buttons are never going to fade, no matter how much you use them. They activate smoothly, meaning they’ll never have the sort of plastic-on-plastic grind a few controllers occasionally exhibit.
As I said, they’re perfect.
Killer buttons and d-pad make the Gamevice perfect for retro gaming
The D-pad
The Gamevice has by far the best d-pad of any MFi controller. Just one look goes a long way towards telling you why. This is the only MFi controller without the dreaded circular d-pad. Many of us assumed that Apple’s MFi spec required controllers to have circular d-pad; this was inaccurate. The Gamevice’s d-pad fits perfectly well within Apple’s standard, thus making the terrible d-pads on (almost) every other MFi controller even less excusable.
The Gamevice’s d-pad takes the shape, texture and position of the Xbox One d-pad and couples it with the activation feel of the Wii U’s d-pad. It’s a good fit. The mechanical clickiness you get when you activate the Xbox One’s d-pad is a little bit nicer, but hey, I’m not going to complain – again, the Gamevice’s d-pad is far better than that of any other MFi controller.
The first excellent d-pad on an MFi controller
The Shoulder Buttons and Triggers
The triggers and shoulder buttons are as close as the Gamevice comes to having a weakness, and they’re still not bad.
Ironically, the problem here is that the Gamevice copied the Xbox One controller almost perfectly, and the Xbox One has a flawed shoulder button design. Unlike the excellent shoulder buttons on the Xbox 360 controller, the Xbox One changes the shape of the upper shoulder bumpers such that it’s difficult to reach them with the side of your pointer fingers. You either have to adopt a middle-fingers-on-the-triggers grip, or you have to reach your finger awkwardly around from the triggers to the upper shoulder buttons. It would have been nice if the Gamevice had corrected this problem, but no such luck. It’s better than many controllers, but it’s a slight blemish on an otherwise great design.
In my preview of the Gamevice, I mentioned some roughness activating triggers. This was corrected in the final controller – the triggers are smooth, pleasant, and activate with a nice (though light) degree of pressure. It would just be even nicer if moving your finger between the triggers and shoulder buttons wasn’t so awkward.
The Gamevice borrows much from the Xbox One controller
Extras and Ports
Using one micro USB cable, you can simultaneously charge both the Gamevice and the connected iPad. This is an essential feature for marathon game sessions, and I’m happy to say it works exactly as expected here. This may seem obvious, but the MOGA Ace Power doesn’t charge the iPhone it’s connected to while the controller is charging.
Audio output for the Gamevice is handled via an integrated headphone port. This means the Gamevice itself handles audio decoding, rather than the iPad. This had issues in prototype versions of the iPad – the left and right stereo channels were inexplicably reversed on most of the prototypes I used – but this issue appears to be resolved on the final version. Sound quality is good, though not quite as good as the sound from the iPad’s integrated headphone jack. It’s perfectly serviceable for gaming, but disconnect the Gamevice when it’s time to listen to music.
Use AirPlay to beam your iPad gaming to the TV
iPad Compatibility
There has been some confusion about exactly which devices the Gamevice is compatible with. Let me be clear: the Gamevice I’m reviewing today – the only Gamevice currently available – is exclusively compatible with the iPad Mini, iPad Mini 2, iPad Mini 3, and upcoming iPad Mini 4. I have personally used a prototype of the iPad Air version, but not nearly enough to review it at this time.
This leads to an important point: in terms of gaming performance, the iPad Mini line is the weakest line of iOS products Apple sells.
When the Gamevice was first conceived, this wasn’t the case. The iPad Air and iPad Mini 2 were equally powerful, meaning there was nothing to dissuade gamers from buying the smaller iPad, and the folks designing the Gamevice from targeting those gamers. Then Apple changed the rules. The iPad Air 2 was released as a quantum leap in performance over every other iOS device, whereas the iPad Mini 3 was stuck with the same aging A7 processor from the previous generation. Suddenly, gamers had a clear reason to opt for the larger iPad Air and avoid the Mini.
So here we are. The Gamevice is out, but only compatible with the weakest iOS device Apple sells. There was some hope that Apple would change this with the iPad 4, but unfortunately, even with its upgraded internals, it is still the weakest gaming device Apple sells.
That is not to say the iPad Mini is a bad device for gaming; it’s actually quite excellent. The A7 chip in the Mini 2 and Mini 3 and A8 chip in the Mini 4 are more than capable of holding their now. The problem is, they’re far weaker than the chips in the larger iPads, meaning most hardcore gamers would probably opt for the larger devices, making the market for a hardcore iPad Mini gaming accessory potentially small.
I can’t help but feel that the upcoming iPad Air version and iPhone version of the Gamevice will be much better – and more successful – products.
The Gamevice combines Wii U layout with the Xbox One design
Conclusion
In the past, every MFi controller review talks about how well (or poorly) a controller works within the confines of Apple’s MFi spec. I’ve always had to use that crutch – the controller is great for an MFi controller. With the Gamevice, this clarification is unnecessary. The Gamevice isn’t just a great MFi controller. The Gamevice is one of the best controllers ever made, of any kind, for any platform.
Sure, it borrows a lot from Microsoft’s Xbox One controller. But so what? The Xbox One controller is great. The history of game controllers is comprised of companies copying features and layouts first pioneered by other companies. The Gamevice takes the best aspects of the Xbox One controller, puts them in a form-factor similar to (but superior than) the Wii U Gamepad, and packages it all together to perfectly the iPad.
The Gamevice is the best MFi controller, period.
I can’t tell you whether or not you should spend $99 on a controller. What I can say is that this is the best MFi controller ever. I can tell you that unlike other controllers that launched at this price point, the build quality actually reflects the asking price.
The only thing holding me back from wholeheartedly recommending the Gamevice is the exclusive compatibility with the iPad Mini. The Gamevice is an incredible controller, but as a gaming device, the iPad Mini is questionable. Investing $99 dollars into a controller that only works with Apple’s weakest iOS device might be a mistake. The iPad Mini 4 remedies the issue somewhat by including an A8 processor, but that still places it firmly at the bottom of Apple’s range. The Gaming iPad is unquestionably the iPad Air, and that version of the Gamevice makes a lot more sense to me.
But that’s a topic for another review. The fact of the matter is, if you want the best controller you can possibly get for your iPad Mini, this is it. In fact, the Gamevice is far and away the best MFi controller, period. The price is intimidating – $99 is twice as much as other perfectly serviceable controllers – but the Gamevice is more than twice as good as the competition.
My iPad Mini no longer leaves my Gamevice; this is how I play iOS games now.
This week just keeps getting better! After yesterday’s cavalcade of news, Gamevice has one more big announcement to add: The Gamevice for iPhone will be coming in the next few months!
Much like the excellent iPad Gamevice, the iPhone Gamevice uses a classic plus-shaped d-pad, and features two real analog sticks positioned above the ABXY buttons. Circle pad / analog nub haters have nothing to worry about here: the Gamevice uses REAL console-grade analog sticks.
The Gamevice for iPhone uses a smart-cover-style folding rubber piece in the middle to hold it’s two halves together, rather than the single-piece bendable rubber of the larger Gamevice. This means that the same exact Gamevice can work with both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus – no need to lock yourself into one or the other. The newly announced iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus are also fully supported, of course.
Much like the recently revealed Nimbus controller, the Gamevice for iPhone charges over Lightning, rather than the Micro USB connection used by the larger Gamevice. It seems like Apple’s MFi spec has changed to accommodate Lightning charging in controllers, which should be welcome for people who otherwise wouldn’t need a Micro USB cable.
I had a chance to hold a very early prototype of the Gamevice for iPhone a long time ago, back at CES. It wasn’t actually connected to anything, so I can’t make any judgements on how well it plays, but I can vouch for the fact that the layout felt comfortable. Separating the two halves via a folding bridge works as well as you would hope. It’s a clever move, and it makes for a potentially more future-proof design than the larger Gamevice.
The Gamevice for iPhone goes on sale within the next few months for the same $99 price as the larger iPad model. I expect we’ll hear a lot more about this controller in the near future, as release approaches. Personally, I can’t wait to get my hands on one. If this controller is even half as good as their iPad model, we’re in for a real treat.
The Gamevice for iPad Air also gets a firm release date: October 2015 – next month! If you’ve been looking forward to the iPad Air model, the wait is nearly over.
I’ll have an extensive review of this Gamevice, as well as the other Gamevice models, as soon as possible.
It’s here. This is the moment many of you have been waiting the past 9 months for. Minecraft, one of the biggest games of all time, now supports MFi controllers.
I think a lot of older gamers (at least those without kids) don’t quite understand just how huge Minecraft is among young people. To many in their teens, Minecraft is how they hang out with their friends. Gameplay videos of Minecraft are what they watch instead of TV. They live and breathe this game.
Whatever Apple ends up announcing at tomorrow’s event, there is a very real chance that this Minecraft update will have more of an impact on MFi controller sales. As soon as kids see their friends playing Minecraft on a Gamevice, they’re going to be begging for one over the holidays.
I’ve just barely begun to scratch the surface of playing Minecraft on an MFi controller, but I expect to have a lot more information (and much higher quality photos) up soon. My initial impressions: controller support works excellently, and Minecraft is a textbook definition of a must-own game. I say buy it now.
I sure picked a good time to go on a 12-hour road trip. Yesterday was one of the biggest release days in the entire history of MFi controller compatible games, and I was too busy driving to write about it! Let’s correct that now.
First up is one of the biggest games in the history of gaming, and one of the most anticipated ports in iOS history: Final Fantasy VII. Yes, that one. It’s out on iOS. Right now. It fully supports MFi controllers.
This is usually where I’d write up a short blurb about whether or not I recommend the game, but the fact is, I’ve never played Final Fantasy VII before. I know that many people consider it the best RPG of all time, and I know that many others consider it highly overrated. I’m greatly looking forward to spending many hours making up my own mind.
So while I can’t leave a definite recommendation yet, I can say tentatively that this port of FFVII is based on the well-regarded PC version, with its improved graphics and performance. It features full MFi controller support, iCloud saving, and universal compatibility. It’s fully premium, with no ads or spam or any of that crap.
This is Final Fantasy VII, apparently ported with a lot of care to iOS. If you’ve played the game already, you already know if that makes it an instabuy or something to avoid. If you haven’t (like me), there has probably never been a better opportunity to give it a try!
Well folks, it’s been a long wait, but it’s finally over. The Gamevice for iPad Mini just showed up on Apple’s online store. Right now. Today. If you want some of my personal impressions of the controller, check out the AfterPad Gamevice Preview. I’ll have a full review up very soon, once I get my hands on the finalized hardware.
For now, let me say this: I’ve been using various incarnations of the Gamevice since CES, and I can say with all honesty that it is by far the best MFi controller ever. It’s not even close – if you have an iPad Mini, and if you have any interest whatsoever in owning an MFi controller, this is the one to get.
I know there are going to be a lot of questions about this controller; to answer some of the most common ones, I conducted an interview with Gamevice CEO Fraser Townley. If there’s anything you want to know that isn’t covered here, head over to the forums and let me know.
Gamevice Interview
Kevin MacLeod: It’s finally here – the Gamevice for iPad Mini officially launched on Apple’s online store tonight! I speak from experience when I say a LOT of people have been excited about this for a long time. It was supposed to be coming in March – can you give us some insight into why it took so much longer than anticipated?
Fraser Townley: We pushed back the launch date for various reasons. The main one is that we underestimated the time it would take to receive all of the approvals we needed to get to market. Gamevice is a new and unique product; labs around the world had no standard testing procedures, therefore time got lost in the certification process.
The Gamevice is a very unique controller, you’re right about that – I haven’t seen anything quite like it from any other manufacturer, MFi or otherwise! What were some of the challenges with building a controller of this design?
We actually conceived the idea in 2012 and quickly received the utility patent for two halves of a controller attached to two sides of a smart device via an adjustable bridge but, as they say, 5% of the work is the idea and 95% execution. Having the idea and being granted the patent is only the beginning of the journey. We actually needed to create new manufacturing processes and invent new ways of doing things in order to achieve the final product we will deliver very soon. There are a lot of bright and dedicated people that have been involved in the project, and I would like to thank them all for their contribution.
So the Gamevice has spent a few extra months in development from what was originally planned. I know that during that time, you’ve continue to develop and polish the Gamevice. What has changed in that time from the version that wouldhave gone on sale in March?â¨
Tiny mods really, but the kind that make higher production yields and a better feel. It also gave us time to develop our companion app, Gamevice Live. We always planned to create the app for the Christmas season, but now we can launch in parallel with the hardware.â¨â¨
With over 700 games already supporting MFi controllers like the Gamevice, there are a lot of different game styles and control schemes to work with. Are there any games in particular you’ve been testing the Gamevice for?
â¨We test all available games so that we can create a game map within the Gamevice Live app to help guide the gamer. Obviously we focus on the extended game play titles, and we are also in direct contact with key developers to help spread the word: “the world needs more controller compatible games”!â¨
There has been some confusion about device compatibility with the Gamevice. Can you set the record straight – which iPads can it be used with? And is it a one-size-fits-all design, or will prospective buyers need to pick a specific Gamevice for their iPad?
We will have two separate iPad models. One for the iPad Mini (1,2 & 3) and one for the iPad Air (1 & 2). As we are Lightning connected we cannot support earlier iPad versions.â¨
Only the iPad Mini version is available right now. How long will iPad Air gamers need to wait to get their hands on a Gamevice, and can you shed some light onto why this version is being delayed?
The iPad Air is a bigger and heavier puppy than the smaller mini. The Air II is also much thinner than the Air creating challenges that do not exist in the mini. When we first designed Gamevice we imagined that the mini was the optimum size and therefore the foundation for our ultimate gaming experience. Once we got prototypes into the hands of people like yourselves we realized that there would be considerably more demand for the Air variant than we envisioned but, we have to be sure that the quality and the experience is right before we place that on the market. It will be here soon enough.â¨
What about other devices? There has been some mention on your website about versions for the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, and Apple is rumored to be working on a 12-inch iPad model. Not to mention the possibility we might finally have a game-playing Apple TV in the near future. Are there any plans for products addressing these devices?
â¨Well, I cannot possibly comment on what Apple is planning as it would be pure speculation. We have been considering a one size fits all iPhone 6 Gamevice which we are studying very hard. We think we have come up with the solution, but the designers have to thoroughly test the theory whilst we focus what is in production â the iPad variants.â¨
What would you say to someone still on the fence about the Gamevice? $99 is a lot to ask for a controller, especially considering the questionable quality of some of the earlier controllers that retailed for that price. What makes the Gamevice better?
â¨We work with the finest manufacturers in the world and have chosen the highest quality components and materials. I cannot comment on what others have done in the past other than to say that our controller has so many more features than anything that came before and is specific to the iPadâs. It is everything you would expect from a premium quality product. I think once people get one in their hands, they’ll be able to judge for themselves.â¨
Thanks a lot for your time! Where should people go to find out more about the Gamevice?â¨
I’ve tried to cover some of the most important information about the controller here. One more time, if you have any questions at all about the Gamevice, be sure to swing by the forums and post them, and I’ll do my best to get answers. For more information, be sure to check out my exclusive in-depth preview of the Gamevice. And if you want one for yourself, visit Apple.com and place your order!
For those worried that the Gamevice might turn out to be vaporware, this should go a long way towards quelling your fears: Gameviceâs companion app, Gamevice Live, is now available on the App Store!
I worked with the folks at Gamevice to get them access to my game database to create theirs, so their app should be reasonably up-to-date with the releases cataloged here at AfterPad.
For more information on the Gamevice, check out my in-depth hands-on preview; Iâve been using the controller more and more since writing it, and my opinion of it keeps getting better.
New information about the Gamevice controller will be coming very soon; the controller itself wonât be too far behind!
Apparently the developers renamed this app from Limelight to Moonlight. I edited this piece to reflect that change.
Great news for fans of premium gaming: pretty soon, youâll be able to play a massive catalog of high-end PC games on iOS!
First, before those of you with experience playing streamed games grab your pitchforks, there is something big to point out here: streaming gaming has come a long way in the past few years. Just recently, streaming meant low frame rates, high latency, reduced resolution, and high system requirements. AirPlay was the perfect example of this, being almost unplayable with all but a handful of games whoâs designs worked in spite of high latency.
Skyrim at 60fps at Ultra settings on a first-gen mini!
Starting last year with iOS 8, things changed. Iâve chronicled some of the ways iOS 8 was a game changing update for AirPlay, but suffice it to say, Apple managed to get high quality, relatively low latency1, 60fps gameplay out of the A6 chip. Seriously; the vast majority of games are now perfectly playable over AirPlay. The benefits of a wired HDMI connection are minimal for all but the most graphically demanding games.
With that in mind, there are a few apps on the horizon that aim to take the opposite approach. What if instead of beaming what your phone sees to the TV, you beam a high-performance game console or gaming PC to your phone? Itâs the same technology either way, and although phones have come a long way in performance, a killer gaming PC can still utterly destroy the graphics of the highest end devices available2. Several apps are coming soon that aim to do just that – beam the games straight off a high end gaming PC on to the iPhone or iPad, and do it with low latency and high performance.
Portal is PERFECT for iOS
Enter Moonlight
The first streaming app Iâm going to look at is also the one with the highest performance, and serves as a great example of streaming PC gaming at itâs best: Moonlight.
Moonlight is an open-source implementation of NVIDIAâs GameStream technology. GameStream was designed by Nvidia to allow owners of the Shield handheld console (and later Shield tablet) to stream games from their gaming PCs to their Shield devices. While the Shields havenât quite set the world on storm3, The streaming technology Nvidia developed for them is actually quite excellent.
Moonlight brings that technology to iOS. Owners of GameStream compatible Nvidia graphics cards4 can stream games directly from their PC to their iPhones and iPads, just like they would be able to do with the Shields. Moonlight even allows you to control the action with an MFi controller, and does the necessary work of converting the signal so your computer thinks itâs connected to an Xbox 360 pad!
Steam is literally at your fingertips
Gameplay Quality
Once you get Moonlight set up, get your PC configured correctly, and run a compatible game, the quality of the experience is nothing short of phenomenal. In scenes with minimal complexity or motion, visual quality is virtually indistinguishable from native gameplay. Compressions artifacts pop up in fast-motion scenes, but they arenât obtrusive enough to impact gameplay; youâll always be able to see whatâs happening on screen.
More important than how it looks is how it feels, and this is where Moonlight really shines. No matter how much crazy complex action is happening on screen, Limelight always maintains a perfect 60fps frame rate. Doesnât matter which game, doesnât matter which iOS device you use – even a first-generation iPad Mini gets perfectly fluid 60fps gameplay. Not even AirPlay can claim this – only the iPhone 5 and above run above 30fps on the Apple TV.
Perhaps the most critical issue is latency – how quickly game responds to your movements, and how long it takes the image created by the computer to beam itself to the iOS hardware. Again, Moonlight comes out looking great here. You wouldnât want to enter a pro gaming tournament with it any time soon, but for all but the most reaction-time-demanding games, Moonlight is perfectly playable. Latency is comparable to using AirPlay with an A8-powered device â youâll notice it if you really look for it, but you probably wonât feel it while youâre playing. In this instance, Lightning-connected controllers fare a bit better than bluetooth ones5, but both are enjoyable.
Play the same on the small screen as you do on the big
Caveats
Perhaps the biggest hurdle facing Moonlight is the hardware required to use it. Obviously you need a gaming PC – this is a local streaming affair, one device to another, and you have to supply both devices. More specific than that, though, you need a gaming PC with very specific hardware: relatively solid specs across the board, and one of a small list of very-recent Nvidia graphics cards. In fact, before writing this article, I had to grab a new graphics card, because my powerhouse Radeon obviously doesnât apply here.
Assuming your hardware is up to par, youâll also need a high-performance wireless network, preferably with the 5GHz band. My AirPort Extreme with 802.11ac worked fine, but only with the PC plugged in directly – using the PC over Wifi caused significant audio latency and dropped frames. Even then, the signal degrades the further you get from the router. Iâm able to get full coverage in my 1-bedroom apartment, but more expansive setups are going to require well-placed network equipment. Moonlight doesnât appear to do any form of internet streaming at this time, either – you need to be on the same network as your PC, and probably not too far away.
Lastly, Moonlight is very much in beta right now. There are occasional crashes, the interface is confusing, and it often goes into a crash loop that requires the entire app be reinstalled. But with all that said, itâs still shocking to me just how well it works when it is working. You can play for hours, and not feel like youâre missing out on anything due to streaming.
This kept me up in bed until 4 am
Final Thoughts
Moonlight is perhaps the least ambitious form of streaming out there. You need to supply all the hardware yourself, and it only works over a short-range wireless network. Even so, Moonlight is remarkable in just how well it works. Shocking, actually. It may not do as much as other streaming services, and it may require an expensive and specialized hardware setup, but consider me sold. Streaming PC gaming is here, for real, and it feels better than I could have imagined.
Moonlight is currently in beta testing, and is scheduled to be submitted to the App Store for distribution in the near future. If all goes as planned (and if Apple doesnât ban it from sale), expect to be downloading Moonlight – and perhaps buying a new graphics card to go with it – later this year.
