Self-host Foundation Sunshine
v2026.1020.23431.杂鱼HDR game-streaming host for Moonlight with virtual displays
- Stars
- 7 365
- Port
- 47990 (WebUI management interface (HTTPS))
What is Foundation Sunshine?
Foundation Sunshine is the host side of a Moonlight streaming setup: a Windows program derived from LizardByte Sunshine that you install on your gaming machine so you can play or work on it from phones, tablets, televisions and other devices. Its additions center on picture quality and convenience — dynamic HDR including HDR10+ and HDR Vivid metadata plus Dolby Vision profile negotiation, headless use through HDR virtual monitors provided by the bundled ZakoDisplay driver, RTX HDR and DLSS-style enhancement on NVIDIA cards, and NVENC, AMF or Quick Sync encoding tuned for latency. Sound reaches the client in surround formats up to 7.1.4, and its microphone can be sent back; native DualSense passthrough keeps adaptive triggers and haptics working, alongside synced clipboard, shared folders, USB forwarding and quality changes during a session. A separate desktop application, beyond the classic web page on port 47990, handles wizard-driven first setup, device components, log analysis and bulk-importing Steam, Epic or GOG catalogs. Self-hosting means running the published WindowsInstaller.exe on your own hardware, requiring Windows 10 22H2 or later plus a GPU able to encode video in hardware; many enhancements only surface fully with the team's own Moonlight V+ / Enhanced clients.
Should you self-host Foundation Sunshine?
Foundation Sunshine scores 65/100 on selfhost.directory (how scoring works) and ranks #10 of 22 in Remote Desktop. It has 7 365 GitHub stars.
It shipped 6 stable releases in the past year. The latest, v2026.1027.141040.杂鱼, came out on 27 October 2026. New versions land roughly every 7 days.
Setup is easy: most people get it running in one sitting. It is GPL-3.0-licensed and written mostly in C++.
Its closest alternative on selfhost.directory is rustdesk (92/100, 127 306 stars). It scores higher overall, so compare the two before you pick. See Foundation Sunshine vs rustdesk side by side.
Features
- Adaptive bitrate and live quality tuning
- Clipboard Sync
- Desktop control panel GUI
- Game library scanning
- Hardware Encoding
- HDR game streaming
- Microphone forwarding
- Native DualSense passthrough
- NVIDIA image enhancements
- Shared Folders
- Surround audio streaming
- Touch and pen input
- USB device forwarding
- Virtual displays
- Web admin UI
Foundation Sunshine README
FAQ
It works at home but I cannot connect from outside my network.
LAN addresses do not work directly over the internet; after a working local connection you need to configure remote network access following the guides on the project's official website.
There is video but no sound.
Confirm local Windows audio plays on the host, check the audio output device selected in Sunshine, set the client to stereo/Opus, and reconnect before re-enabling surround or other formats one by one.
Pairing succeeds but I get a black screen or the session fails to start.
Try connecting to Desktop first, confirm the chosen display is enabled in the wizard or display settings, and check the virtual display driver status if you use virtual screens; collect logs plus GPU/driver versions if it keeps failing.
The client cannot find my PC—what should I check?
Add the host's IPv4 address manually, verify Sunshine is running, that both devices are on the same LAN, and that Windows Firewall allows Sunshine; guest Wi-Fi or AP isolation can block device-to-device access.
Why does my Windows desktop or menus auto-scroll after installing the simulated DS5 controller component?
The project recommends downloading and installing the latest pre-release build of Foundation Sunshine to resolve it, and filing Windows/Sunshine versions plus reproduction steps if it persists.
How do I fix stuttering, dropped frames or high input latency?
Start from a stable baseline (1080p, 60 FPS, 10 Mbps, HDR and enhancements off, wired host connection), open the client's performance stats to find which stage—network, host encoding or client decoding—is slow, then raise one setting at a time.
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