Hey everyone, I’m trying to clean up my local game streaming setup and I’m not sure if I’m thinking about this correctly.
My gaming PC runs Apollo and is connected to my main ISP router over Wi-Fi 6 on 5 GHz. My S25 runs Artemis and is also connected to the same 5 GHz network.
It works, but not smoothly. I get random stutters, packet loss warnings, and latency jumping from around 7–9 ms to 20+ ms for no obvious reason. Even if I lower bitrate to 25 Mbps, I still get the occasional “slow connection” warning.
Running Ethernet from the PC to the main router would be a pain because they’re on opposite sides of the house and there are thick walls in between.
So my idea was: buy a cheap dedicated Wi-Fi 6 router, plug it directly into my PC with Ethernet, and connect only my phone to that router when I want to stream. Basically a private local Wi-Fi just for Moonlight/Apollo.
Would that actually reduce the stutters, or am I just creating another weird network problem?
Your current setup is the worst part:
Phone → Wi-Fi → main router → Wi-Fi → PC
Both ends are wireless, so the stream is crossing the same Wi-Fi environment twice. That can absolutely add jitter, especially if the channel is busy.
A dedicated AP wired directly to the PC can help because then the stream path becomes:
Phone → Wi-Fi → dedicated AP → Ethernet → PC
Much cleaner, assuming the AP is close to where you use the phone.
Before buying anything, run iperf3 or OpenSpeedTest between the phone and PC if you can. You want to know if the problem is raw throughput, packet loss, or spikes under load. Speed tests to the internet don’t tell you much for local streaming. Also check if the PC’s Wi-Fi signal is actually good. If the PC has a weak connection to the main router, that explains a lot. But if you move the streaming traffic onto a dedicated AP, the PC’s main Wi-Fi becomes less relevant for the stream itself.
@Repulsive_Trade303 can you explain iperf? first time hearing about it…
Honestly, I don’t really want to write a whole lecture here — just Google it, it’s a pretty standard network testing tool. Or if that feels like too much hassle, just use NetSpot. It actually has an iperf option during active scanning, and it’s pretty self-explanatory once you open it.