Guide: How to Get Moonlight working on your Vita

At this point, I think it is safe to say that Henkaku has completely blown Rejuvenate out of the water. I had high hopes when Rejuvenate initially came out, but those hopes quickly died with the minuscule install base that the hack got and the low to minimal development that it brought on, even if without Rejuvenate we would have never got Henkaku in this first place. That, however, is a story for a different post that I’d love to write some other time. This one is dedicated to something I got a few request on (like… maybe 1… 2?) which is: How the heck to you get Moonlight to work in the first place? I’m not one to disappoint so here it is (and with a few pictures in more confusing parts)!

Requirements:

• A PC running Steam and games on it (durr.);
• A nVidia GPU and the latest GeForce Experience (sorry AMD users);
• Henkaku and an FTP program;
• A decent router and home network connection (possibly an amazing 3G if you plan to play outside of your house);
• Vita Moonlight;
• 5 minutes (stretch it to 30 if you run into any problems);

Ok, you got all of that? Great! Let’s move in to this tutorial so you can stream the Witcher 3 all-maxed out on your Titan X to your Vita.

Step 1: Activate GameStream

This may seem silly but there is one requirement to be able to use nVidia GameStream: a nVidia account. Without that there’s no way to activate GameStream, so what are you waiting for? I’ll wait. Done? Great! Now open up GeForce Experience and login using your credentials and if all goes well and your GPU is supported you should be greeted with this:

That was easy, wasn’t it? Ok now let’s move on to the next step.

Step 2: Install Vita Moonlight on your console

This is more than self-explanatory, but there is something you should know beforehand: there are two versions of Vita Moonlight as it stands right now, one is Moonlight-5000 and Moonlight-2000? What is the difference? Well, one streams at 5000kbps and the other at 2000kbps. The first one will net you a crisper, less pixely output but right now, you will be doing so at the expense of streaming delay, mostly because the WiFi Chipset of the Vita really isn’t stellar, from what I’ve seen it’s probably on par with that of the Nexus 7 (2013 version) but nowhere close to the quality I can get on my Nexus 5 (I can stream at 1080p60fps with quite literally no lag whatsoever).

My advice would be: try the 5000 version first, if you’re not happy with the results, go for the 2000 version. That’s the one I’m using and while it isn’t perfect it is already pretty good (remember, this is a pre-alpha). Keep in mind also that you can only have one version of Moonlight installed simultaneously, since they both install to the same folder inside your Vita, they can’t coexist.

Step 3: Creating and setting up “server.txt”

This seems to be the step most people seem to have a problem with, but it is really not that hard. First off create a new text document on your desktop and name it server. You done? Fantastic! Now press WinKey+R and write cmd on it (or open up a terminal if you’re running Linux) now inside that window type “ipconfig” you will get this result:

I’ve deleted most of the useless information. What we want is the only information I left, the IPv4 address of your computer. Type this information into your server.txt file. Next we gotta send this file to right place. Open up your favorite FTP client on your PC and VitaShell/MolecularShell on your console, set up the FTP connection and navigate to ux0:/data/ and create a folder named “moonlight”.

If you do not have the ux0:/data folder (no idea if that’s even possible) create it as well. It was already there for me when I first needed it. Now navigate inside the moonlight folder and that’s where you need to upload the server.txt file you created earlier.

Step 4: Pairing the devices

Now this part can be a little tricky, but if you set up everything correctly this should pose no issue. When you first open up Moonlight on your Vita, it will scan for your PC using the IP you provided for it earlier, if all goes well it should tell you to insert a code on your computer, and a small prompt will pop-up on your computer asking for said code.

If this doesn’t happen and you get the “null” error, I only have two advices for you:

• Restart your computer: this fixed the issue for me, when I was having it. I believe this is because the PC was coming from the hibernation state and this may have sc*** with the nVidia System Service.
• Disable any custom firewall you may be using: Especially on Windows 10, custom firewalls can make the system go haywire. Disable it temporarily and see if that works.

After the pairing is done, just press O to boot up GameStream+Steam in Big Picture Mode

Step 5: Enjoy!

If you did all of this as I just told you, you should already be using Moonlight and enjoying PC games on your Vita! What a time to live in!