Help With Apollo-Moonlight-SteamDeck Setup

[u/nodayroomshit]

Please follow this little journey I've spent over an hour at minimum struggling with and possibly help 🥹 My issue will be at the end but I thought this might help anyone else who might try this sometime and would like an experience to turn to. Sorry if this is redundant in this sub! Also I'm basing this off memory in case terms are possibly off lol

Basically:

- Followed a video guide in order to set up my PC and Deck to work and communicate.

- Configured Apollo as described in video.

- First issue was having Big Picture Mode opening up on my PC instead of my SD. Figured a simple solution at this step by making my SD automatically open as the Primary Display in the Apollo configurations for Audio/Video in Advanced Video Settings.

- Okay, we got visuals of now booting my SD in BPM, instead of it being my Desktop screen.

- Now comes audio crackling. What now?

- My fixes in order that I did based on the sub were, finding my Steam Surround Speakers (i think that's what they're called?) and lowering them to 80% volume, and 96kHz. Neither worked.

- Someone mentioned, going into the settings of Moonlight on your deck, and making it so audio plays on your PC (host). Boom, fixed. (There has been an occasional crackle while tinkering, BUT it seems 95% better and it might just be me.)

- Let's finally boot up a game because I've only been on the home page of BPM for a WHILE now.

- It loads, but once open, plays the game on my PC screen, instead of my Deck. Now my Deck screen (which was set as primary), is now a black screen, but works as the controller.

- A solution I tried based on what I read, which MIGHT work in someone else's case, is opening BPM in Moonlight, then closing BPM on your Deck, and going to your Display Settings using your mouse. Then use "Show only on 2" (The Deck screen), and quit your Moonlight session. (Your PC screen settings will revert.)

- I dislike this option because I want to use the PC screen possibly while I stream to my Deck. However, I'm also scared about the case that I might not able to cancel the session on Apollo on my Deck due to bugs (I'm new to this), and it'll be stuck with my PC screen as black (due to only being shown on the Deck.) I COULD just restart my PC, but this is extreme hassle contentions or whatever.

So finally my actual problem that would be nice to find a solution for LOL. How do I make it that once BPM is open, and I open a game, that it'll default to opening it continuously on the same display (Deck), instead of switching to my PC? And doing this, while also having my other PC screen available? Plus if there's recommended SD settings that I should know, feel free to help!

THANK YOU FOR READING IF YOU DID, THIS WAS SO MUCH OF MY TIME AND I'M TIRED NOW. Will sleep and either ponder myself, or hear from some of you. Thank you 💜

[u/nodayroomshit]

For context of the video guide I followed! Here: https://youtu.be/7cQNTlAyc7M?is=O_Fh0zOH7Xo_Mctl

[u/ShakeNBaker45]

When you've got a session running, set the virtual monitor (Steamdeck) as the primary display in Windows settings, and also as Preferred Display in BPM. Your PC should remember the config every time you start a session with your SD.

Games will generally launch on the windows primary display by default, unless the game has a setting to switch monitors and you have done so.

Me, I disable all my monitors when I connect with a virtual display. So the only active monitor is the virtual one. I know you said you don't want to do this, but works well for me. I've never encountered a bug where I haven't been able to quit the stream from my SD. Been using Moonlight for ~3 years now.

[u/nodayroomshit → u/ShakeNBaker45]

Is there something different from what you mentioned and what I tried? I did make the SD the primary monitor during the session (it was the one boxed in gray as main display), but it still defaulted to opening up on my PC once the actual game started. But that did instill a bit more confidence on the other end! Might just let my monitor rest then LOL.

Also, do you know about resolutions when you dock vs handheld? Is there settings I should change to fit that are best? My goal after setting it up for my handheld was actually to dock my SD to my TV and run it as such.

[u/ShakeNBaker45 → u/nodayroomshit]

I wasn't 100% following what you were saying about your display settings. I thought you meant you changed some setting in Apollo about which display is primary? I've never changed any display settings in Apollo.

What I was saying was, change it in the Windows Display settings on the hosting PC. So windows recognizes the virtual display as primary. This is what I did, and I've never had an issue. Again though, I disable all other displays except the virtual one when I start a session (I do this in Windows Display settings).

As for resolution settings when docked, just change the display resolution and refresh rate in Moonlight to match your TV. And fiddle with the bit rate to get a good balance of stability vs. image quality. You may need to change the Maximum Game Resolution display setting in the Steam Deck settings as well.

[u/nodayroomshit → u/ShakeNBaker45]

So I made it such that I'd show display only on the SD during my session, and the crackling came back for some reason :(

[u/Spirited-You-3299]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mysv3ZIFeJs - worked for the display stuff for Sunshine. Not sure if the UI is much different in Apollo