Let’s assume a modern AAA game streamed to a dumb terminal: what are the minimum specs for that terminal to run the game without hiccups (controlling for network bandwidth, of course)?
Testing with streaming at 1440p@144Hz from a cacyos host vm running sunshine to a cachyos physical client running Moonlight, the moonlight client used:
153.2MB RAM
2-3% of an i3-N305
24Mb/s (3MB/s)
15-20% of use iGPU
And none of that changed between running Autodesk Fusion with both a low and high polygon assembly, running a AAA game at 1440p@144Hz, or emulating a switch game at the same resolution and refresh rate.
The application being streamed is irrelevant to the resources used by the client.
The requirements for cloud gaming revolve around having the hardware to drive the local monitor, and having fast enough internet with low enough latency.
Notably, the game data is not loaded into RAM. In case it isn’t clear, those requirements are very low, by 2026 standards. If it can display video on the monitor you have, then it can probably stream a game.
You still need to run streamed games in RAM. A lot of RAM.
Well…we’ll go back to Zork and Venture.
No you don’t. I can run moonlight on a potato. All the processing is server side.
Processing, yes. Game data needs to be loaded in RAM.
I suppose games of the future will be optimized to require less RAM while streaming.
Even modern web browsers require at least 8gb.
No, it doesn’t. The client receives the video + audio and sends control inputs to the server. The game data doesn’t touch the client device.
It’s the same concept as RDP and VNC. With fiber being rolled out in more and more places, input lag will become a thing of the past.
Source: I used to be a VDI Engineer. I designed and maintained the infrastructure for 1k zero clients that had lower specs than a Pi 3.
I’ll defer to your expertise.
Let’s assume a modern AAA game streamed to a dumb terminal: what are the minimum specs for that terminal to run the game without hiccups (controlling for network bandwidth, of course)?
Testing with streaming at 1440p@144Hz from a cacyos host vm running sunshine to a cachyos physical client running Moonlight, the moonlight client used:
And none of that changed between running Autodesk Fusion with both a low and high polygon assembly, running a AAA game at 1440p@144Hz, or emulating a switch game at the same resolution and refresh rate.
The application being streamed is irrelevant to the resources used by the client.
Edit: Added GPU utilization.
What’s the iGPU?
Integrated GPU
Sorry, I meant which one? Intel Irix? Nvidia? AMD?
The requirements for cloud gaming revolve around having the hardware to drive the local monitor, and having fast enough internet with low enough latency.
For example, here are Geforce Now’s minimum requirements: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/system-reqs/
There is some overhead involved in streaming, but the RAM requirements are low and certainly don’t change based on the game.
Ok interesting. 4gb RAM. But they’re also requiring a GPU that supports direct x v11. So there’s some rendering happening at the client?
That’s still going to make a dumb terminal quite expensive.
Notably, the game data is not loaded into RAM. In case it isn’t clear, those requirements are very low, by 2026 standards. If it can display video on the monitor you have, then it can probably stream a game.
But Zork needs 64Kb ram!