Concepts¶

A short glossary of the terms used throughout these docs. Skim it on your way in; come back when something is unfamiliar.

Roles¶

Host: The PC running LuminalShine. The thing you stream from.
Client: A device running Moonlight or the built-in WebRTC client. The thing you stream to.
Service: LuminalShine itself, running as a Windows service. Starts on boot, runs without a user logged in, and stays alive across the lock screen.
Tray companion: An optional user-session helper that exposes service status in the Windows notification area.

Sessions and pairing¶

Pairing: The one-time handshake between a host and a client. The client presents a 4-digit PIN; you type it into the host’s Web UI. After that, the client can connect without prompting.
Session: A single live stream from host to client. Each session has its own capture, encode, transport, and input threads on the host.
App: A configured launch target on the host. Comes in three flavors: the built-in Desktop app (streams whatever’s on screen), a process app (launches a binary), or an imported entry from Steam / Playnite.
Resume: Reconnecting to an in-flight session. If the client drops, the host keeps the app running and lets you reconnect without restarting it.

Transports¶

Moonlight / classic transport: The original streaming protocol — NVIDIA-GameStream-compatible HTTP control plane plus RTSP + ENet for media. What any installed Moonlight client uses by default.
WebRTC: An alternate transport that streams to a browser at https://<host>:47990/webrtc. No client install needed. Mutually exclusive with the classic transport — only one is active at a time per host.

Display and capture¶

Display capture

Reading the host’s framebuffer in real time. LuminalShine prefers Windows Graphics Capture (WGC) running in service mode and falls back to the older Desktop Duplication API if WGC is unavailable.

WGC (Windows Graphics Capture)

The modern Windows capture API. In LuminalShine’s service-mode configuration, it survives VRAM exhaustion, captures frame-generated frames at full rate, and keeps the lock screen and UAC prompts capturable.

VDD (Virtual Display Driver)

A driver that creates a fake monitor for LuminalShine to render to. Useful on headless rigs, hybrid-GPU laptops, or whenever you don’t want to mirror your real desktop. LuminalShine ships with three options:

SudoVDA — the default; flexible, hybrid-GPU aware.
MTT VDD — alternative for niche hardware.
LuminalVGD — NortheBridge’s in-house driver, in development.

Display Setting Automation

The subsystem that restores your display layout after crashes, reboots, or unreleased virtual displays.

Encoding¶

Encoder: The hardware block on your GPU that compresses video frames in real time. LuminalShine drives NVENC (NVIDIA), AMF (AMD), or QuickSync (Intel).
Codec: The compression format used for the video stream. LuminalShine supports H.264 (universal), HEVC (better quality per bit, default), and AV1 (best quality per bit, requires recent hardware on both ends).
Bitrate: How much data the encoder produces per second, in Mbps. Higher = better picture, more network. Defaults sit around 20 Mbps for 1080p60; budget ≥50 Mbps for 4K60.
HDR: High dynamic range. Requires HDR-capable display, HEVC or AV1 codec, and an HDR-capable client.
Frame pacing: The timing of when each encoded frame leaves the host. LuminalShine cooperates with RTSS and the NVIDIA Control Panel to apply the correct frame limit and disable V-Sync before a stream starts.

Performance features¶

Frame generation: GPU-side techniques (DLSS-FG, FSR Frame Generation, XeSS-FG, NVIDIA Smooth Motion, Lossless Scaling) that synthesize intermediate frames between rendered ones. LuminalShine has specific capture-side fixes so generated frames stream at full rate.
Smooth Motion: NVIDIA’s driver-level frame generation, supported on RTX 40/50 series. Treated as a per-app toggle in LuminalShine.

Security¶

Credential store (cred_store): The subsystem that holds admin credentials for the Web UI. Three layers in order of preference: TPM sealing (Windows + TPM 2.0) → platform secret storage (Credential Manager / Keychain / libsecret) → encrypted file backend.
TPM sealing: Wrapping a credential with a 2048-bit RSA key bound to the host’s Trusted Platform Module. Means the credential can only be unwrapped on the same physical machine.
Argon2id: The memory-hard password-hashing function LuminalShine uses for the admin password. Tunable via argon2_m_cost_kib, argon2_t_cost, argon2_parallel in the config.
Scoped API token: An API credential that grants access to a specific set of REST methods, not full admin. Use these for automation so scripts never need the admin password.
Session token: The HttpOnly cookie issued after Web UI login. Carries the active session for browser interactions; expires per the session policy.

File and config layout¶

Config file: %ProgramData%\LuminalShine\sunshine.conf. Text format, one key = value per line. The full key reference lives in Configuration.
Credentials file: %ProgramData%\LuminalShine\sunshine_credentials.json. Separate from the main config so it can be backed up (or rotated) independently.
Logs: %ProgramData%\LuminalShine\sunshine.log. Rotated per session.
State: %ProgramData%\LuminalShine\sunshine_state.json. Pairing data, app metadata, runtime state.