v6.1.0-vrr13: Cross-band cadence smoothing and high-refresh fixes (Beta)

VRR13 refines VRR12's cadence-tracking design. It keeps the smoother and adaptive playout delay continuous when a game's frame rate moves between calibration bands, carries short-lived timing debt instead of introducing a new cadence step, and makes the VRR-capable Vulkan presentation path reliable on Linux.

What's New

• Smooth transitions between frame-rate bands. Cadence and adaptive delay calibration now move gradually instead of stepping when the estimated source rate crosses a band boundary. In the deterministic 116 to 127 FPS boundary test, the largest one-frame calibration step fell from 1.091 ms with VRR12-style behavior to 0.050 ms.
• Better preservation of game motion. The controller repays short-lived timing debt without copying capture-timestamp noise directly to the display. On the gameplay calibration trace, p90 presented-frame jerk fell from 4.359 ms to 2.442 ms, and intervals changing by more than 2 ms fell from 28.53% to 13.10%.
• High-refresh coverage. Deterministic tests exercise every integer source rate from 115 through 139 FPS on a 144 Hz display and 115 through 227 FPS on a 240 Hz display. The worst p90 target-cadence jerk in those sweeps is 0.532 ms. These are controller simulations; real results still depend on the host, network, decoder, GPU, and display.
• Reliable Linux VRR renderer selection. An active VRR session now prefers the Vulkan presentation path on Linux and does not select VDPAU first. The Vulkan swapchain keeps one spare image so acquisition does not starve while a frame is being displayed; this is capacity for the renderer, not an added frame of intentional playout delay.
• Steam Deck Flatpak fixes. The bundle includes the Gamescope WSI workaround, keeps direct display-refresh detection through libdrm, and uses the tested KDE 6.10 runtime.

VRR13 cannot create frames the host or game did not produce. A genuine game stall, large host capture gap, decode miss, or network interruption remains visible. If VRR cannot be used safely, Moonlight falls back to normal fixed V-Sync.

Existing users: After updating, open Settings and confirm that V-Sync and Enable VRR are enabled. VRR remains opt-in in this beta. Moonlight automatically uses borderless fullscreen while VRR is active.

Downloads

Steam Deck Installation

1. Switch to Desktop Mode.

2. Download Moonlight-VRR-6.1.0-vrr13-linux-x86_64.flatpak from the assets below.

3. Open Konsole and change to the download folder:

   cd ~/Downloads

4. For a first installation, run:

   flatpak install --user ./Moonlight-VRR-6.1.0-vrr13-linux-x86_64.flatpak

   To update or replace an earlier VRR beta, run:

   flatpak install --user --reinstall ./Moonlight-VRR-6.1.0-vrr13-linux-x86_64.flatpak

5. Open Steam in Desktop Mode and add Moonlight as a non-Steam game. If an older Moonlight shortcut already exists, remove it and add Moonlight again so Steam selects the user-installed VRR13 Flatpak.

6. Return to Gaming Mode and launch Moonlight.

No sudo, Mesa downgrade, Flatpak mask, or compatibility installer script is required.

Other Linux Distributions

Install Flatpak through your distribution if it is not already available, download the .flatpak asset, then run from the directory containing the download:

flatpak install --user ./Moonlight-VRR-6.1.0-vrr13-linux-x86_64.flatpak

To replace an existing Moonlight VRR build:

flatpak install --user --reinstall ./Moonlight-VRR-6.1.0-vrr13-linux-x86_64.flatpak

Launch it from the desktop application menu or with:

flatpak run com.moonlight_stream.Moonlight

This bundle targets 64-bit x86 Linux and uses the same Flatpak application ID as standard Moonlight. If both a system-wide and user installation exist, your desktop shortcut may need to be recreated so it opens the user installation.

Windows Installation

Installer

1. Close Moonlight completely before installing the update.
2. Download MoonlightSetup-x64-6.1.0-vrr13.msi from the assets below.
3. Open the downloaded MSI and follow the installer prompts.
4. If Windows warns that the build is from an unknown publisher, confirm that you downloaded it from this release before continuing. This beta build is intentionally unsigned.
5. Launch Moonlight from the Start menu when installation finishes.

The installer can replace an earlier Moonlight VRR beta; uninstalling the previous beta first is not required.

Portable ZIP

1. Close any running copy of Moonlight.
2. Download MoonlightPortable-x64-6.1.0-vrr13.zip from the assets below.
3. Extract the entire ZIP to a new writable folder. Do not run Moonlight directly from inside the ZIP.
4. Run Moonlight.exe from the extracted folder.

Keep all extracted files together. If replacing an older portable beta, use a fresh folder or replace the complete extracted directory while Moonlight is closed.

AppImage Installation

Download Moonlight-6.1.0-vrr13-x86_64.AppImage, make it executable, and run it:

chmod +x Moonlight-6.1.0-vrr13-x86_64.AppImage
./Moonlight-6.1.0-vrr13-x86_64.AppImage

How to Use VRR

1. Enable V-Sync in Moonlight.
2. Enable Enable VRR.
3. Make sure FreeSync, G-Sync, or Adaptive-Sync is enabled for the display.
4. In Moonlight's frame-rate setting, choose one of the entries marked VRR.
5. For the best result, select a stream frame rate the host can sustain consistently and that remains inside the display's VRR range.

SHA-256 Checksums

65bbb78cd44cb56e6dd91fe26a1843b26335da03fb3d3ce44698ad0abb88462c  Moonlight-6.1.0-vrr13-x86_64.AppImage
1c3a27c11790e19cbbc9e4b0cfceb325a12e64e8f843805b8700f07622e075c1  Moonlight-VRR-6.1.0-vrr13-linux-x86_64.flatpak
921c9203e54f2f87a05001583480c202f6e331c2c87ef198c0feb294aa862b09  MoonlightSetup-x64-6.1.0-vrr13.msi
8ba332e9109b79afebf7f7e889eb7957c63cfdd942264b9f2706b18691638c51  MoonlightPortable-x64-6.1.0-vrr13.zip

Beta Notice

This remains an experimental beta. When reporting a regression, include:

• the Moonlight session log;
• operating system and GPU;
• display model and refresh rate;
• selected stream resolution and FPS;
• whether VRR, HDR, and hardware decoding were enabled; and
• for Steam Deck, whether the issue occurred in Desktop Mode or Gaming Mode.