Nightjar 4.9.0 has a new look: moonlit glass on phones, handhelds, TVs and the Windows and Linux desktop. Streams on Windows at the display's own rate reach the screen sooner, and a PC that shuts down now ends the stream at once.
Highlights
- Moonlit glass everywhere. Home, PCs, the game grid, game pages, Settings, dialogs, the PIN pad, pairing, connecting and the stream menu share one design, with System, Dark and OLED themes on Android and a plain look for high contrast.
- Nothing over your game. No glass is drawn over a stream unless the stream menu is open, and the blur steps down to a still one where the GPU can't keep up.
- Sooner on Windows. A stream at the display's own rate reaches the screen 3 to 30 ms sooner on our Radeon 780M laptop.
- A PC that shuts down ends the stream at once, and a host crash recovers.
- The on-screen pad can be its own player, shortcuts can be reordered, and Y, X, LB and RB run the stream menu entry you pick.
- Faster encrypted video on the new streaming engine: decryption is about four times faster on a Retroid Pocket 6.
- Linux on ARM: Flatpak, AppImage, .deb, .rpm and tar.gz for aarch64.
The new look
- The glass fits the device: a live blur where the GPU keeps up, a still one where it doesn't.
- Button hints follow what you used last: remote, controller (with PlayStation labels on Sony pads) or keyboard, and none for touch.
- Play on Home asks before it closes a game that is already running, as the game page does.
- Confirmations that end a game, a session or a pairing start on Cancel.
- Turning, folding or splitting the screen rebuilds the layout for the new shape.
- The stream menu says Quit game, as the rest of the app does.
- Windows and Linux: with two or more PCs, the PC button at the top opens a list of them; with one it opens that PC's options.
- Windows and Linux: on a controller, Y opens a game's options, as on Android, and removing a favourite is in that menu. The keyboard keeps Delete.
Streaming
- Windows: a stream at the display's own rate reaches the screen 3 to 30 ms sooner on our 780M laptop; a late picture shows the last one a little longer.
- Encrypted video (the default over the internet) uses the phone's AES instructions on the new streaming engine.
- Below Android 11 (a Fire TV Stick 4K Max), the Android low-latency switch works and the stats no longer read "off" while the decoder is asked for low latency.
- A PC or host that shuts down ends the stream within seconds of its goodbye, a host that restarts is told apart from one that is gone, and a crash recovers.
- The TV stats overlay fits the screen.
Controls
- The on-screen pad can play as its own player beside real controllers.
- Move up and Move down reorder keyboard shortcuts.
- Y, X, LB and RB in the stream menu run the entry you pick; Disconnect asks first.
Linux
- Packages for ARM handhelds and boards: Flatpak, AppImage, .deb, .rpm and tar.gz for aarch64, with PyroWave.
- 10-bit HEVC on V4L2 decoders that offer P010.
- HDR on Wayland desktops with colour management goes by the displays' HDR state when Nightjar starts, so it is no longer refused at start.
Tested. A real stream to Nightjar for Windows on a Radeon 780M laptop over Wi-Fi (1080p, 120 fps, AV1, 50 Mbps) measured the same with the new look as before it: 120 frames shown per second both ways, decode 0.12 ms, receive to present 2.07 ms median against 2.32 ms before. A real stream to the Retroid Pocket 6 (1080p, 120 fps, AV1) ran at 119.4 fps, and Android drew 0 UI frames in 10 s while the stream menu was closed. Both against Rubylight 3.8.0 on an RX 7900 XT PC. The Android, Windows and Linux test suites passed.