PFSW

Punktfunk for Switch is a low-latency game streaming client for punktfunk hosts on the Nintendo Switch.

It is a fork of Moonlight-Switch by XITRIX: the borealis UI, NVTegra hardware decoding, deko3d renderer, audio, input mapping and NSP forwarder builder are kept. The GameStream / Sunshine protocol has been replaced by the punktfunk Rust core (QUIC transport, Opus audio, mDNS discovery, management API), cross-compiled with std for Horizon.

Important

Not affiliated. PFSW is unofficial homebrew. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or related to Nintendo, NVIDIA, the Moonlight Game Streaming Project, Sunshine, XITRIX, or the punktfunk authors. Moonlight-Switch remains the upstream UI this client is forked from; this is not an official continuation of that project.

Trademarks. “punktfunk” and the lens/wordmark used as this app's icon belong to their respective owners. Using that artwork identifies the protocol this client speaks; it is not a grant of trademark rights and does not make PFSW an official punktfunk product. Nintendo Switch is a trademark of Nintendo Co., Ltd. GitHub and the Invertocat logo are trademarks of GitHub, Inc.

Warning

This project was built for personal use. I use it regularly on a Switch OLED with Atmosphere, but it has not been tested on other devices or setups. Overclocking (CPU/GPU) via tools like sys-clk can help with high bitrates and 1080p. Use at your own risk — you are responsible for anything you do to your console.

Installing

1. Download the latest punktfunk-switch-*.zip from Releases.
2. Extract it to the root of the SD card (switch/punktfunk/punktfunk.nro plus a licenses/ folder).
3. Start hbmenu through title redirection (hold R while launching a game), not the album applet: the stream needs full-memory mode.
4. Launch PFSW, open Add host, pick a discovered host (or type address[:port], default port 9777) and pair.

Pair with the PIN from the host's Pairing page, or Request access so the host owner can approve the console. Hosts are pinned by certificate fingerprint; a changed certificate is flagged before any connection.

Settings, the client identity (identity/), the artwork cache and log.log live in sdmc:/switch/punktfunk/. Delete identity/ to make the console a new client (every host has to pair it again). Never share identity/key.pem.

Controls

Mouse

With the touch screen you can move the cursor, tap to left-click, and scroll with two fingers.

While touching the screen, ZR and ZL work as left and right mouse buttons, and the L and R sticks work as a scroll wheel.

USB mice work as well. Settings also offer touch as trackpad, pointer, native touch, or off.

Keyboard

Tap three fingers on the screen for the on-screen keyboard. USB keyboards work as well.

Gamepad

By default the Switch gamepad is presented as an Xbox 360 pad (Nintendo A/B and X/Y are remapped to the Xbox layout). Mapping is available in Settings.

Up to five gamepads (including handheld) are supported. Split Joy-Con are also supported. The host can emulate a Switch Pro, Xbox 360/One, DualSense or DualShock 4 controller.

Sixaxis / gyro

Gyro and accelerometer are sent as rich motion input. Configure the host to emulate a DualShock 4 if you need sixaxis on the PC side. Handheld / player 1 only.

In-game overlay

Press − and + together by default, or hold Esc on a keyboard. The combination and hold time are configurable in Settings.

NSP forwarder

Add a game to Favorites, then press X on that row to build a forwarder that launches straight into the stream.

You can also create a forwarder that passes these arguments:

• --ip — IP address of the host
• --host — certificate fingerprint (preferred; survives address changes)
• --appid — library id of the app (must be in Favorites; see sdmc:/switch/punktfunk/settings.json)
• --appname — display name without spaces

Example:

--ip=192.168.1.101 --appid=steam:570 --appname=Steam

Localization

Language follows the Horizon system language. There is no in-app language picker, so a locale Horizon does not offer cannot be selected.

Language	Coverage vs English
English	100%
German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional)	~83% (punktfunk-specific strings still English)

To improve a translation, edit resources/i18n/<locale>/main.json and open a pull request.

Building

Everything builds inside the pf-switch-dev container (devkitA64, libnx, portlibs, and a nightly Rust with rust-src). The repository is mounted at /src, which punktfunk-rs/.cargo/config.toml relies on.

git clone --recursive https://github.com/lucasssvaz/punktfunk-switch.git
cd punktfunk-switch
scripts/dev.sh build-image
scripts/dev.sh bash -c 'cmake --preset switch-release && cmake --build --preset switch-release -j'
scripts/package-switch.sh    # dist/punktfunk-switch-<version>.zip and dist/punktfunk.nro

CMake runs scripts/fetch-patched-crates.sh on configure, which downloads aws-lc-sys (too large to vendor), verifies its checksum and applies punktfunk-rs/patches/series/. The other crates patched for Horizon are vendored under punktfunk-rs/patches/.

The Linux desktop target (linux-dev preset; SDL2, system FFmpeg) is a development harness for the UI and protocol code. CI builds it; it is not released.

Testing on hardware

See the PC-first and Switch testing guide.

nx-test uploads punktfunk.nro --self-test over nxlink, prints TAP on the PC, and leaves a PASS/FAIL report on the Switch until +. Spike NROs in spike/ (pf-hello, pf-smoke, pf-e2e) isolate lower layers when something misbehaves.

Licenses

Copyright 2026 Lucas Saavedra Vaz.

The application as a whole is GPL-3.0-or-later (inherited from Moonlight-Switch; see LICENSE). That copyleft stays: Moonlight-Switch, sphaira’s forwarder flow, and Iwan Timmer’s SDL audio cannot be relicensed. Everything original to PFSW (punktfunk-rs/ except vendored patches/, punktfunk integration, spike, scripts, docker, docs) is Apache-2.0. The upstream punktfunk core is MIT OR Apache-2.0; this tree uses the Apache-2.0 side. See NOTICE, LICENSE-APACHE and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Credits

• XITRIX and the Moonlight-Switch contributors — this app is built on their work
• Rock88 / Moonlight-NX — much of the streaming path
• xfangfang and Natinusala for borealis
• averne for NVDEC in FFmpeg
• Cooler3D for deko3d help on the Moonlight-Switch side
• AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0 EASU/RCAS from GPUOpen FidelityFX-FSR (MIT), used on the Switch deko3d upscaling path
• The punktfunk contributors

What's next

Streaming, stereo Opus, pad, analog triggers, rumble, gyro, touch, overlay, pairing, library and forwarders already work.

Worth doing

• HD rumble. Map host rumble to Joy-Con HD rumble instead of fake Xbox dual-motor.
• Gyro that stays usable. Motion is already sent; polish jumpy or unrecognized samples.
• Sleep. End the session cleanly when the console sleeps instead of crashing Atmosphere.
• Latency. Report vsync to the host (CLIENT_CAP_PHASE_LOCK).
• Per-host bitrate, and optionally separate Wi-Fi vs Ethernet defaults.
• SL / SR on split Joy-Con for overlay / mouse bindings.

Skip

• AV1 — no NVDEC.
• Microphone — 3.5 mm jack has no mic; Joy-Con mics are not worth it.
• HDR / 10-bit / 4:4:4 / 5.1 HDMI — dock is stereo SDR as far as homebrew is concerned; the internal OLED panel is SDR.

AI-assisted development

A part of this port was written with AI coding tools. Treat it as experimental: read the code, test on your own hardware, and do not assume it is production-quality. Issues and pull requests are welcome.