← Blog

Stream your PC games to an LG TV

The biggest screen in the house is often an LG TV, and webOS runs almost no game streaming apps. punktfunk has a native webOS client, built by dyptan-io and donated to the project. It streams up to 4K120 with HDR, straight into the TV's own video hardware.

The best screen in most homes isn't the monitor on your desk. It's the big TV in the living room. And a lot of those TVs are LGs.

The trouble is, webOS isn't Android. You can't just grab your favourite streaming app from a store. For PC game streaming, the choices have been thin.

Built by one person, now part of punktfunk

The punktfunk webOS client started as someone else's project. dyptan-io wrote it on his own, on top of punktfunk's open core, and taught it to talk to the TV's hardware video decoder directly. Then he donated it to the project.

It now lives at punktfunk/client-webos, and he still maintains it. If you enjoy streaming to your LG, he's the one to thank.

What it does

It's a real punktfunk client, not a wrapper around a browser:

  • Up to 4K at 120 fps, with HDR. H.264 or HEVC, decoded by the TV's own media hardware.
  • Two ways to drive it. Pointer menus for the Magic Remote, and punktfunk's controller UI, the same one the Android TV and Steam Deck clients use. Pick up a gamepad and the controller UI takes over.
  • Controllers, keyboard, mouse. Gamepads, USB keyboards and mice, and the Magic Remote as a pointer. On webOS 10, a DualSense gets adaptive triggers, lightbar, haptics and its speaker, over Bluetooth or a cable.
  • Your library on the couch. The host's games with cover art and your collections, plus the same settings profiles every other punktfunk client uses.
  • Surround sound. Stereo, 5.1 or 7.1.
  • Wake your PC from the sofa. Wake-on-LAN starts a sleeping host, and a built-in speed test picks a bitrate that fits your network.

Which TVs

webOS 5 and newer. It's tested on a CX with webOS 5.6 and a G5 with webOS 10. Older sets on webOS 3.5 or 4.x get H.264 in SDR. On webOS 5, a DualSense works as a controller, but the fancy feedback needs webOS 10.

Installing it

The client isn't in LG's Content Store. It's in the Homebrew Channel, the community app store for webOS. Once that's on your TV, you install and update right from the couch:

  1. Install the Homebrew Channel on your TV. Its getting-started guide walks you through it.
  2. Open Homebrew Channel, find Punktfunk in the app list and install it. Skip the entry called Punktfunk (Legacy). That's the old build from before the client moved to punktfunk.
  3. Open punktfunk, pick your PC from the list (or add it by IP) and pair with a PIN.

Updates show up in Homebrew Channel too.

The one setting that matters most

Turn on Game Optimizer in the TV's picture menu while a stream is running. webOS remembers it for the app, and it's the biggest input-lag win your panel has. Seriously, do this first. On a rooted TV, the app can switch picture and sound to game mode for you and put them back when you're done.

What it can't do

Honest limits, so nothing surprises you:

  • No AV1. The TV's video pipeline never showed a picture with it, so the client sticks to H.264 and HEVC.
  • No PyroWave. Our wired-LAN codec decodes on the GPU with Vulkan, and webOS gives apps no way to put a Vulkan picture on screen.

Try it tonight

Got an LG TV from the last few years? Install the Homebrew Channel, grab Punktfunk from it, turn on Game Optimizer, and your PC games are on the big screen.

Found a bug or have an idea? The client has its own issue tracker. And if you want to know how punktfunk stacks up against the usual options, read our honest comparison with Sunshine and Moonlight.