How to setup Parsec: Create your own cloud-gaming system to stream PC games

As casual gamer I was looking for a way to play the games I have installed on my PC on my phone or any other device. Basically, I had to set up a personal cloud-gaming service like GeForce Now or Google Stadia, with my own hardware and without any subscriptions.

I found the perfect solution for this with a small application called Parsec. And even though my PC is definitely nothing too fancy (Intel Core i7 6600K + GTX 1050 Ti), it works fantastic. So any somewhat powerful PC with a decent GPU should be able to handle this.

Sample situations

It’s awesome for playing the latest and greatest games on any tablet, ultrabooks without GPU or even a Raspberri Pi, wherever you are, without noise, battery drain or heat.
It’s perfect if you want to share a performant PC with family members or even friends or colleagues.
I enjoy emulating Nintendo Switch games on my PC, since my kids often keep the switch occupied. Now I can play Switch games on my phone and sit outside in my garden.
Sometimes I need to edit & render heavy videos stored on my desktop and/or my NAS, from another device outside my network.

You can see the screen of the PC is identical to the phone, realtime. — On my wifi 5 network there is just 12ms added delay, unnoticable.

Play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on your Android Phone — On my wifi 5 network there is just 12ms added delay, unnoticable.

How to set up Parsec

For obvious reasons it works best if your host-PC has a wired connection to the network.

Create a Parsec Account here.
Install Parsec on your Game PC and your smartphone. Scroll down for multiple platforms, there’s even a portable app available!
Open Parsec on your PC and log-in.
_{Optional: If you have a recent NVIDIA GPU, I would suggest to open settings and select Decoder: NVIDIA & turn on h.265 – HEVC}
Now open Parsec on your Android device, like a phone or tablet.
_{Preferebly connected to the same network, but it also works on a remote location or over 4G/5G.}

While streaming, I suggest you change the resolution, bandwitdh, and decoder as you please to get the best possible results…

Lowering your resolution might increase performance and reduce battery use.

And that’s it! All your games and/or workstation software are now easily accessible on any other device, wherever you are.

Parsec can do even more…

I haven’t tried these features yet, but you can even share your PC with friends through a direct link. One can also host a local game and wait for a friend or random people to join in through the Arcade function… It’s really cool, since you don’t even have to own the game or have it installed. It’s a nice way to play awesome (multiplayer)games for free!

I hope you enjoyed this tip and article, I look forward hearing from your experiences!