Why does Moonlight show black bars on my phone, and how do I get the exact resolution?

You set up Moonlight, the stream works, and the game sits in the middle of your phone with a black band on each side. Switch to «fill» and the picture is cropped; switch to «stretch» and everything is squashed.

Your phone is 3216×1440 or 2412×1080 — sizes no PC monitor has. The resolution list on the client only offers 1080p, 1440p and 4K, all 16:9, and none of them is your screen.

The usual fix on the forums is to add a custom resolution to Windows by hand, or install a separate virtual display driver and juggle it before every session. It works until it doesn’t, and one day the PC boots with no picture on the real monitor.

A stream can only carry the shape the PC is rendering. If the desktop is 2560×1440 and the phone is 3216×1440, the ratio does not match, and the client has three bad choices: bars, cropping or distortion. The only real fix is to make the PC render at the phone’s exact size.

That needs a virtual display on the PC. Apollo creates one automatically; Sunshine leaves it to you. And a virtual display raises its own questions: does your monitor go dark, where does the mouse go, and does the extra display disappear afterwards or stay as a ghost in Windows’ settings?

1. 01

   Pair the phone with ChimpDeck for Windows

   At pairing, the host learns the device’s native size — any size, not a fixed list — and prepares it before the first session. If a new size shows up at launch, it is added and the virtual display reloaded on the spot.

2. 02

   Pick «this device’s resolution» in the app

   The resolution list starts with your device’s own size; each option is labelled with how it will arrive: monitor mode, exact via virtual display, or with bars. Choose the exact one.

3. 03

   Let the host choose the cheapest path

   If the desktop already matches, it captures as is; if the real monitor supports the size, it just switches mode; only otherwise does it create the virtual display. It never virtualises unless that buys something.

4. 04

   Choose single or extended display

   Single (the default) sets the PC monitor aside for the session, so there is one desktop to render, your windows stay where they are and the mouse never wanders onto an invisible desktop. Extended keeps the monitor on and adds the device’s display as the main one.

5. 05

   Play, then stop

   When the session ends the display is removed from the system, not merely switched off — no ghost monitor left in Windows. It appears and disappears in well under half a second. The same applies on a tablet or on the living-room TV.

• Your phone’s exact pixels

  3216×1440, 2412×1080, 2800×1260 — learned at pairing, served the same session, full screen.

• Your windows stay put

  Single-display mode by default: one desktop, no mouse lost on a screen you cannot see.

• The display is removed afterwards

  Not switched off — removed. No ghost second monitor in Windows’ display settings.

• Four ways to get your monitor back

  Session cleanup, a watchdog that survives a killed app, a check at next start, and a Windows sign-in entry after a reboot mid-session.