Remote Play is a fairly old feature for PlayStation. It was introduced for the PS3 and would allow you to play games on your PSP. It sucked and since then the feature has been a bit of a background feature that a lot of people don’t even know about.
With the launch of the PS5, a new icon has appeared on the PS4 home screen that allows you to remote play your PS5 from your PS4, pretty awesome! The feature works well for most but the experience is not flawless. For those finding the experience a little laggy, this guide will give you some helpful tips to reduce lag and latency with PS5 remote play on the PS4.
If your desktop is set at a refresh rate different than 60Hz or 59.94Hz, the stream will stutter. The vsync will mess up the frame pacing, because it is set at a different rate than the encoding. I believe that some people are experiencing stutters because of this. So try to set your desktop refresh rate at 60Hz or create a new one at 59.94Hz. Are you trying to stream your PS4 to your computer / pc and when you are you using PS4 remote play there is no audio??? Alot of times when you plug your ps4. Remote Play Together works by broadcasting the hosts screen to the other players. Steam then acts as if the remote gamepads are plugged directly into the host’s PC. This has happened on both my old PS4 and my newer PS4 Pro. If I have PS4 Remote Play connected and I monitor Windows 10 task manager, I can see the 'GPU decode' and 3D graphs drop to 0 every time there is a freeze (see screenshot). If I monitor the graphs in Wattman, everything looks fine and the card is running at 50c.
Why Is Remote Play Laggy?
Lag is nothing new for remote play. Even when playing over windows on the same network as the console you can experience lag. The problem is almost entirely down to your home network and in the vast majority of cases, it is quite easy to fix.
If you are experiencing lag with remote play on the PS5 when playing from your PS4, I would suggest you check out the steps below as these are sure to help improve the experience and reduce lag with PS5 remote play.
Use A Wired Connection
This is not going to be possible for everyone but if you can connect an ethernet cable from your router to the back of your PS5 and PS4, you will get a much more stable internet connection. There are also many people that find using wired over wireless results in fewer restrictions in general when it comes to network security.
Ensure Both Systems Are On The Same Network
If you are hoping to use your PS4 in one room to play games on the PS5 that is in another room, make sure they are both on the same LAN. Some routers can broadcast multiple networks, quite commonly a 2.4ghz and 5ghz signal. Both are connected to the same router but are not on the same local network. Always aim for wired and if not possible, make sure both devices are on the same wireless network.
Get NAT Type 1 On The PS5
NAT type is a measurement of how restricted your home router is. If you have type 3 or even a failed NAT type, your PS5 is going to have a hard time communicating with other devices over a network. To achieve an open NAT you will need to open the following ports on your router.
TCP: 1935,3478-3480
UDP: 3074,3478-3479
Ps4 Remote Play Stuttering Free
If you are unsure what this means, check out this detailed guide for getting NAT type 1 on the PS5. This will solve a lot of problems related to remote play, including the inability to link the PS4 to the PS5.
Something worth noting is that most routers will only allow you to open a specific port for one IP. Since PSN uses the same ports on the PS4 and PS5, you will need to pick one. I would suggest you do it for the PS5. Generally, networks are more restrictive for incoming connections than outgoing as this is generally how an attack would be prevented. The PS4 should have less trouble connecting to a PS5 compared to a PS5 accepting connections from a PS4.
Check Network Activity At Home
If you have a busy house, there may be a lot of network traffic. If people in the house are downloading a lot of content, streaming 4k videos and performing other activities that will congest the network, you will find that there may be some hiccups while you use the remote play feature. With modern fibre connections, this is going to be less of an issue but if you are on a copper wire connection
Restart Both Systems
Ps4 Remote Play Stuttering
I know this is the most generic response you can possibly give for fixing problems but with the PS5, in particular, being able to suspend games and multitask better, the system having some extra stuff consuming system resources could also cause some things to get a little backed up. Likewise with the PS4. If you find things normally work well and are suddenly acting up, restarting the systems if possible may be all you need to fix the problem.