3 minute read

Solving My Fullscreen Multitasking Issue

As an Ultrawide user it’s great to have everything inside your FOV, there’s so many tabs I can look at at the same time. Sometimes there still isn’t enough space, or full-screen apps don’t let you have it windowed. There are times when I need to keep an eye on a second app whether it’s monitoring logs, keeping chat open, or referencing documentation but fullscreen mode locks me into a single application.

Splitting the screen via PIP isn’t always ideal, and running apps in borderless windowed makes multitasking impossible. I needed a solution that would let me have a second display without sacrificing fullscreen immersion on my main monitor.

I’ve used Apple’s sidecar on my Macbook which I enjoyed quite a lot but it’s not available on Windows, another apple ecosystem exclusive… I wanted to find a use for my M1 iPad Pro which I only use for notetaking anyways and make some value out of it…

Searching for a Second Display Solution

Checked my iPad’s AppStore for an app to maybe find and a “second monitor” app that works for Windows and found Duet Display, but it required an account, subscription and a constant connection to their servers just to use it. I then tried spacedesk, which was free, but the performance wasn’t great. Display was running at around 600-720p and had high latency and noticeable compression artifacts.

My PC has an RTX 4070 Super with NVENC and an , I wanted something that could take advantage of H.265 (HEVC) encoding for low-latency, high-quality streaming. The iPad Pro also has a 120Hz display, so any solution locked to 60Hz wasn’t going to cut it.

After digging through the internet to find some FOSS options instead, I found a fork of Sunlight, Apollo which open-source virtual display driver combined with Sunlight (Server App). Combined with Moonlight (The Client App) on the App Store, the setup seemed feasible.

Setting Up Apollo and Moonlight

1. Install Apollo on Windows

Apollo acts as a virtual display driver inside of Windows (Linux support is on the way), creating a second screen that Windows recognizes as a real monitor.

  • Remove any existing virtual display drivers for conflict prevention.
  • Download and install Apollo from GitHub.
  • Go to Windows Display Settings and ensure the virtual monitor is detected.

2. Enable Moonlight for Streaming

Moonlight is an open-source client for Sunshine, originally designed for gaming but perfect for low-latency desktop streaming.

  • Install Moonlight on the iPad from the App Store.
  • Ensure that Apollo is running and the virtual display is detected.
  • Ensure both the PC and iPad are on the same network (Gigabit Wired LAN for the PC, low-latency Wi-Fi 6 for the iPad).

Optimizing the Experience on iPad

To make Moonlight work seamlessly as a virtual display, I adjusted a few settings on the iPad side of the moonlight app:

  • Turned on “Allow Play Audio on PC” to prevent unnecessary audio redirection.
  • Disabled on-screen controls to keep the virtual display clean.
  • Clicked the “Virtual Desktop” icon in Moonlight to start streaming the Apollo display.

The iPad now acts as a wireless 120Hz secondary display, perfect for monitoring applications while keeping my main ultrawide display dedicated to fullscreen tasks.

Performance and Final Thoughts

Using Apollo and Moonlight together got me a second monitor with near-native performance, with no noticeable input delay. The*H.265/HEVC support using Sunlight’s encoder ensures minimal compression artifacts, and 120Hz streaming makes the experience feel incredibly smooth.

Compared to Duet Display and spacedesk, this setup is:

  • Completely free with no paywalls or subscriptions + free and open-source software.
  • Higher performance, thanks to NVIDIA’s NVENC and Apple’s HEVC decoding.
  • More flexible, allowing for a true virtual display experience rather than just mirroring.

If you have an M1 iPad Pro and a NVIDIA GPU or even any of their supported GPUs, this is one of the best ways to get a high-quality, high-refresh-rate second display without any additional hardware.

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