A live diagnostic readout that tells you exactly why your stream looks the way it does. Use it to figure out whether the problem is your network, your decoder, your console, or something else.
During a stream, open the in-stream controls and tap the chart icon (iOS / macOS), pick Stats: On from the 3-dot menu (visionOS), or choose Show Stats from the menu (tvOS). It can also be toggled in Settings → Tools → Performance Overlay.
When the overlay is off, no measurement work runs in the streaming hot path — there's no performance cost to leaving it disabled.
The overlay has a header line plus three columns:
The header shows what you're doing (Remote Play or Cloud Play) and which server you're connected to (your console for remote play, or a datacenter like London A for cloud).
How much time passes between an event happening on the console and you seeing it on screen.
An estimate of the full end-to-end latency: network + decode + render. Anything under 30 ms feels excellent, 30-50 ms is fine for most games, over 50 ms may feel sluggish in fast-paced games.
An estimate of how long it takes a video frame to travel from the console (or cloud server) to your device. The dimmer text next to it (e.g. lona or your console's name) is the server tag — handy when sharing footage.
Time from frame received to frame on your screen: video decode time (DT) plus the render pipeline. Shorter is better. The label below in parentheses (e.g. Norm, Low, ULow, Comp) is your latency mode.
What's actually arriving from the server.
Frames decoded per second. If you're streaming at 60 fps and this reads 50, frames are getting dropped or arriving late. The mini-graph below shows variation over time — a flat line is healthy, a wobbly line is not.
How much video data is arriving, in megabits per second.
A low number isn't necessarily a problem — modern video codecs send less data when there's not much happening on screen (a static menu, a dark scene, a paused game). What matters is whether bitrate is low during fast motion: that usually means the stream has downshifted because of network congestion. Compare what you see here to what you set as the target bitrate in console settings.
The current stream resolution (e.g. 720p, 1080p, 1440p, 4K). Cloud streams may differ from your local Remote Play setting.
The diagnostic numbers — these are what tell you why the stream looks the way it does.
How long a packet takes to go to the console (or cloud server) and back. This is your "ping" from the streaming protocol's perspective.
How much your network's response time wobbles. Calculated as the standard deviation of recent RTT samples.
Two networks can both have a 30 ms average ping, but if one swings between 15 ms and 90 ms while the other holds steady at 28-32 ms, the wobbly one will feel laggy and stuttery — even though the averages match. Jitter is the most common cause of lag that looks like nothing's wrong.
How long your device takes to decode each video frame. On modern Apple silicon this is usually under 5 ms. High DT values mean your device is the bottleneck, not your network.
Percentage of video packets that didn't arrive. Frames are split into multiple network packets — if any are missing, that frame can be corrupted or dropped.
Cumulative count of frames the decoder skipped this session — usually because the video pipeline got too far behind. Occasional drops on long sessions are normal; rapidly climbing drops indicate sustained pressure on the device.
Look at: Jit
If RTT, drops, and VL all look fine but the video stutters, jitter is almost always the culprit. Speed-test apps don't catch this — they show the average ping, which can hide spikes that disrupt the frame-by-frame flow. Try wired ethernet, move closer to the router, or switch from 2.4 GHz to 5 GHz WiFi.
Look at: VL
Anything above 1% video loss will produce visible glitches. This is packet loss, often from an overloaded WiFi network or a weak signal. Other devices saturating the network (downloads, video calls) are common causes.
Look at: Total, RTT, Visual
High RTT (over 80 ms) is the usual cause for cloud streaming — physically far from the datacenter. For Remote Play, check that you're on the same network as your console (or that your internet upload speed is sufficient if you're remote). High Visual latency points to your device or display, not the network.
Look at: BT during fast motion
Bitrate naturally drops on calm scenes, so judge it during action. If it keeps falling well below your target during fast motion, the stream is downshifting because of detected congestion. This is usually a side effect of high VL or jitter — fix the underlying network issue and bitrate will recover.
Look at: DT and Drops
If decode time is high or drops are climbing while VL stays at 0%, the bottleneck is on your device — usually because the resolution or frame rate is set higher than the device can comfortably handle. Try lowering one or the other.
A short video is much more useful than a screenshot. The FPS, bitrate, and jitter graphs change second by second — a still frame can miss the spike that's actually causing the problem. A 10-15 second screen recording during a bad moment captures the variation we need to see.
In the video (or screenshot, if that's all you have), the overlay tells us at a glance:
If the overlay points at a problem you can't fix on your end, send us a short screen recording (preferred) or a screenshot:
Contact us at [email protected] →