Stream PC games and movies to your Xbox with a free app

If you have a Windows 10 or 11 PC and an Xbox One or Series X/S console, you might not know that these devices have some cool crossover features. Using Microsoft’s Wireless Display app, you can easily display your Xbox games on your Windows PC screen. Conversely, it’s possible to cast what’s on your PC to the TV you use with your Xbox – you can even control it from the console, and it’s surprisingly simple to set up.

One note, though: this is a wireless-only feature. Since the app uses Miracast to stream content from your PC, you need to make sure the Windows PC and Xbox One or Series X/S are on the same Wi-Fi network.

How to Stream Your PC to Your Xbox One or Series X/S

Any Windows 10 or 11 PC that can connect to Wi-Fi will support wireless screen casting, but you’ll need to download a free Xbox app.

• Navigate the console to the Microsoft Store (or just click this link) and download the Wireless Display app to your Xbox.
• Once the application is installed on the console, open it. It will display a message indicating that your console is now ready to be connected to your PC. The app also mentions a very useful hint to keep in mind: the controller can switch between gamepad and keyboard/mouse control modes by pressing the menu and display buttons (the two buttons under the backlit Xbox logo on the controller).

• Go to your PC. Once you’re ready to cast, press the Windows + K keyboard combination. You can also click Connect to a wireless display in the System Settings View menu. Either way, the next screen will show the name of your console.

• From there, you can choose to extend what’s on your PC monitor, duplicate it, or set the display on the Xbox as a second screen. For our purposes, we set it as a duplicate so that the Xbox display mirrors our PC monitor.

• Once connected, you will see a small mobile taskbar located at the top of your PC screen and your wirelessly connected TV. This lets you adjust the quality setting (accessible by clicking the gear icon) between game, work, or movie modes. In testing, it was difficult to discern the difference in visual quality between the three. We’ve found the Game Setting to be the best if you only play PC games, as it has the least noticeable latency when using a controller.

A tip: if you have better sound connected to your TV, you can switch the audio to the output there instead of your PC.

• Tap the speaker icon on the Windows taskbar.
• To select Digital output [your Xbox’s name here]

Finally, Microsoft says you can’t use the Wireless Display app to view what it considers “protected content.” So any encrypted video content from apps like Netflix or Hulu will not work. However, we were able to stream whatever we wanted through the Google Chrome browser. If you’re having trouble getting your movie or TV shows to appear from Netflix or Hulu, we suggest downloading those apps from the Microsoft Store on Xbox instead.