Minecraft is somewhat unplayable if Sunshine is open at all

[zvdo00]

A few weeks ago I've started to have this weird issue in Minecraft 1.7.10 with Optifine and Fisk's Heroes mod. Out of nowhere the screen started blinking white. So I tried to download Optifine again, because well, it's a graphics mod, there could be something wrong with it. After downloading again, the same thing happened. I tried without it as well, same thing. Tried more versions, 1.8.9 Optifine, 1.12.2 Optifine, 1.20.1 Sodium, 1.20.4 Sodium, 1.20.6 Sodium, some other versions with no mods, every version I tried had these issues, some more intense, some less.

So I started to get a little worried that my GPU might be dying. But it was getting late so I shut off my pc and returned the next day.

The next day, I thought there could be something wrong with my Java installation, since I had no other games with issues. Tried reinstalling from Adoptium, tried using the default Java that Minecraft auto downloads, every time I had the same problem.

So I thought it could be my Windows installation that was broken. Installed Linux, spent like half an hour figuring things out, finally got Minecraft working and with no issues whatsoever. So it most likely wasn't my GPU.

After some more testing (and reinstalling Windows a few times) I found out that if Sunshine has been initialized at startup at all, Minecraft will have those issues. Also happens when streaming, the weird blinking/artifacts happen on the host pc's monitor and on the remote session using moonlight. Again, the blinking only occurs inside the Minecraft window, not anywhere else like on the taskbar/desktop.

I used an app called "Autorun Organizer" to disable Sunshine from starting with Windows, and when I rebooted it was not there as expected. So I opened Minecraft and for about 10 minutes I had no issues with blinking or black artifacts on screen. But when I allowed Sunshine to start with Windows and restarted my pc, Minecraft started blinking again.

Another issue I found related to this: when Sunshine is started with Windows and I play Minecraft, OBS can't record the Minecraft window correctly. This is what the OBS preview looks like when Sunshine starts with Windows:

Right before posting this, I uninstalled Sunshine and opened Minecraft. Didn't even have to restart the computer. I played for a few minutes and no issues. And OBS recorded fine. Here's the result https://youtu.be/y_Ggr5AGAZE

Ryzen 5 5600
GTX 1650 SUPER
16gb ddr4 3200
Asus Prime B550M-K
Windows 11

Did some more testing. Apparently this only happens if Sunshine is already running when I enter Minecraft. If sunshine is not running and I open Minecraft, and only then start Sunshine, the problems are not there.

Edit a long time later (July 27th, 2024)
I have upgraded my GPU to an AMD Radeon RX 7600. The issues seem to no longer be happening. Maybe it was a problem with my nVidia gpu, maybe it's a problem with that specific model.