Azure - CloudStreaming

This guide is a work-in-progress and may contain outdated information. Updates are in progress.

To get started, you need a Microsoft account — a personal one works fine. You may already have one.

Recurring Azure for Students credits do not work with GPU VMs. However, you can convert an Azure for Students Starter subscription to a standard subscription to gain access.

Evaluate GPU options

Azure offers several GPU-accelerated VM types. Choose based on your intended workload:

VM type	GPU	Notes
NVv4	AMD Radeon M125	Cheapest option. Good for 3D rendering and modeling, not recommended for gaming
NC6 promo	NVIDIA M60	Not recommended — the M60 is being phased out and performance is slow for the price
NV6ads A10	Fraction of NVIDIA A10	May be underpowered depending on your use case
NC8as T4	Tesla T4	Recommended — best value-to-performance ratio

The Tesla T4 (NC8as T4) is the recommended choice for most users.

Request a limit increase

Depending on global demand for the VM type you want, you may be able to launch without requesting a limit increase. If your account is in good standing and not too new (or you’ve converted an Azure for Students Starter subscription), you can request an increase from the Azure portal.Visit the Azure portal and search for quotas at the top. Use the information from step 1 to determine which VM family quota to request.

Create a Windows Server instance

After receiving confirmation of your limit increase, log into the Azure portal. From the dashboard, select Virtual Machines on the left-hand side, then click Create at the top left.Basic configuration

Select your subscription
Give your VM a name — Azure will automatically create a resource group for it unless you already have one
Choose a region based on proximity or available VM types

Select an imageFor the Image dropdown, click See all images and select [smalldisk] Windows Server 2025 x64 Gen 2. The small disk image keeps your OS drive small and cheap — with the rest of the configuration in this guide, your entire VM storage cost will be around $1/month (excluding storage account costs).Set credentialsAzure lets you choose your own username and password. Pick any username you like — your first name works fine. Do not use “Administrator” as it is reserved and Azure will not accept it. Use a generated password for security (for example, from 1Password’s generator).If you have an existing Windows Server license, check the “Would you like to use an existing Windows Server license?” box under licensing.Configure the OS diskUnder the OS Disk Type dropdown, select Standard HDD. This drive will not be used to store games or applications, so speed is not a concern here.Optional: disable boot diagnosticsUnder the Management tab → Monitoring, you can disable boot diagnostics. This is optional but recommended to reduce costs.Install the GPU driver extensionUnder the Advanced tab, click Select an extension to install and choose the GPU driver extension that matches your VM type. For example, select AMD GPU Driver for the NVv4 VM type.DeployClick Review + create and wait for validation to pass, then click Create.Configure the network security group (NSG)After deployment, search for Network security groups at the top of the portal and select the group that was just created for your VM.How you configure the NSG depends on how you plan to connect to your streaming software:

Tailscale (recommended)
Port forwarding

Install Tailscale on your personal device. With both your server and personal device connected to the same Tailscale network, you can reach your VM without opening any ports in the NSG. This is also the more secure option.

If you cannot use Tailscale, add inbound security rules to your NSG for the following ports:Sunshine — TCP: 35043 47984 47989 47995 47996 48010Sunshine — UDP: 47998 47999 48000 48010Parsec does not require any ports to be forwarded.

Connect via RDPUse an RDP client to connect to your VM for the initial setup:

Windows: Search for “RDP” in the start menu
macOS: Use the Remote Desktop app from Microsoft
Linux: Install Remmina:
```
sudo apt install remmina
```

You’re now connected to your GPU-accelerated Azure VM.

Run the script

On your server, open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

iex "(New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadFile('https://is.gd/UTAo8K', '$env:UserProfile\cloudstreaming.zip'); Expand-Archive '$env:UserProfile\cloudstreaming.zip' -Force; & '$env:UserProfile\cloudstreaming\cloudstreaming-main\starthere.ps1'"

Follow the prompts in the script to complete the setup.

Create a storage account

Storage accounts on Azure are significantly cheaper than managed disks and are the recommended way to store your games and files.

Search for Storage accounts in the portal and create a new one
Select LRS (Locally Redundant Storage) as the redundancy option — it is the lowest cost
Under the Advanced tab, enable Large file shares under the Azure Files section — this increases performance for file shares
Once created, go to Data storage → File shares and create a new file share
Click Connect on the file share and copy the generated command into PowerShell on your server to mount the share

Create any directories you need within the mounted share to organize your files.

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