LAN desktop streaming solution?

[Tinymacrocosm]

My brother is moving out. Im getting his room. I'm converting my original room into an office. I'd like to keep my gaming rig in my new room's closet as i leave my PC on 24/7. My rig isnt super noisy, but if i can eliminate the noise entirely, then i'd love to.

I'd like to have just my monitor with something like a Brazos nettop. I would like to stream (or virtualize) my gaming rig's desktop into the nettop as running cables from my office to my new room's closet would be very difficult.

Wireless DVI/HDMI solutions are very expensive and have range issues beyond 5 - 8 feet. The machine will likely be a bit over 15 feet. I'd like to have all the advantages of my gaming rig's power but the convenience of a nice little, quiet nettop. Ideally, i would want sub 200ms lag. Both machines will be on a LAN. I'd like it to be on Wifi, but i can switch to gigabit ethernet, if need be.

My monitor is a 1920 x 1200, so it needs to support that resolution at 60 fps. I would like lossless compression. Gigabit ethernet *should* be able to handle that throughput.

Any possible solutions?

 

[dorion]

Too bad Onlive doesn't have someway for normal people to make their own service.

RDC doesn't do graphics, and VNC will not be a good solution from my past experience. RemoteFX for Server 2008 might work but I think you need special(read expensive) graphics cards, and it doesn't seem to be fun software to work with if you don't know server administration.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Just media streaming? Or you want to stream the whole desktop to game?

I'm not sure I've seen a remote desktop solution that will do the 3D-ness well.

 

[Tinymacrocosm]

Im aware of the current limitations of virtualization.

I also looked at RemoteFX and theres surprisingly little information available in regards to its gaming performance. And yes, they do work best with Quadro/FireGL cards which are expensive and underperforming.

My goal was to let the Brazos nettop handle the decoding of the video feed so as to leave my main PC as performance free as possible.

 

[Tinymacrocosm]

Just media streaming? Or you want to stream the whole desktop to game?

I'm not sure I've seen a remote desktop solution that will do the 3D-ness well.

The whole desktop.

The application can be fairly "dumb" about it. Just stream the entire desktop regardless of its contents. I dont even need (or want it) heavily encoded and compressed.

 

[raf051888]

I have seen a VGA to Lan adapter, that may work for getting the video across. However I can't comment on FPS; the application I saw was a powerpoint.

Lifehacker has a good writeup for controlling two PCs via software.

http://lifehacker.com/#!254648/how-to-control-multiple-computers-with-a-single-keyboard-and-mouse

 

[Phynaz]

1900*1200*3*60*8 = 3,283,200,000 bps before you even get to adding in command and control overhead.

The above is why wireless HDMI is expensive.

 

[AFurryReptile]

What you are describing sounds like a Thin Client. It's basically a a "dumb" remote desktop connection to a server.

IMO, this is a poor way of going about trying to relocate your desktop. The input lag alone will kill any chance of a good gaming experience.

What's wrong with running 15 ft of wire? All said, the cables you would need might cost you $50. If that. Check out monoprice.com.

 

[Fayd]

What you are describing sounds like a Thin Client. It's basically a a "dumb" remote desktop connection to a server.

IMO, this is a poor way of going about trying to relocate your desktop. The input lag alone will kill any chance of a good gaming experience.

What's wrong with running 15 ft of wire? All said, the cables you would need might cost you $50. If that. Check out monoprice.com.

might even be able to run the wires through the wall, which would be fairly slick. there might be a panel connector for USB into wall and whatnot. i know there is for HDMI.

 

[Tinymacrocosm]

What you are describing sounds like a Thin Client. It's basically a a "dumb" remote desktop connection to a server.

IMO, this is a poor way of going about trying to relocate your desktop. The input lag alone will kill any chance of a good gaming experience.

What's wrong with running 15 ft of wire? All said, the cables you would need might cost you $50. If that. Check out monoprice.com.

Well, the idea is to have my desktop in a closet with nothing but a power cable and use wifi, though i can get an ethernet cable in there with little issue.

I'm not sure about running the audio, keyboard, mouse, video, and microphone cables up to 15 feet.

The nettop will act as some combination of KVM switch and a thin client, yes.

 

[AFurryReptile]

The nettop will act as some combination of KVM switch and a thin client, yes.

If that sort of thing existed - at least at a reasonable price range - people would be playing video games on their iPads and smartphones. Thin clients are for shared access to a single server - think a business environment, where stability takes precedence over performance. Trying to game on one would be a miserable experience.

 

[Fayd]

Well, the idea is to have my desktop in a closet with nothing but a power cable and use wifi, though i can get an ethernet cable in there with little issue.

I'm not sure about running the audio, keyboard, mouse, video, and microphone cables up to 15 feet.

The nettop will act as some combination of KVM switch and a thin client, yes.

all of those have no issue with running 10-15 feet.

 

[kamikazekyle]

You're basically looking for a PCoIP setup that's not virtualized. I've set up and dealt with situations like this, albiet in an enterprise environment. So far the only thing I've seen that'll offer you that kind of performance and meet your goals is a dedicated blade hardware setup that'll probably run you more than hiring someone to professionally run cables in the walls.

You can get 1920x1200 at 60fps two-way over gigabit with 3D acceleration, and even dual screen support. The server does the heavy lifting, and the desktop and user I/O is streamed over gigabit to a special set-top box that has hookups for monitors, USB, and audio.

Again, this isn't a virtualized setup. It's a dedicated hardware blade that has special Teradici cards to compress and pipe the user I/O to and from the hookup box. And it's very expensive. You have to buy, at minimum, the "thin client" I/O box and a host based PCoIP card.

EVGA, for example, has a card that has an MSRP of $400
http://www.evga.com/products/moreInf...ly=PCoIP&sw=11

And that doesn't include the end-user side of things with the I/O thin client. Their end-user I/O thin client runs another $400 retail. I'm also not sure with EVGA's solution if you can use a third party graphics adapater in tandem or not. A lot of host cards only utilize their own internal graphics adapters, which will have pretty poor gaming performance.

Unless you have a relatively large budget for a single user, I don't think you're going to find anything to do what you want at your performance requirements. There are less expensive solutions that can offer you parts of what you want, but not the whole package. IE I could probably get you a setup that'll do a single 1920x1200 display over a single cableat 30fps for not that much, but you won't get 3D acceleration.

I personally vote for just running a small bundle of cables at length -- 15ft is no problem at all. And if you want it neat, run it in the walls or through the floor.

 

[Tinymacrocosm]

Thank you for your responses, especially kamikazekyle.

Yeah, there doesn't seem to be an elegant and economical solution to what i want besides extending cables. I'll look into some wireless KVM switches i've found as that comes somewhat close to what I want.

Good to know in any case.

Thank you all.

 

[Paperlantern]

My thoughts on this are mixed. I think its a great idea, I understand the want for quiet in a room where you are sleeping, and also the want for running the machine 24/7. Perhaps you do folding @ home, torrents, or any other type of task that would be best for running all the time.

The fact that the rig is ALSO a gaming rig is the rub. My suggestion to you, would be to build a lower end (though by no means less powerful) rig NOT meant for gaming. One that is more of a server. Put the gaming rig in your room and just turn it off when you're not using it. Run the server in the closet with whatever tasks you need your gaming rig for. This way you get the gaming when needed, and its real time so as not to be detrimental to your gaming experience (i really cannot see a scenario, even in the most expensive of implementations, where remote controlling a PC could be good for gaming), AND all of your 24/7 programs continue to run on the server type box in the other room even when you are asleep and your gaming rig is happily turned off and quiet on or under the desk next to you. You can control the 24/7 box with remote desktop, vnc, radmin or any other remote administration program of your choosing from the gaming rig.

The 24/7 box does not need powerful graphics, or a monitor, it just needs good storage, enough RAM to do whatever it is you are running, and enough CPU to do the same.

Just my $0.02