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Other Remote Desktop Gaming? Possible? Practical?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by MiNiMaL_FuSS, 29 Dec 2009.

  1. MiNiMaL_FuSS

    MiNiMaL_FuSS ƬӇЄƦЄ ƁЄ ƇƠƜƧ ӇЄƦЄ.

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    Hi Guys,

    I'm playing alot of 'Football Manager 2010' at the moment, and wish that my little Ascer Aspire One was good enough to run it properly so I could play it in my living room away from my main system.

    I was wondering if it was possible to connect my main rig and the aser aspire via remote desktop so that I could control FM2010 via the Aspire downstairs but the actual work and processing was being done by my system upstairs?

    Is this possible? Any done it? and if so how do i do it, I've no experience with remote desktops etc at all!

    If not won't somebody please hurry up and invent a wirless monitor with usb ports for keyboard and mouse!

    Cheers!
     
  2. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    technically yes, but graphics might suffer, as its just a mirror

    just go and download UltraVNC

    run the server on the games machine and install and viewer on the netbook, from the netbook use the games machine name or Ip address to connect assuming there networked
     
  3. MaverickWill

    MaverickWill Dirty CPC Mackem

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    Might also be a delay on the image. Arsenal could have put one past you, and you wouldn't know about it for 5 seconds.
     
  4. MiNiMaL_FuSS

    MiNiMaL_FuSS ƬӇЄƦЄ ƁЄ ƇƠƜƧ ӇЄƦЄ.

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    Not too worried about image delay, sounds worth ago, I'll have a tinker with VNC (Yes they're networked via wirless atm, although probably setting my wired up again soon)

    Main rig runs win 7 and netbook runs XP...will this make a difference?
     
  5. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    shouldn't make a difference, i VNC between XP and ubuntu 9.10 it dosen't matter hance the sheer beauty of VNC.

    My worry is the wireless connect, they suck when it come to VNC, 10/100 minimum no questions asked as you've been told! lol!
     
  6. javaman

    javaman May irritate Eyes

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    Just out of interest would it be possible to set up a single powerful PC and run everything from it? I could certainly see the benifits of running 1 very powerful machine over several lesser powerful machines.
     
  7. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    now me and sticken were talking about this.

    The idea was to use one single server for all files, but then use a little nodes about a house to watch films or play music on.

    I kinda ruined the idea when i said a node in the bathroom so you could listen to music in the bath or whilst on the crapper lol, but i think internet access near a toilet would be one step closer to adding a fridge and never having to leave the bathroom! lol!
     
  8. javaman

    javaman May irritate Eyes

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    Romantic music and you have a perfect bath with the wife =D A fridge would just make her feel more at home xD (Im sorry if that joke caused any offence)

    Ive sorta had the idea when wanting to have a lan party. Instead of having multiple people bring over a PC just have one machine run it and the rest use nodes. Ive also had the idea of setting it up to run encoding and photo editing. Means I won't have to install multiple copies of software and my GF can also benifit with her photo editing rather than having to upgrade her laptop, even when away from the main machine.
     
  9. bigkingfun

    bigkingfun Tinkering addict

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    Now that would impress the guys.
    "dont bother starting your games, just connect to the virtual machine" epeen Cheesecake
     
  10. javaman

    javaman May irritate Eyes

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    Live in hope, die in dispare I guess lol. Certainly would put PC gaming back on the map!
     
  11. MaverickWill

    MaverickWill Dirty CPC Mackem

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    Your biggest problems are how you'll get people to connect to different instances of the game, on the same server. And I imagine you'd need multiple desktops, too. As well as multiple copies of the remote application. Probably too much hassle, if not impossible.

    However, putting Steam backups on one server, then using it to run a dedi for LAN play... Very doable!
     
  12. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    sod that i would have to install a cooker aswell, and knowing my luck she would toss the toaster in the bath whilst im in it! lol!

    na, beefy server and 10 or more vitual machines, sorted!
     
  13. MaverickWill

    MaverickWill Dirty CPC Mackem

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    Never thought of that! So, 10 virtual machines? When do they bring out those 48GB triple-channel kits? xD
     
  14. lollysticky

    lollysticky What's a Dremel?

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    just a quick question:

    i tried to do something similar last year, but the biggest troubles I faced was graphics rendering inside the virtual machines... it just plainly sucks :p
    I was able to play cossacks, rollercoaster tycoon,.. pretty much anything that could be run without making use of directx. Even some of the first directx games (really old ones) simply wouldn't start. Not to mention the heavy graphic games...
    How are you tackling this? perhaps I could learn from it then :) As far as I know of, the virtualisation technology for directx or opengl rendering is still not that great. Sure some games can be played, but most of em can't

    next question... if you're continuing like now, it means creating 1 VM for every guy that hooks up to your computer... every VM would offcourse have it's own IP and then just playing over LAN right? wouldn't this require a massive rig? like.... an omg-i've-got-billions-to-spend computer? You need to calculate every action for every player (like a normal server would) but on top of that you also need to render the images and relay them to each desktop...
    Hey, if you pull it of, please let me know :)
     
  15. javaman

    javaman May irritate Eyes

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    hmmmmm getting a virtual machine to run on multi GPU's too. Surely a virtual machine can use whatever hardware resources are available? Possibly a dual processor board or even quad processor depending how many friends you have :p

    least you'll be toasty :D
     
  16. Diosjenin

    Diosjenin Thinker, Tweaker, Et Cetera

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    Not yet, no.

    A CPU built to handle virtualization is designed so that the VM doesn't need to have complete control over it at all times. But for a VM to utilize a graphics adapter, it needs to have complete control over the graphics adapter - i.e. whatever OS the VM is running on top of will no longer have control over the graphics adapter whatsoever. So, for example, if you're running XP on top of 7 with the goal of playing a game that's incompatible with 7, XP would need to take complete control over your GPU to make that happen.

    Now obviously that's not an impossibility if you're running your VM fullscreen. But of course, since you need to run it as such, the VM becomes extremely inflexible - can't run it windowed, etc. - and if the native OS would need to make a DirectX call in the meantime, it wouldn't be able to. Potential for crashes. Bad stuff.

    Right now, the only way around this is to have a second graphics adapter on your computer - one for the VM, one for the native OS. And since that's not really a capability that most VMware/etc. customers employ, the feature has not been integrated into any VM client that I am aware of. More likely, VM makers will wait for a time when graphics virtualization is supported somehow on the hardware level (per-stream processor dedication to individual native/virtual OSs, I would bet).

    DirectX will probably come on virtual machines sometime or another - but don't wait up for it.


    - Diosjenin -
     
  17. MaverickWill

    MaverickWill Dirty CPC Mackem

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    Have a bunch of rigs in the corner somewhere, and then everyone can game on the couches with netbooks. :D
     
  18. javaman

    javaman May irritate Eyes

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    thanks Diosjenin =) Ive learnt something new =D Now like oblivion I shall take my leave and mediate on what I have learnt!! nn all.
     
  19. lollysticky

    lollysticky What's a Dremel?

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    as a bonus question... does anybody know how they're going to tackle this on cloud-computing on a hardware/software level? I know they're establishing a gaming platform (OnLive) that just streams you the screen output so you can play heavy games on something like a netbook (provided a decent internet connection)... but how do they do this?
     
    Last edited: 30 Dec 2009
  20. feedayeen

    feedayeen What's a Dremel?

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    Here is my solution to this. Rather than using your laptop's GPU to render the scene, or transmitting 60 screen shoots every second, you the desktops GPU and render to the TV.

    I connected a 20 meter component video/audio wire from my computer to a TV on the other side of the house and used a wireless router to connect the laptop and desktop over the Internet.

    I then wrote a simple client-server program that sends the inputs from the laptops' keyboard and mouse to the server program which interprets these as commands to move the mouse and press buttons.

    Now I am using an old windows 9x era laptop in our front room whose entire existence is now reduced to that of a remote control and I get response times of 5ms.


    If anyone wants the program, I'll provide it's source code or explain this a little better.
     

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