Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
remote gaming system
deviliscious
Member UncommonPosts: 4,359
I have built quite a few gaming rigs, but now I am venturing into uncharted territory and am wondering if anyone has any idea the best way to go about trying to build something like this. First, I wanted to build my own gaming laptop- but after more research and burning up a couple of laptops trying to max them out I have decided to attempt another route, and am not sure where to find more information on it. I am sure it has been done- just not hearing much about it.
I want to build a remote gaming system. Build a massive gaming rig in the wall and then have laptop " drones". Run the games on the massive rig and use the mouse/ keyboard/ screen of the laptops, at the same time having it run to other monitors as well as my LCD TV's. I am not sure exactly how to have the massive computer remotely run the laptops as of yet. I am wondering if anyone has any ideas on where they would start on a venture like this. I am kinda freaky like that...
-Just wondering if anyone has any input before I start my venture into trial and error.
This, for me, would be the best of both worlds.
Comments
Sounds similar to a central vacuum unit, except it doesn't "suck".
*buh-dum-tish*
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
How remote are we talking about here? Is this the sort of thing that can be handled by drilling a hole in the wall and running a 25' cable through it? Or do you want to play from the other side of town, or the other side of the country?
The huge problem with gaming laptops is that it's too much heat in too little space. If you go for high performance without regard to power consumption, you end up with heat problems. That happens in desktops, too, but the amount of heat that is tolerable in a laptop is vastly lower than in a desktop. Performance per watt matters tremendously, as that's what lets you get more performance in a given thermal envelope.
I'm expecting AMD's upcoming Llano APU to be a huge advance in that regard. Global Foundries' 32 nm HKMG SOI process should be vastly better on power efficiency than any process node currently used to produce GPUs. Having the CPU and GPU in a single chip means only one hot chip to cool, rather than two, which is much easier. It also means no need for a bunch of PCI Express lanes to connect the chips. It allows them to share both memory controllers and physical memory, which further cuts power consumption. And unlike Intel's Sandy Bridge (which will probably be better than Llano on the CPU side), the graphics part will actually work right for gaming.
Obviously, we don't know exactly how much power the chips will use, nor how we'll they'll perform. But I'd expect to see performance about on par with a 2 GHz Athlon II X4 and Mobility Radeon HD 5730 (basically an underclocked desktop Radeon HD 5570) together in a single chip with a TDP around 35 W. That's what a lot of non-gaming computers use just for the CPU today. That's not good enough to max settings in every new game that comes along, but it's plenty enough to be playable if you're willing to run games at moderate settings. And that's without any more heat than a non-gaming laptop would put out today under load.
It's coming as soon as yields are high enough that AMD is satisfied that it's profitable, most likely early next year. Global Foundries is still working on getting the process node working properly, and AMD is its only customer on that process node, as most companies don't want to pay a premium price for an SOI process node. You could wait for that, I suppose, if you want a gaming laptop that isn't completely awful.
I do NOT want a gaming laptop- did you read my OP? LOL
I am intending on being able to play it remotely throughout my home and by the pool wherever I wish. LOL not drilling a hole and running cable silly. :P
I have used remote wireless video already, but I want to take it a step further and use laptops as " drones" in my home so no matter where I am I will still have the power of my gaming rigs without the other hassles. I do not want to " build a gaming laptop" instead I want to use it's keyboard/ mouse/ monitor but have the game playing on my gaming rig. I also want to remote video it to my TV's and other monitors as well.
I am a minimalist, and do not care to have bulky PC's cluttering my space. I am building this system in wall, my current system is actually built into my chaise, and my monitor on my " end table". LOL
What I would like to do now, rather than burn up more laptops and deal with the crappy options available for laptops, I want to just use laptops as " remote drones" where they do nothing but operate mouse keyboard and video- but am actually running everything from the massive in wall gaming rig.
I actually would like to put a few of them in wall, and be able to do what I want where I want in my own home. The core issue is how to convert my laptops into remote drones .. * gets out soldering iron*
Fixed it - Better? LMAO!
It's "soldering iron", and methinks you never seen one before if you can't spell it right.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
LOL yes I have a few of them actually.. I keep breaking tips off into the ends. Not my fault if I rename things all the time. You should hear what I call some of my other tools. LMAO
Well then, keep your croissant wenches to yourself.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
And my jiggly saw?
Men get so offended when girls make up cute names for " manly" tools. ROFL!
Send pics of that, maybe a jackohammer too.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
And some of my wood burned Ninjas! ( that was why I kept breaking the tips) LOL!
Well in all honesty it would be easiest to just place different monitors/TVs through your house and then go about getting them wired to your PC that will be in the wall... which I dont think is a good idea by the way unless you make it easily accessible.... then just get a wireless mouse and keyboard that has a good range or setup some hot spots with a router. I dont know how to get a laptop to actually work with the PCs hardware aside from some sort of wireless connect which I do not have the knowledge to do. Im sure its possible but be prepared to do some hands on learning and most likely shelling out a bit of cash to make it work.
Interesting concept I will have to say but I dont like doing anything on a laptop let alone use the small screen and craptastic keyboard. The whole monitor/TV hookups would be easier especially since you could just turn them on and off with graphics drivers, you just wont have the super range of access that I guess you are looking for with being able to just pick up and carry the laptop around.
I dont really know if this would help any but ill go ahead and just throw this out there,
you should try to figure out the simularities of the psp and ps3 remote play to your current situation as with the remote play the psp acts as a controller to your psp by sending a video encoding from your ps3 to your psp via internet, or home network.
I dont know if this would help much or at all but id figure id throw it out there because its some what similar just with playstation(being the desktop) and psp. (being the laptop/ remote control)
anyways best of luck getting this to work!
oh and just thought id say this to i saw on wiki and a couple other sites psp's can be homebrewed to hook up to Computers running Windows and Mac os and be used as a remote controll device.. so id look into this as it may help you with figuring out what you need to do.
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/305/crap001.jpg
Fear Da Ninjas!
http://img713.imageshack.us/f/crap003.jpg/
Sorry No Jack-o- Hammers.. maybe I will ask Santa for one for Christmas!
My work table is a mess. LOL!
My " Soldering iron " is in the gray box- and no I am not opening it to take a flippin picture of it because I can never get it closed again.
It is this one:
http://www.harborfreight.com/5-in-1-hobby-woodburner-38593.html
The tips for it are in the little metal tin by my jiggly saw.
Yea, I was doing the wireless video but I really want to be able to take it outside as well and be able to use it wherever I am at, whether it be working out or cooking..
I am planning on going in wall with it and make color changing light panels for doors... maybe even a bubble light door. That way it just looks like in wall " mood lighting" and the computer is behind it with the DVD drives right below the panels.
Well.. I was thinking there might be a way to connect the keyboard, mouse and monitor wirelessly to the gaming rig by " modding" some of the connections. If I can hook the screen up to the wireless video, and then possibly mod the keyboard and mouse with wireless connections ( possibly patching a wireless keyboard and mouse to the laptop keyboard and mouse ) I might be able to use them as peripherals. Maybe gutting the wireless keyboard and patching might work on that end.
Not sure yet, but it will be a fun project!
Would you not be able to accomplish this stuff with a good upload rate on the rig, and then using remote desktop software?
I have never really messed around with the remote desktop software( I usually disable all remote ability from my OS)- so I am not sure if it would work or not. Would the Laptop just be acting as a drone and all the power coming from the gaming rig?
In principle, yes. We are talking terminal systems here.
If it were that easy it would have ben done a gazillion times in corp environments with gaming admins before, though ;-)
I'll keep it short: with old(er) titles with almost no DX support, it works like a charm. A soon as DirectX kicks in it gets difficult even for dedicated terminal system software like Citrix. You'd need to bypass such a lot of "barriers" that it would be far more cost effective, not to mention easier, to just buy a stack of Alienware notebooks and hook 'em up with remote profiles to distribute the gaming sessions evenly. In terminal sessions, with current technology, you won't be able to do current, modern, gaming.
You can test it yourself quite easily: hook up two Win7 computers with Remote Desktop, which is a dumbed down and license-free version of the MS terminal system, and try to get a smooth Aero desktop on the client within a session - you propably won't. Sorry.
We'll have to wait a few more years or until we can embed any application in an own RG Java or Flash shell (like EA remote gaming atm.).
...activating morph from silent reader to active poster...
...pending...
...pending...
...pending...
Yea, the whole point of making the massive rig is to have the power- so I think I am going to attempt to make the laptop keyboard/ video/ mouse wirelessly connect to the rig. I also really do not like enabling remote desktop because it is so flippin insecure to begin with. I usually gut my OS to begin with LOL.
I really deteste all the crap they come loaded with these days.. would be nice if they just gave us a streamlined, fast, secure OS without being loaded with 3rd party software and more holes than the wall behind a dartboard.
If http://www.onlive.com/ can do, why cant you?
Using remote desktop service you connect to the gaming rig and run the game through a session that you have open.
The idea is very old and a lot of business use this method to run 'dumb terminals' to a Windows server and run full desktops, or just one program, but thats generally for office type work or text based programs with a central database. Also some of these dumb terminals aren't that dumb to be able to handle the video/processing required on the user end, it would be cheaper then a full on gaming laptop though.
The "power" would be coming from the gaming computers graphics and CPU grunt and you are playing it through a 'window' to that computer,thats the theory anyway.
It does work...I knew a guy at work that would remote in to his computer at home to play WOW at work...he didn't last long in the job.
You could try VNC which is freeware or remote desktop that comes with most versions of windows, having a gigabit or wireless N connection to the gaming rig would be a big plus, even a must, as lag will be an issue.
Trial and error would give you an idea and you could test it with out to much pain. I would say different games will have different results, I would guess shooters would suck because you need a lot of frames per second .
What game are you trying to play?
There are wireless VGA connections you could use for transferring the video signal of your gaming rig.
Upon googling the first thing I found was a Wireless VGA to Video Converter* which also seems to be able to handle audio.
Maybe something like that could help.
* http://www.ramelectronics.net/audiovideo/htpc-media-pc-mac/pc-mac-tv-connectivity/gwb-4000/prodGWB4000.html
I'd be happy to controll the games running on my gamepc from my ipad.
Is that to much to ask?
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Well saying it can play WOW isn;t saying much.. The graphix on that are not current. I am an FPS kind of girl. LOL
I think It would be faster and more secure though if I didn;t go the remote desktop route and actually rewired the keyboard / video to make them operate the same as a wireless. Wouldn;t that be faster and more effective? I want a system that isn;t going to be outdated before I am finished building it.
I have been using wireless video for some time, I want to do some " modding" though and create a better overall system to suit my needs.
Well you are posting on a MMO forum :P
Remote desktop is secure and you will be doing it on your own LAN, which will be behind your modem/router/firewall.
It is a simple and probably cheap thing to try and test with a gigabit wired connection and see what results you get, that would be a 'best case' in terms of being a fast connection and lag, then you could try with a wireless N network.
The technology to wirelessly use a keyboard/mouse is easy. It's the technology to transmit video from one computer wirelessly to another for the purpose of playing high FPS games will be the issue. The technology may not be available or affordable to the public at this moment in time for what you want and like XoloX said current, modern, gaming may just not work like this.
I do play MMOs- but not all MMos have low requirements like WOW ( and I really hate that game)
.
Remote desktop is not secure, and firewalls, antivirus and just about every security program on the face of this planet has been cracked already, so I really do not have much confidence in them these days. I am a habitual formatter, every few months or so. I can run cables to my LCD tv's and then run wireless video to the laptops and I might get a better Frame per second on the TVS for that.
Wouldn;t it be the uploading with remote desktop that would be more of a bottle neck on the system rather than just converting the controls to wireless? My wireless keybioards and mouse don;t have any lag- that was why I was thinking maybe I can convert the laptop's controls to work wirelessly rather than slow the whole system down.
its not worth it, unless u pve only, the time wasted for transmitions back and forth takes too long. no matter how beast you "gaming rig inside the wall" is, the wireless still has delay, not to mention running this kind of software on a laptop is even worse than just gaming directly on it.