The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
How to Remote Desktop the Best?
SniperGuy
SniperGuyGamingRegistered User regular
SniperGuyGamingRegistered User regular
So I've got a wrt54gl router. My desktop is wirelessly connected via a WET54g adapter. My netbook is wirelessly connected via whatever is built into the netbook.
I've setup streaming solutions and things for my Xbox and PS3 to stream my terabyte hard drive full of movies to the living room TV and that works fantastically.
However, considering they're only like 2 rooms apart, I wanted to setup my netbook to be able to play WoW, from my desktop. Like, remote into my desktop computer so that I can run around and do dailies and such while I sit in my recliner in the living room. Using Win7's built in Remote Desktop Connection thing, I can access my computer, but everything I'm reading says that 3D graphics require too much bandwidth to stream over wifi.
Well shit, I say. But how come I can stream a 720p movie over the wifi to my TV, but I can't stream an 800x600 window of WoW onto my netbook over the local wifi? It seems like that's a rather similar amount of data to me, though I could be totally wrong here.
I also wouldn't mind being able to remote into my desktop from anywhere (not to play WoW, just to access it and mess around with files and such), so I had tried to setup a dyndns account, but if you type in the domain I setup into a browser, it just takes you to the router config page! I'm clearly missing something here as well.
So, is WoW not playable at all over my local wifi? Should I even bother continuing to try that? Basically I just want to turn my local wifi into a giant VGA cord with my netbook as the monitor.
I've setup streaming solutions and things for my Xbox and PS3 to stream my terabyte hard drive full of movies to the living room TV and that works fantastically.
However, considering they're only like 2 rooms apart, I wanted to setup my netbook to be able to play WoW, from my desktop. Like, remote into my desktop computer so that I can run around and do dailies and such while I sit in my recliner in the living room. Using Win7's built in Remote Desktop Connection thing, I can access my computer, but everything I'm reading says that 3D graphics require too much bandwidth to stream over wifi.
Well shit, I say. But how come I can stream a 720p movie over the wifi to my TV, but I can't stream an 800x600 window of WoW onto my netbook over the local wifi? It seems like that's a rather similar amount of data to me, though I could be totally wrong here.
I also wouldn't mind being able to remote into my desktop from anywhere (not to play WoW, just to access it and mess around with files and such), so I had tried to setup a dyndns account, but if you type in the domain I setup into a browser, it just takes you to the router config page! I'm clearly missing something here as well.
So, is WoW not playable at all over my local wifi? Should I even bother continuing to try that? Basically I just want to turn my local wifi into a giant VGA cord with my netbook as the monitor.
SniperGuy on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
3d graphics is not streaming video really.
Set up VNC server on your desktop and the client on your laptop.
Try it and see how it works.
I've got a 1000HE Asus netbook with the ram upgraded to 2 gigs.
If I setup the terabyte hard drive to be a network drive, will I be able to play video directly off of it as well over the wifi? I tried playing a video through remote desktop locally and it was a slideshow as well.
It's supremely easy. Install VNC server on the desktop. Set a password.
Install the VNC client on your netbook. Connect to your dekstop. Vwallah, you can see the screen on your desktop.
Then you'll see if it's doable. It's also free, so you have nothing to lose but a little time.
Don't I also need to do some SSH thing to make it secure?
If you ant, but you're behind the firewall on your router. Is it protected?
As far as streaming goes, basically if the netbook can play it locally, streaming should work just as well.
Contrary to what everyone else appears to be saying, you are totally wrong here.
When you "stream" your 720p video, you are indeed moving a massive amount of data across the network very quickly. However, you're actually just accessing the 720p video file located on a shared drive. This allows the video player (client) to buffer the video, and and keep the upcoming few minutes locally temporarily, so that you see smooth playback.
What you aren't doing is having each frame sent to you as it's rendered in real time over the network. That's what you'd be attempting to do here. If you set up a remote desktop solution and attempt to watch a video in 720p via Remote Desktop or VNC, you'll notice that it doesn't work very well. 3D graphics will have the same issue, if your remote client even supports it. Most don't, because they don't have framebuffer access without a special video driver being installed
tl;dr: what you want to happen can't happen in a way that will result in any kind of workable performance
Sure it can, I've done it over my network.
The router? It has passwords and such put up on it, yes. How do you mean protected?
Unless someone's on your local network, they won't be able to access the VNC session on your desktop unless you specifically punch a hole in your firewall for it.
using which client/server?
I've played city of heroes, yes. It's not perfect, but it worked in a pinch.
Using the basic VNC client and server.
each one works differently. some have framebuffer drivers for this kind of thing, but it's still barely usable. a far cry from "not perfect".
unless you've found one that works, in which case I'd like to know about it so I can change my VNC setup accordingly
Some brief googling saw a lot of recommendations for Ultra VNC being the one to use. Any opinions on that software?
Sorry, realvnc. been a while since I've used it.
It worked well enough for me to play. Give it a try!
Completely ignoring issues of processor overhead and sizes of packet headers, sending a video game screen via VNC (assuming it can access the buffer to see said screen) is essentially the same as sending a real-time video stream. At 800x600 resolution and in 32bit color at 50fps, this comes out to be about 92MB a second. VNC can do some image compression via JPEG or some custom algorithm I'm not familiar with. JPEG can get you about 10:1 compression from a straight-up bitmap without too much quality sacrifice, so call it 9MB a second (again, ignoring the performance drag for compressing 50 800x600 images a second).
802.11g wireless runs at 54Mbit/s, which comes out to about 7MB a second. That's assuming max transfer rate of the protocol, which is impossible to reach. In fact, your average 802.11b/g compatible router (like the one in the OP) tops out around 13Mbps for a perfect connection due to a bunch of TCP and wireless transaction protocol considerations tucking transaction data into the packets. Lower connection quality due to distance/interference is going to degrade that, so let's hazard a guess at 75% of 'max', or about 1MB/s.
To get from 9MB/s to 1MB/s we're going to have to sacrifice aspects of the video stream. There are 3 variables here: framerate, resolution, and colors. Dropping much below 800x600 32bit is going to render a game unplayable, so framerate is our only option. Going from 9MB to 1MB per second is going to drop us from 50fps to 5.5fps. Adding in considerations for processor bottlenecking with all those JPEGs being compressed, other devices hogging wireless bandwidth, and additional packet padding due to VNC's own packet scheme, SSH if you're using it, etc. and you will very rapidly be in the 2-3fps range. But even at 5-6fps a game is basically unplayable.
So there you go. 800x600 gaming via VNC over 802.11g is basically impossible. There are higher-throughput routers that'll get you more than 13 Mbps or you could go up to 802.11n but I don't feel like doing the math to figure out what the benefits would be. You could conceivably play a (choppy) session of a game via VNC over a wired network. It might even be smooth if you had Gbit ethernet.
Still don't have any SSH going though. I'd prefer to keep using VNC over something like teamviewer or logmein, as that stuff has to route through their severs, whereas VNC is my OWN server.
TeamViewer and LogMeIn connects through their servers TO your own server. You have to have the LogMeIn/TeamViewer VNC server running on the PC you want to connect remotely to in order for it to work.
I have an application that renders 3d data on a different layer to the Windows DirectX one (different video card) so I can't use remote desktop.
This remote KVM intercepts the video signal before it goes into the monitor. (In your case, your desktop would have done all the 3D video stuff, and the box just sends the video onwards)
As long as you have 100mbit ethernet/network, it should work really well.
Two types of solutions
Hosted solutions:
1. GoToPC
2. LogMeIn
3. Teamviewer
4. GoSupportNow
Appliance-based solution:
1. RHUB remote support appliance
2. Bomgar appliance