Fastest Remote Desktop Solution for Watching Videos / Gaming

[arh2o]

I'm trying to play video games and watch videos from a remote location. I've tried many diff apps such as TeamViewer, LogMeIn, and VNC products. Recently, i have RealVNC set up which allows me to run video games at very low fps. Its an OK solution, but there has to be a faster way. Does a software exist which can run games efficiently and the ability to watch videos at a decent frame rate? I've heard that perhaps TigerVNC with a certain plugin can run video games at an acceptable frame rate?

I have 15mbps upload and a powerful host computer, so my connection or specs isn't an issue.

 

[Elixer]

You want to stream videos, and also stream games ?
Well... you could stream games with the steam beta client... as for videos, you could use VLC.
Though, I am unsure why you want to stream videos. Why not just setup a windows share, and you can remotely mount it, and then play said videos with VLC.

 

[Mushkins]

Even over the best general remote connection technology available, RDP, I would not expect streaming video or playing videogames to give any sort of tolerable quality compared to a local connection. The technology simply was not designed to do this.

I have a hard enough time getting VNC based support tools to properly refresh a barely changing desktop at work.

 

[Lemieux66]

Windows 8 includes a new version of rdp that is noticeably better. You can download it for Windows 7. Search for rdp 8.1 update. I did some testing and streaming video is doable but not above Youtube 480p if i remember correctly. I think 720p had issues. Im sure a fps game would still be unplayable.

 

[theevilsharpie]

I have 15mbps upload and a powerful host computer, so my connection or specs isn't an issue.

HDMI has a bandwidth of nearly 4Gb/s. Your 15Mb/s connection isn't even close to what's required to stream a full-motion display at acceptable quality. There is remote streaming technology that comes close, but it's not perfect, and you shouldn't even bother with anything less than Gigabit Ethernet.

TL;DR: No.

 

[DrGreen2007]

If its really a requirement to be able to do this, you can pay to use PCoIP.
- install a host card on the machine
- remote device at the remote location
- configure your firewall to allow certain ports through
- configure the remote device to connect to a certain IP
Thats like $500 tho, but we had folks in Ireland doing video editing on machines located in the US.

 

[azazel1024]

If its really a requirement to be able to do this, you can pay to use PCoIP.
- install a host card on the machine
- remote device at the remote location
- configure your firewall to allow certain ports through
- configure the remote device to connect to a certain IP
Thats like $500 tho, but we had folks in Ireland doing video editing on machines located in the US.

Its most likely using a much fater pipe than 15Mbps.

There is also the lag to consider. You have double lag, especially if playing a multiplayer game remotely.

I don't think you'll be able to get anything working with a video game at anything like okay frame rates, even at low res. I can verify that RDP is working a lot better in Win8/8.1, but even then it isn't going to do anything more than push 480p at acceptable frame rates for video (and I doubt its even still 24fps, as I do notice some frame drops occasionally). That's over a gigabit connection.

RDP is just a horribly inefficient way to transmit video.

Steam beta big screen might work. Maybe, but I don't know if you'll get it working over the internet.

 

[Mushkins]

Windows 8 includes a new version of rdp that is noticeably better. You can download it for Windows 7. Search for rdp 8.1 update. I did some testing and streaming video is doable but not above Youtube 480p if i remember correctly. I think 720p had issues. Im sure a fps game would still be unplayable.

I had a vendor come in to try to sell me on moving everyone to thin clients hosted in a datacenter just last week. We were joking around about streaming video and as a testimony to how solid his infrastructure approach was he demoed streaming SD youtube videos over the new and improved Windows 8 RDP. It played, but even the banner advertisements were a little stuttery. He wouldn't go for trying HD content, even he wasn't *that* confident in RDP.

So yeah, in short it's not gonna happen.

 

[It's Not Lupus]

Try Plex (or similar applications) for videos.

I don't recommend anything for video games since there would probably be too much lag or stuttering.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Frame rate is going to kill you. Almost all of those solutions are going to be somewhat throttled by the remote desktop server (be it RDP/VNC/other) They will be set to only provide so many frames per second and if it's not in sync with the receiving end, video won't look right. It's what happens when you get frame skip from either dropped packets or slight sound lag. After all, you're seeing a delayed representation of what's actually on the system you're connecting to.

Citrix owns the ICA protocol. It's much leaner than RDP and is what they're using for XenDesktop/XenApp. I don't know how it would do with gaming, but can stream video reasonably well...it's just not free.

You can try it here for free to see how it performs. Unfortunately, they do a subscription pricing model, so it's like $100/year.
http://www.gotomypc.com/remote-access/features

http://blog.citrix24.com/citrix-multistream-ica-explained/

 

[SecurityTheatre]

HDMI has a bandwidth of nearly 4Gb/s. Your 15Mb/s connection isn't even close to what's required to stream a full-motion display at acceptable quality. There is remote streaming technology that comes close, but it's not perfect, and you shouldn't even bother with anything less than Gigabit Ethernet.

TL;DR: No.

To be fair, Youtube pushes 720p down over a 10-15mbps connection alright.


BUT, they have had the chance to pre-encode it, which makes a huge difference. Doing it in realtime is probably not practical, even at 720p.

 

[azazel1024]

To be fair, Youtube pushes 720p down over a 10-15mbps connection alright.


BUT, they have had the chance to pre-encode it, which makes a huge difference. Doing it in realtime is probably not practical, even at 720p.

Its certainly feasible. With maxed settings I generally have no issues on my desktop downconverting a 1080p source to 720p h.264 through handbrake at roughly film rates, 22-26FPS. Just notching the conversion settings from the ultra high ones I have to something modest, but still good I can easily get it up over 40FPS.

So real time encoding of a 720p stream is easily possible, without GPU involvement.

Its how Widi/Miracast work (but leveraging the GPU/Quicksync). They on-the-fly transcode the video output and push it wirelessly to a receiver. Of course I doubt that the 1080p output is able to fit in to 15Mbps (though maybe).

There is also resonable lag, 250ms IIRC on the latest version of Widi (I have no idea on Miracast).

And its also a "local" protocol. Not something Intel/MS/others have extended over a network, other than local wireless streaming.

Its theoretically possible with a nice and powerful system you could both run the game/video AND transcode the video output to push it through a remote access protocol for KVM control and relatively seamless.

It would take a lot of grunt, there is likely to be resonably big lag still and you are going to need a BIG pipe the the machine still, especially for 1080p content.

Afterall, its how remote gaming technology that Sony is working on and a few others do/did works.

It isn't as nice as an experience as being in front of your desktop is, and especially gaming, is going to add massive overhead on the machine, but its doable. I just don't know of ANY one who has it out there is a "install on your own machine" type service.

 

[arh2o]

Thanks for the responses guys. I just thought that with how powerful today's GPUs are, it would be possible to somehow compress the data and play a video game remotely at say like 15-20 FPS. I guess the technology/speed just isn't there yet.

I also read some good things about Splashtop, in that it can provide some decent FPS when remotely connecting. Maybe I'll give that a go.

 

[vshah]

Kainy for games
but even on a 75mbps up connection it can be spotty at times. works great over lan/wlan though.

 

[exdeath]

Protocols like RDP and X aren't for streaming raw pixel bitmap data, they work by duplicating low bandwidth differential GUI API calls and display lists that are rendered by the client. Draw Rectangle, Draw Text String, etc. It's not sending a width x height x fps real time stream like you're thinking.

Works great for GUI objects and even seemingly really complex things like Excel that can be sent as a series of really simple line and shape drawing GUI commands, but anything with bitmaps or live video that actually requires real data being sent real time its going to look nasty and choke.

Games would be more doable if DirectX or OpenGl calls are remoted the same way, but you still have gigabytes of assets (textures and geometry) to move real time.

 

[drebo]

Using PCoIP or RemoteFX, one can adequately play games on a remote computer.

PCoIP can watch flash, etc, videos no problem.

 

[azazel1024]

Oh, it is POSSIBLE, it just isn't really implemented in consumer software/APIs to do it.

A halfway decent 1080p video/audio stream at 24FPS is going to consume about 9-12Mbps, plus the controls. So, yeah, its doable over a GOOD internet connection. Lets keep in mind, unless you were stating the UPLOAD bandwidth of your internet connection, 15Mbps download might mean 3Mbps upload.

To handle just 30FPS 1080p, it might be closer to 15Mbps. 60FPS is going to be closer to 25Mbps.

It would be significant GPU overhead. First off, the GPU is loaded with actually rendering each frame and then its going to be loaded again on compressing it with h.264/h.265 to then be uploaded. A mid-range GPU might be able to manage the hardware encoding to h.264 at playable frame rates (>30fps)...but I imagine it would have a hard time doing both that AND rendering the graphics.

High end GPU or mulitple GPUs only probably. Or somehow take advantage of Intel quick synch to do the encoding while the GPU offloads the actual image rendering tasks.

Still, not an easy thing to do all of this. This is generally how remote play services work...but its not a consumer thing and not really on consumer hardware OVER THE INTERNET.

It sure is possible though, with a good enough connection.