This is a super interesting project, and the video is really well presented and explained, if you prefer that format.
I think this method could be brought even further by using ‘thin clients’ (a cheap laptop or used office mini-PC), making it possible to access the main gaming rig from any room in the house as long as you have access to a good network speed.
Utilizing a ‘dummy’ HDMI or Displayport stick, which simulates a monitor for the GPU, you could then remote into the gaming rig from a thin client-like PC through Parsec or Moonline/Sunlight, allowing you to use it as a fully fledged gaming or workstation PC.
If anyone decides to go that route, be aware that AMD GPU’s have pretty notoriously bad encoders, so I’d recommend sticking with Nvidia (Pascal/1000 series or newer) or Intel GPU’s/Integrated Graphics (6th generation 6000 series or newer).
EDIT: AMD did actually improve their encoders in recent years, starting with the Raven Ridge integrated graphics APUs, and the first generation Navi cards (RX 5700 onward, the lower end cards don’t have it).
This is actually a project on my to-do list for my kids. Sucks that each seat can’t share a framebuffer (otherwise multiple GPUs would be entirely optional) but to get 2 decent gaming experiences out of a cheap used PC plus an extra GPU is pretty sweet
AMD GPU’s have pretty notoriously bad encoders/decoders, so I’d recommend sticking with Nvidia or Intel GPU’s.
Where do people get this idea??
Here is 1440p 60fps from my 6700 XT
Ive been using emby for a few years and firefox doesn’t support HVEC where all my content is HVEC and have had 0 issues with my gpu re-encoding the video
Its just nvidia fanboy bs
What magic incantation are you using? My OBS either crashes with the ffmpeg setting or uses software enc, and is always blurry. Firefox does all video and audio enc+dec on CPU. Am on all-AMD NixOS and so far gave up on any hw accel for media.
Pretty sure this was using steam recording. Majority of videos on my channel were using the Arrenaline driver suite. Still setting up Bazite
It’s not fanboy BS though, AMD encoders used to be pretty rough compared to Nvidia’s, specially at lower bitrates.
They’ve improved a lot as the generations went on however, to the point I believe that advice no longer applies.
Well I’ll be damned! AMD does seem to have up their encoder game with the Navi series onward.
They were rightfully called out as having pretty bad encoders before that though, which I personally experienced on an RX 480 I used to have in my system. It made parsec a bit blurry and added quite a bit of latency.
Also, I would stand by the recommendation to avoid older office PC’s with AMD graphics, since none of them are going to have Navi graphics.
avoid older office PC’s with AMD graphics though, since none of them are going to have Navi graphics.
The key word here being older. These days, AMD CPUs have a couple of Navi graphics cores built in, and they’re good for both office tasks and video encoding.
True, for anyone who has a more modern AMD laptop, it would fare well with Parsec.
It want that long ago. Just read any OBS posts. Honestly I haven’t kept up with it for a while. A quick search shows discussions continue. Does appear most still think Nvidia has the best quality.
AMD used to be the shit on Linux a decade ago, much better support than Nvidia. It looks like something changed, but I only use discrete intel GPUs so I’m way out of the loop.
Wasn’t UNIX (and thus Linux) all about multi seat like since the seventies?
Yes, but mixing in 3D hardware acceleration was apparently quite difficult to achieve until systemd came along to make it somewhat painless.
Somehow, thin clients sound like Mainframe 2, electric boogaloo
Home PCs are so powerful these days that a return to thin clients makes sense in many use cases.
I will admit I became a bit giddy at the prospect of using a beefy Linux rig like it’s 1971, as our Lord and Saviors Dennis Richie & Ken Thompson intended. 😌
The Gibson making a comeback.
You used to not need Moonlight or something like that with linux. We just ssh XForward the application to the client. (well technically they server, but that gets confusing).
And technically you can still do that, but it’s super laggy. Playing a game through X11 forwarding would be horrendous
Yeah, it was designed for X content. It is unbeatable getting seamless integration of regular (non 3D) over anything better than a 48 kbps connection.
You still can, as far as I know! It’s just that I don’t think X would have the throughput for games. I recently learned about that functionality in a Cathode Ray Dude video, where he shows how it even got ported to Windows 3.11!
You have a typo, let me fix it:
2 gamers, 1 cup
Dear Systemd: get back in your tiny lane you bloated mess.
The only reason any of this is easily possible by laymen is thanks to Systemd.
