On Thu, 2 Nov 2023 17:26:07 +0100, "Werner P." <
werpu@gmx.at> wrote:
Am 02.11.23 um 14:23 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:
But YMMV. Other people have different styles. But it's never really
been worth it to me, except as an excuse to tinker and play with the
technology.
I actually had the opportunity to give Steam "RemotePlay" another test
just the other day. I've used RemotePlay streaming before, but mostly
via the local network. This time I used it - for the first time in a
long time - across the Internet.
On the local net, I've never really seen the point. I'd rather just
buy another PC; streaming has enough issues that adding another PC to
the herd just seems the simpler solution.*
But my love of computer hardware mostly is for desktops, and my
portable PCs tend to be older and underpowered. Besides, its rare that
I use my laptops for gaming anyway. Still, when I had the opportunity
again, I thought I'd test it: how would it be to play video games on
my underpowered, twelve-year old laptop via Steam's RemotePlay?
The answer was: on the whole, acceptable. There was noticeable-but-
not-serious input lag, and on occasion some pixelation of the video
stream as the local processor struggled to keep up. I still wouldn't
recommend it for twitchy action-games which require split-second
timing, but for something like "EuroTruck Simulator 2" or
"Civilization IV" it was more than adequate in terms of performance.
But it wasn't without issue. Obviously, the state of the wifi network
matters a lot. Connected to a colleague's home network (802.11n,
100mbit downstream), I noticed when she started a big download. A
minor network hiccough interrupted the stream long enough for me to
drive my truck into a wall because of the lag (I kept a wary eye on
the network health icon after that and hit ESC every time it veered
into the red).
More annoying though, was that using RemotePlay meant that not only
did I have to leave my host PC powered on, but I had to disable both
its sleep mode AND its screensaver/log-off functionality. If the host
drops to the log-on screen as a security feature, you can still
CONNECT to it through RemotePlay, but can't bypass the UAC prompt. And
it freaked out the flatmate when the computer started playing by
itself. It's obvious RemotePlay is mainly intended for local
streaming, and not for bringing your library with you on the road.
But it worked and - considering my old laptop is only a
second-generation i5 processor with boring integrated IntelHD graphics
- it ran far better than I expected it to, especially since the game
itself was being streamed hundreds of miles between two home networks.
But I think I'd still rather just buy a dedicated gaming laptop were I
to regularly game-on-the-go.
---------------
* Plus, then I get another PC to add to the hoard. There's more than
one Number in this game ;-)
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