• State of local game streaming

    From Werner P.@21:1/5 to All on Thu Nov 2 08:28:33 2023
    Not sure if anyone besides me is interested in that topic, but here we go.
    As most people know I have been using local game streaming on and off
    for quite a while now, while i have not been using it anymore for a few
    months due to other hobbies (micro controller electronics, dabbling in
    building my own modular arcade stick, building a glass house for my
    citrus trees from scratch, home automation etc...)
    I still try to keep a little bit connected to that hobby.
    So to make things short, yada yada yada... here is the current state of
    game streaming

    Consoles: I only can comment on the ps5, but the playstations have had
    local game streaming baked in since the ps3 days, while the PS3
    supported only a handful games the ps4 had opened it for every game,
    that tradition is kept up with the PS5 and sony even is going to drive
    that further by bringing out a small handheld basically a PS5 controller
    which has a streaming client and a display baked in, so no PSVita 2 but
    only streaming.

    If you do not want to pay for that, there are options, Chiaki on the PC
    side is the one I am aware of which lets you stream those games on other handhelds which are pc based and run any PC OS decently well.
    For the raw PC and macs Sony has a streaming client, although arguably
    chiaki runs better because it does not require an original ps4/PS5
    controller for playing but can map the inputs.

    Nintendo: Just kidding, we are talking about nintendo here, a company
    which usually needs 20 years to use something, use an emulator and
    stream from there.. been there done that for my Wii games, Super Mario
    Galaxy 64 in 4k is top notch streaming the wii controller inputs back to
    the pc however introduces a noticable lag....

    PC: Now there are various options:
    Steam inhome streaming, probably the easiest to use if you have AMD or
    Intel cards, mostly a press of two buttons, however some people have
    problems with it (I dont)

    NVidia Game Streaming: Works best but the list of supported games is
    limited, piggy packs on proprietary nvidia protocols and techs, there is
    a multi platform client called Moonshine, which works as well as NVidias
    own...

    However NVidia seems to be retiring the tech, but help is on its way,
    Sunshine a multi platform multi gpu brand server which uses the nvidia
    protocol or an extended protocol and connects well with Moonlight (both
    teams are heavily intertwined)
    I have yet to have a look at it, but it seems to work as well as NVidias
    own solution on NVidia cards, seems also to work well on AMD and Intel.
    Will probably become important for me once I am going to retire my
    current GPU in a few years (for now it still serves me well, no need and
    no incentive given the GPU prices)


    Thats all there is to it, I am sure there are other solutions but that
    is the current state of affairs as far as I know it. Bit biggest news
    probably is that Moonlight/nvidia gamestream finally has a full
    opensource open replacement via Moonlight/Sunshine, which seems to work
    very well.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Spalls Hurgenson@21:1/5 to Werner P. on Thu Nov 2 09:23:52 2023
    On Thu, 2 Nov 2023 08:28:33 +0100, "Werner P." <werpu@gmx.at> wrote:

    Not sure if anyone besides me is interested in that topic, but here we go.
    As most people know I have been using local game streaming on and off
    for quite a while now, while i have not been using it anymore for a few >months due to other hobbies (micro controller electronics, dabbling in >building my own modular arcade stick, building a glass house for my
    citrus trees from scratch, home automation etc...)
    I still try to keep a little bit connected to that hobby.
    So to make things short, yada yada yada... here is the current state of
    game streaming

    <snip>

    Everytime I try local streaming, I just decide in the end I'm better
    off using a dedicated machine. It's not that the technology doesn't
    work, but neither does it really offer me any advantages.

    I mean, I can see if I'm remotely streaming - either from my own
    server or using a subscription service from Microsoft/Nvidia/whomever
    - but local? I still need to have a gaming PC somewhere, plus worry
    about all the networking in between.

    Then again, I do have an above-average number of PCs lying about. I
    suppose if you ONLY have one gaming PC, there might be more advantage.

    But then also, do I really need to stream EVERYWHERE in my house? I
    got the hobby room already. It's comfortable enough and has enough
    room to squeeze in my friends and myself. Being able to play games in
    the living room or the bedroom? Sure, I COULD... but everytime I made
    that option available, it ended up not being used for the most part.

    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.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Werner P.@21:1/5 to All on Thu Nov 2 17:26:07 2023
    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.
    For me it is heavens sent for certain things. After 8 hours on the PC I
    do not want to sit in front of a PC anymore, period, given that I have developed back problems I also after a workday need to lie down for a
    while. That was also the main reason why I bought the Steam Deck also, I
    was in rehab when the deck was announced, and my state was so miserable,
    that I was not sure whether I will be able to sit for longer than a few
    minutes anymore, the deck was heavens sent. But to make things short
    Streaming and the Deck complement each other, most if not all games run
    fine on the Deck, but if you want more than medium settings and/or
    longer battery runtime then fire up your main pc and use the deck as
    game streaming "terminal". A match made in heaven, or I also used a
    shield for many years to get my pc games into the living room for
    playing, the kids used it heavily to play the old Wii games that way in 4k.
    But YMMV! This is not for everyone, as you said!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Dimensional Traveler@21:1/5 to Spalls Hurgenson on Tue Nov 21 14:10:53 2023
    On 11/21/2023 1:31 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
    ---------------
    * Plus, then I get another PC to add to the hoard. There's more than
    one Number in this game ;-)

    That is just a Sub-Number of the Holy Number, Brother.

    --
    I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
    dirty old man.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Spalls Hurgenson@21:1/5 to Werner P. on Tue Nov 21 16:31:50 2023
    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 ;-)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Werner P.@21:1/5 to All on Thu Nov 23 09:17:08 2023
    Am 21.11.23 um 22:31 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:
    But I think I'd still rather just buy a dedicated gaming laptop were I
    to regularly game-on-the-go.
    Try also the nvidia remote play, many people report it works better for
    them, but yes there always will be a network latency added on top, works
    for me because i can adjust to latency really well, but for others...

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)