Game Streaming

[Indian_Guy101]

Hello everyone,

An idea just dawned on me. I was reading the other day about game streaming such as OnLive and StreamMyGame. Basically how they work, is you have a server that is capable of running any game and you install all you're games on it. Then you stream the game to any pc in you're house. However, the problems with OnLive is that it is not out yet, you have to pay a monthly fee of $50, and they control the server, meaning it is nowhere near you. It is in Palo Alta, CA and they stream the games over the Internet. The problem with StreamMyGame is that it only plays a very little amount of games and the software to be installed on the server is only for Windows. Also it requires me to the client and server programs to access the internet, meaning i have to unblock them in my firewall and I don't know why. That was when I was thinking, why can't I do something like that which runs on Linux (superior) servers, that is local, and can be streamed to any operating system? So I was thinking if my favorite community would have any ideas to share.

[wildman4god]

well those streaming game services use a special compression to go over slower WAN links, I guess it would be possible without compression for over a LAN but the problem is that there isn't really any software out for that yet. That would be something you would have to pioneer your self with some friends.

[Indian_Guy101]

The thing is I don't know where to start. That is pretty much why I am asking for suggestions

[wildman4god]

let me do some searching on the net and get back to you.

[wildman4god]

Okay did some checking and found this site:

www.streammygame.com

It's available for all OS's but people have said its a little complicated for the normal game player to start a game, so you may want to look into making it eaiser to use, also this would require a very powerful server because this meathod mean that the computer is processing that game the same number of times as you have clients running the game, and even with today's powerfull desktops, we normally only run once instance of a game, and some newer games even push desktops to their limits, so this will not be a cheap project. You just can't use some pc for a server you need a very (and I mean very) powerful server.

Hope that helps. Good luck and God speed.

Edit: I forgot, you also need industrial gigabit speed switches, By industrial I mean the type a corporation or small business would use, not something you pick up at staples.

Edit again: My bad, it doesn't run on mac, it runs on windows, linux and PS3.

[zekopeko]

Originally Posted by wildman4god Okay did some checking and found this site: www.streammygame.com It's available for all OS's but people have said its a little complicated for the normal game player to start a game, so you may want to look into making it eaiser to use, also this would require a very powerful server because this meathod mean that the computer is processing that game the same number of times as you have clients running the game, and even with today's powerfull desktops, we normally only run once instance of a game, and some newer games even push desktops to their limits, so this will not be a cheap project. You just can't use some pc for a server you need a very (and I mean very) powerful server. Hope that helps. Good luck and God speed.

you are running only one instance of the game and are encoding the video stream then sending it to the client(which is sending only keyboard and mouse clikcs to the server). like watching the movie over the network.

i played fallout3 on a PentiumM 2GHz with a X3100 since i stream the game from the rig in my sig.

so if your main computer (the server) can play the game then the only extra load you have is to encode the stream and send it over the network. that could be handled by a quad core machine since most games us only 2 cores and the rest are idling so you could give those 2 cores to the video encoder. or you could put a cheap mid-range graphic card in and encode on it with something like CUDA or OpenCL.

EDIT: sorry should have paid more attention when reading. in a multi-client setup you would have to have more instances of games running simultaneously.

[pwnst*r]

Originally Posted by wildman4god Okay did some checking and found this site: www.streammygame.com It's available for all OS's but people have said its a little complicated for the normal game player to start a game, so you may want to look into making it eaiser to use, also this would require a very powerful server because this meathod mean that the computer is processing that game the same number of times as you have clients running the game, and even with today's powerfull desktops, we normally only run once instance of a game, and some newer games even push desktops to their limits, so this will not be a cheap project. You just can't use some pc for a server you need a very (and I mean very) powerful server. Hope that helps. Good luck and God speed. Edit: I forgot, you also need industrial gigabit speed switches, By industrial I mean the type a corporation or small business would use, not something you pick up at staples. Edit again: My bad, it doesn't run on mac, it runs on windows, linux and PS3.

lol, read the first post.

[Indian_Guy101]

Originally Posted by wildman4god Okay did some checking and found this site: www.streammygame.com It's available for all OS's but people have said its a little complicated for the normal game player to start a game, so you may want to look into making it eaiser to use, also this would require a very powerful server because this meathod mean that the computer is processing that game the same number of times as you have clients running the game, and even with today's powerfull desktops, we normally only run once instance of a game, and some newer games even push desktops to their limits, so this will not be a cheap project. You just can't use some pc for a server you need a very (and I mean very) powerful server. Hope that helps. Good luck and God speed. Edit: I forgot, you also need industrial gigabit speed switches, By industrial I mean the type a corporation or small business would use, not something you pick up at staples. Edit again: My bad, it doesn't run on mac, it runs on windows, linux and PS3.

Only the client software runs on linux and ps3. The server software runs only on Windows, that is my main problem because I have a linux server. Also the server is processing the game the number of times that I have clients running the games at the same time right?

If some one would like to work with me on this let me know, and if you would like to lead I am open.