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I've been using RDP for remote desktop needs. Works great, but I'd like to be able to step things up.

With all this new talk and tech about streaming things, from the Wii U gamepad and nVidia Shield to SteamOS, has there been ANY general remote desktop software that uses the same kind of tech? I want to be able to edit videos or work on 3D modeling from an old laptop upstairs connected via ethernet or wifi. (Ethernet being the obvious preference for high bandwidth and low latency. I'd like support for non-gigabit Fast Ethernet too, although chances are it won't be able to decode the video stream in real time, who knows.)

Perhaps I've missed something obvious here, but all I've noticed is that there's a giant elephant in the room getting ignored when it comes to all the new H.264 streaming tech. I hope this kind of tech can replace the old fashioned way of remote desktop software, which is unsuitably slow for any kind of 3D or video applications.

Well, Server 2008 SP1 and 2012 has RemoteFX, which can virtualize a GPU to remote clients. The 2012 version has DX11 support.

Yes, it runs Crysis!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRbEh_58XmI

Sucks, I was hoping there'd be something more general-purpose out there. Maybe it'll happen sooner than I'm expecting though.

Just checked MSDN and it seems RemoteFX had been ported to Win 8.1 (Pro and Enterprise).
Also works with Win 7 SP1 Enterprise after installing the RDP 8.0 update.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/201 ... -2012.aspx

I'm still not sure if it will work with consumer GPUs, or if you need a special VDI-enabled one.

Looks like I really dropped the ball on the initial Google search... I found software called SplashTop, which I'll be testing shortly.

http://www.splashtop.com/
http://www.splashtop.com/downloads

This thing lets you remote into a desktop and edit videos or play 3D games from a tablet (or other desktop), thanks to H.264 encoding. According to YouTube comments, the stream is pretty latent compared to stuff nVidia is working on, but like I said, have to test. The software also may not be isolated to local networks.

Edit: Initial impressions:
- Does indeed require an account, so it's not likely to work on just a local network.
- Sets res to 1024x768 when starting. You can crank it back up, but the stream will be compressed.
- Increasing the resolution adds a ton of latency, at least initially.
- Can't help but feel that a proper local connection isn't being established. I tested two systems over wired gigabit, and the latency made 3D applications odd to use.
- Keeps up with a solid 15-30 FPS, usually.

Will continue testing and looking for options. On the side, I found that Monoprice carries HDMI to ethernet converters, as well as USB to ethernet, and those may be quite helpful. (The wireless stuff is really pricey.)

BRB RemoteFX

TeamViewer works well enough for me, very snappy on my network, very easy to configure for local use also. It's got an Android App too, which I sometimes use to control my HTPC.

^ Have you used TeamViewer for 3D/video applications? Most sources (and my own limited time spent testing it) say it's slower than RDP, so I wouldn't think it'd work.

I'll take a look at RemoteFX later and see if it still requires VDI/workstation hardware. The lack of OpenGL support may be a problem though, since a few applications I use depend on it.

I've just finished a full week of traveling and was using TeamViewer for unattended remote desktop access. It's pretty decent and completely free for personal use, but it does have a few bugs and requires plenty of bandwidth for full quality steaming. Full screen apps are a no go, but with enough bandwidth it can maintain near real time refresh rates. I'm going to guess this depends on the source resolution to some extent though.

Still using ssh and screen. Works great on *nix systems.

With TeamViewer: I can remotely play ordinary 2d games, but watching movies or playing 3D games doesn't work too well. The big problem with RDP is you have to setup some way to getting to it over the Internet. That is 1/2 the battle. Though honestly my performance comparison with RDP showed RDP losing pretty big time. That's over my connection at home with is 75Mb/25Mb here in the States and ummm 1Gb in Tokyo. I don't really have to pay for the place in Tokyo, but of course all the bills go through to me and get expensed - so my Internet in Tokyo is cheaper ... $38/3986¥

keltor wrote:

Though honestly my performance comparison with RDP showed RDP losing pretty big time.

Then you are definitely doing something VERY wrong, or your ISP is throttling RDP traffic, especially if Teamviewer is a better option. Getting RDP to work is pretty simple as well especially on a home network.

One option he may want to look at is nomachine NX 4. If being used on Windows or OS X and the systems are intels, it can utilize the quicksync encoder and even items like HD video play well over seas.

https://www.nomachine.com/people

C-A_99 wrote:

^ Have you used TeamViewer for 3D/video applications? Most sources (and my own limited time spent testing it) say it's slower than RDP, so I wouldn't think it'd work.

I see, yeah I dropped the ball there. HD video can become a bit of a slideshow with more than 256 colors in TeamViewer it would be a pain to use.

I wonder - if you're not tied to using a laptop - if you could use ChromeCast in an HDMI monitor/TV (not sure if ChromeCast requires HDCP, if not then a DVI monitor would suffice). You'd need an Ethernet or Wi-Fi keyboard and mouse extender though, or similar.

NoMachine is working quite well so far. I always thought it worked a bit more like RDP, but the website and client look really updated, so looks like things have changed under my awareness over the years.

One of my favorite features of RDP however, is that it seamlessly handles resolution adjusting; perfect when trying to access a triple 1080p desktop from a 1366x768 laptop. I almost forgot this was pretty much exclusive to RDP, so I definitely want to test RemoteFX. Unfortunately, one of my machines is only on Win7 Home Premium instead of Professional, so I'll probably stick with NoMachine.

I do need to actually shrink down the resolution when I test though. Mouse movement in 3D applications (where the cursor disappears and you move a camera around, like in an FPS game) is very odd, a bit latent, and tends to make movements that jump too far. This may be resolved by lower resolution; I'll test that later.

C-A_99 wrote:

I've been using RDP for remote desktop needs. Works great, but I'd like to be able to step things up.

With all this new talk and tech about streaming things, from the Wii U gamepad and nVidia Shield to SteamOS, has there been ANY general remote desktop software that uses the same kind of tech? I want to be able to edit videos or work on 3D modeling from an old laptop upstairs connected via ethernet or wifi. (Ethernet being the obvious preference for high bandwidth and low latency. I'd like support for non-gigabit Fast Ethernet too, although chances are it won't be able to decode the video stream in real time, who knows.)

Perhaps I've missed something obvious here, but all I've noticed is that there's a giant elephant in the room getting ignored when it comes to all the new H.264 streaming tech. I hope this kind of tech can replace the old fashioned way of remote desktop software, which is unsuitably slow for any kind of 3D or video applications.

I've used TeamViewer and VNC (via an ssh tunnel to headless linux servers), and for what they do, they're great little pieces of software.

From what you describe about 3d Modeling and video editing from an laptop in the same location, just different rooms, that sounds like something VMWare could solve. It really *really* wants to run on GigE ethernet, though, and only supports virtualizing nVidia GPUs so far.

If you can crimp your own Cat6 cable, buying bulk Cat6 and getting a RouterBOARD from MicroTIK can let you run a GigE LAN on the cheap.

PenGun wrote:

Still using ssh and screen. Works great on *nix systems.

Grats, you've managed to abbriev the usefulness out of this post.

Milo Burke wrote:

PenGun wrote:

Still using ssh and screen. Works great on *nix systems.

Grats, you've managed to abbriev the usefulness out of this post.

His post isn't useful even if you know what he's talking about.

bthylafh wrote:

Milo Burke wrote:

PenGun wrote:

Still using ssh and screen. Works great on *nix systems.

Grats, you've managed to abbriev the usefulness out of this post.

His post isn't useful even if you know what he's talking about.

Never mind him, he lives under the forum stairs and pokes his head out whenever anyone asks a question that he can respond to with the equivalent of "Hey, I don't need that on Linux because I just use the CLI for everything!"

(And FWIW I say this as someone who actually prefers Linux to Windows by quite a wide margin...)

JBI wrote:

(And FWIW I say this as someone who actually prefers Linux to Windows by quite a wide margin...)

And screen actually *is* a pretty nifty piece of software.

I think if I ever reach the rank of Darth Gerbil, I'll have to stop posting. Because I can't imagine a title more amazing than that.

Glorious wrote:

JBI wrote:

(And FWIW I say this as someone who actually prefers Linux to Windows by quite a wide margin...)

And screen actually *is* a pretty nifty piece of software.

I've never used Screen before. How would that compare to , say, SecureCRT?

Hz so good wrote:

I've never used Screen before. How would that compare to , say, SecureCRT?

It serves a different (though complementary) purpose. It allows a single SSH (or other terminal) session to control multiple virtual terminal windows. It has some nifty features, like the ability to detach sessions and leave them running in the background after you log out; you can re-connect to the existing sessions at a later time.

The rather lengthy man page for screen actually lists the following in the "BUGS" section:

man page for screen wrote:

A weird imagination is most useful to gain full advantage of all the features.

Instead of screen I use byobu + tmux. They accomplish about the same things but with IMO a prettier wrapper. The combination can clobber F-keys that an ncurses program might want, though, and the work-around for that is really just a bandaid.

just brew it! wrote:

Hz so good wrote:

I've never used Screen before. How would that compare to , say, SecureCRT?

It serves a different (though complementary) purpose. It allows a single SSH (or other terminal) session to control multiple virtual terminal windows. It has some nifty features, like the ability to detach sessions and leave them running in the background after you log out; you can re-connect to the existing sessions at a later time.

The rather lengthy man page for screen actually lists the following in the "BUGS" section:

man page for screen wrote:

A weird imagination is most useful to gain full advantage of all the features.

Ah, okay! Thanks! I'm just getting used to SecureCRT. It's like a nice, comfy leather recliner compared to the other tools I've used in the past.