Gaming on unraid directly attached ?

[chrissi5120]

Hi Folks,

 

just got back from Holidays updating my Servers as usual (the most natural Thing to do after holdidays, right ? )

 

then I see a lot of Gaming,KVM,VT-d buzzwording all around the Boards..

 

Maybe I am old or just stupid but explain me one (two?) thing(s) !

 

How will you do that gaming "THING" on unraid ?

 

do you connect like this ?

 

UNRAID BARE METAL - Hardware VGA - HDMI/DVA/VGA/DP/or whatever - Monitor

 

OR

 

UNRAID BARE METAL - NETWORK and stuff - another PC with crappy Hardware for example - Monitor ?

 

please get that clear for me !

 

I tried steam in home streaming once.. it was okay, but nothing to play a shooter oder even Dota with and that with fully copper Gigabit switched Network !

 

How does it really work out ?

 

Do someone plan to upload something on YouTube for example ?

 

greetings

 

Christoph

[jonp]

Hi Folks,

 

just got back from Holidays updating my Servers as usual (the most natural Thing to do after holdidays, right ? )

 

then I see a lot of Gaming,KVM,VT-d buzzwording all around the Boards..

 

Maybe I am old or just stupid but explain me one (two?) thing(s) !

 

How will you do that gaming "THING" on unraid ?

 

do you connect like this ?

 

UNRAID BARE METAL - Hardware VGA - HDMI/DVA/VGA/DP/or whatever - Monitor

 

OR

 

UNRAID BARE METAL - NETWORK and stuff - another PC with crappy Hardware for example - Monitor ?

 

please get that clear for me !

 

I tried steam in home streaming once.. it was okay, but nothing to play a shooter oder even Dota with and that with fully copper Gigabit switched Network !

 

How does it really work out ?

 

Do someone plan to upload something on YouTube for example ?

 

greetings

 

Christoph

I will work up a YouTube video on this, but yes, you can use a system with hardware-assisted virtualization support (Intel VT-x/VT-d) and an add-on GPU to create a virtual machine, but one that outputs graphics to a local display, then use a local USB mouse and keyboard to interact.  Basically use the horsepower of a high performance gaming rig and partition it to become a home server, storage, and gaming PC combo machine.

 

It starts with having the right hardware to do this, but many gaming rigs already meet the requirement.  I'll whip together a video on this soon as I do think its necessary to explain how this works for that particular use case.

[NotYetRated]

As jonp noted, you are quite literally running multiple OS's off of one single PC hardware configuration.

 

You have your unRAID base, then VM's of whatever you want. In the gamers case, it would be a VM with a physical video card passed to it. You then just hook up a monitor to the graphics card, and it acts as its own computer. You can pass through whatever USB devices required from there.

 

If you have 2 video cards, and a capable system, you could have 2 VM's, one to each card, each with its own mouse/keyboard.

 

It all depends on your hardware. I have run 2 VM's with dedicated cards attached, each with a mouse/keyboard and XBOX controller just fine off of an e3-1245V3.

 

An Intel extreme series board with a 6 or 8 core proc, a possible 64 gigs RAM, and the 48 PCIe lanes could do 3 or 4 capable gaming VM's.

[chrissi5120]

ok, got it..

 

thought you guys try to stream that stuff

 

that solution is suprisingly cool.. but won't happen here with my x9scm-f without pcie 16x port / good cpu..

 

maybe the next system is fully virtualised..

 

always good to see progress on unraid.. NICE !

 

the thread can be closed if desired !

[jonp]

ok, got it..

 

thought you guys try to stream that stuff

 

that solution is suprisingly cool.. but won't happen here with my x9scm-f without pcie 16x port / good cpu..

 

maybe the next system is fully virtualised..

 

always good to see progress on unraid.. NICE !

 

the thread can be closed if desired !

 

We stream too.  I use Steam In-Home streaming and as you've said, for competitive FPS games, it's not really super great yet, but there are also other streaming solutions too (NVIDIA GameStream and Razer Cortex [soon]).  That said, for casual gaming, it's pretty nice and convenient.

[NotYetRated]

ok, got it..

 

thought you guys try to stream that stuff

 

that solution is suprisingly cool.. but won't happen here with my x9scm-f without pcie 16x port / good cpu..

 

maybe the next system is fully virtualised..

 

always good to see progress on unraid.. NICE !

 

the thread can be closed if desired !

 

We stream too.  I use Steam In-Home streaming and as you've said, for competitive FPS games, it's not really super great yet, but there are also other streaming solutions too (NVIDIA GameStream and Razer Cortex [soon]).  That said, for casual gaming, it's pretty nice and convenient.

 

What do you stream to/from, if you don't mind me asking? From a VM gaming box with steam installed to various laptop or some form of thin clients?

[jonp]

 

 

ok, got it..

 

thought you guys try to stream that stuff

 

that solution is suprisingly cool.. but won't happen here with my x9scm-f without pcie 16x port / good cpu..

 

maybe the next system is fully virtualised..

 

always good to see progress on unraid.. NICE !

 

the thread can be closed if desired !

 

We stream too.  I use Steam In-Home streaming and as you've said, for competitive FPS games, it's not really super great yet, but there are also other streaming solutions too (NVIDIA GameStream and Razer Cortex [soon]).  That said, for casual gaming, it's pretty nice and convenient.

 

What do you stream to/from, if you don't mind me asking? From a VM gaming box with steam installed to various laptop or some form of thin clients?

 

Right now I stream from a tower I have in my upstairs office, through a power line Ethernet adapter, down to my router on the main level which has WiFi, and to a mid-2011 MacBook air.