Is this a realistic dream? What will the user experience be like?


TyantA

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I know everything I'm about to say is "possible" but as I take these steps to grow my unraid server's usefulness, I want to make sure it's the right path for me. 

 

Right now my unraid box serves media, stores files, runs a handful of dockers and that's about it. I had dabbled with a W10 vm or two and tried to add a graphics card one but I couldn't get it working (not that I tried hard). That was a while ago.

 

On the other side of the wall (from the server) I have another PC that's serving as a glorified Plex/Netflix player and was built assuming I'd have some time to game. It hit me the other day that I could virtualize those functions. 

 

Specifically, a VM to replace the HTPC functionality and another one (or two) for gaming PCs. Being inspired by LTT's multi-pc gaming box, I thought I could repurpose my Radeon 7950 and maybe even older single slot 4850 to get two gaming instances out of it. I've had people over before who brought their PCs to game on my projector split screen - this would, in theory, accomplish all of that without the need of any PCs! 

 

After some figuring I realized I'd need:

  • In addition to the Quadro FX570 that the server is using now, the two aforementioned GPUs
  • A larger PSU to accommodate the 2-3 more drives I intend to add + GPUs
  • I only have one 240GB SSD in the server now for a cache drive. I'm considering picking up a 1TB drive to store the ~3+ VMs
  • My desktop and server both use P9X79 boards but my desktop currently has the 'Pro' version. I'll need to move it to the server as it has 2 more Sata ports for drive expansion and more importantly an extra x16 PICE slot I'll need in a better configuration that will fit the 3 GPUs & my controller card. 

 

On to user experience: How will this work? 

When I last dabbled with VMs I was stuck with VNC to access them. I couldn't get RDP to work consistently. But that was for access from another PC. 

 

I guess I'd have to ensure my Harmony remote, wireless keyboard & mouse can all be passed through to the VM... then I guess I'd just power on the projector etc. and it would be there waiting for me as the server's already running? That simple? Then, while my remote can control Bluetooth devices and there's Bluetooth on the "Pro" board, there's really nothing for it to do I guess? I don't want it to shut down my server! 

 

Does anyone have experience combining all these functions? I'm going to have to re-watch that LTT video... 

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I played around with htpc for years, settled on keyboard and connecting mouse only when needed. Last year I purchased an Android TV streaming box (nVidia Shield TV Pro) and it's been so much better. Works better with remote, lots more functionality. You don't have to go this far, as the shield pro is rather expensive, but there are some really good deals out there right now on media streaming boxes for your TV that will pretty much replace all your htpc functions and be easier to use.

 

With the Shield, I can even run any PC game on it that I want to, provided I have the game installed on my computer and I have a compatible nVidia GTX 650 or better video card in that same computer. I look forward to the day I can install the games on a VM and have the video card passed through to this vm in unraid. That's a work in progress.

 

Oh, and the Harmony remote works great with the Shield TV Pro.

 

Good luck and have fun!

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I had a feeling someone would recommend a streaming box of some time. TBH though, I hadn't considered Shield. I could see a solution like that upstairs eventually but I dunno, in my basement... I kinda have the urge to keep things DIY lol. I suppose this desire to consolidate all into Unraid is still a step in the "appliance" direction but it's still my own. 

 

Not to mention I'm more of an AMD graphics fan, aside from some old nvidia cards kicking around. 

 

Well, my HTPC's hardware is spoken for so I'm all for making this work now. Just ordered some more HDDs, that SSD for the VMs, I'm picking up the new PSU tomorrow.. just have to see how the software side will play out. 

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3 hours ago, ClintE said:

With the Shield, I can even run any PC game on it that I want to, provided I have the game installed on my computer and I have a compatible nVidia GTX 650 or better video card in that same computer.

You may not need a Nvidia graphics card to play pc games on the Shield anymore. There's now a Steam Link app (like an actual app, not using gamestream to stream Steam) that works pretty good. I don't have a non Nvidia card to test with it though.

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I actually had a streaming box but wanted 'more'.  So I replaced it with an HTPC.  Then, realizing this was overkill, I put unraid on the HTPC and started a Win10 VM connected to the TV.  The wife and kid have no idea anything is different, but its pulling double/triple duty as a docker hub (with sab, etc) , file server, etc.  

 

HTPC functionality is controlled by mouse/keyboard.  My harmony remote does volume and input switching on everything else.  The VM is always on so the remote does nothing for the HTPC

 

No downsides yet.

 

I have a separate gaming PC that I don't want to VM.  I'd much rather have a powerful power-hungry computer that I can turn off (and upgrade at will), and leave the more power-efficient computer to be always on.  

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18 hours ago, Endy said:

You may not need a Nvidia graphics card to play pc games on the Shield anymore. There's now a Steam Link app (like an actual app, not using gamestream to stream Steam) that works pretty good. I don't have a non Nvidia card to test with it though.

Yes, I've heard the Steam streaming works quite well for Steam games. I can stream pretty much any game on the shield from the pc. I've tested a few 3rd party controllers, and ms xb controllers work great. ps controllers work ok with the usb dongle if available.

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On 11/23/2018 at 7:37 PM, TyantA said:

I had a feeling someone would recommend a streaming box of some time. TBH though, I hadn't considered Shield. I could see a solution like that upstairs eventually but I dunno, in my basement... I kinda have the urge to keep things DIY lol. I suppose this desire to consolidate all into Unraid is still a step in the "appliance" direction but it's still my own. 

 

Not to mention I'm more of an AMD graphics fan, aside from some old nvidia cards kicking around. 

 

Well, my HTPC's hardware is spoken for so I'm all for making this work now. Just ordered some more HDDs, that SSD for the VMs, I'm picking up the new PSU tomorrow.. just have to see how the software side will play out. 

Not meaning to derail but the new Nvidia 20 series cards with ray tracing are kind of unbeatable from a price + performance standpoint. IDD that AMD still makes great cards but they can't match Nvidia for frills (PhysX, Raytracing etc), Hashcracking, Regular updates and dozens of other things.

 

Tbh if you have a home server with Unraid and a Smart TV that supports Plex or Kodi or w/e then a Nvidia Shield is pointless though.

Edited by plantsandbinary
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21 minutes ago, plantsandbinary said:

Not meaning to derail but the new Nvidia 20 series cards with ray tracing are kind of unbeatable from a price

That's not what the reviewers are saying (apart from the ridiculous one at Tom's Hardware). They are overpriced and offer little more than the 10 series. The raytracing is a promise for the future that very little software can make use of at the moment and the lesser cards in the series don't support it anyway. In any case, path tracing is the superior algorithm.

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