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Comment by priomsrb | Hacker News Reader

For my setup, I do a "local" version of Geforce Now.

I have my gaming PC in another room and stream it to my laptop using Nvidia's GameStream and Moonlight. I run it at 1440p with 120fps. With everything connected via ethernet, I get an end-to-end latency of 7ms. This means my stream is only just 1 frame behind the PC.

I use this setup for fast-paced games as well as regular PC usage. 99% of the time, I can't tell that it's a remote stream.

The advantages of the setup are:

1. Don't have to deal with the heat and noise of my gaming PC being in my room.

2. Switching between my laptop and gaming PC is faster than using a hardware KVM switch.

3. I can easily stream games or use my PC remotely with tablets and phones.

Disadvantages are:

1. Gamestream and Moonlight don't support streaming dual screens at once.

2. Gsync doesn't work over streaming. So lower frame rates (< 60fps) aren't as smooth as native.

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Don't forget that your input (mouse, keyboard) must travel to the other end before you can start receiving the output that's changed from it. The time from you performing an action to the point where you see that change represented (minus the time to do this locally on the gaming PC) is the actual latency.

It's still probably well within your acceptable tolerances, but worth keeping in mind.

Personally I get around that by using input devices connected directly to the host PC and not the display client.

Fair point. Though the 7ms I mentioned is broken down into:

- 5ms network latency

- 2ms display latency (includes decoding + vsync latency)

I'm assuming that the mouse/keyboard can begin processing as soon as the network call is done. If true that's about 5ms.

Keep in mind that different mice vary in their latency. Even wired mice can vary from 1.5ms to more than 25ms in click latency [1]. So if you use a low latency mouse over the network, it could be faster than some mice that are plugged in directly.

[1] - https://www.rtings.com/mouse/tests/control/latency

Wow, thank you for the link. Somewhat disappointed that the Razer Viper Ultimate, which advertises lower than wired latiences, is on the low end of overpriced mice, but as a new owner, the lightness of it is night and day with every other mouse I've used.

It's good but not worth 160 USD. I'd recommend the Razer Deathadder or V2 Mini. Just my 2 cents.

I do this too! But with Parsec. Works surprisingly well. Mostly because it means I can play PC games on my Mac without rebooting to bootcamp and without the noise. It feels so weird firing up a graphics heavy game, and just hearing silence.

Also means I'm ready to upgrade for M(whatever) when I get round to it.

I do this too but for my phone. I have a Razer Kishi and I sometimes wanna play Rocket League from bed so I throw the gamepad around my phone and enjoy buttery-smooth Rocket League from bed.

I also once was at my parents many KMs away from my PC and Moonlight apparently works over the internet? Not sure how much latency there was but it wasn’t noticeable. Note that my PC is wired to gigabit internet and I was on a gigabit AC Wifi network on my phone. Still, it blew me away.

gsync makes such a huge difference I find it really unpleasant to not have it

On fast paced games that run at 100+ fps, I don't really notice it being missing. But in games that have high graphics, and lower FPS, it's noticeable.

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