Long-distance PC extension to upstairs?

[Zerxal]

Looking for some advice here, as it may just be easier for me to purchase another low-spec PC.

 

I have a location upstairs in my home where I'd like to place an additional location of my main computer. My main work space is down stairs, but I also like to be able to have a computer upstairs. It's honestly quite a pain having to move over to my laptop and potentially download files to sync up all of whatever I was working on.

 

I've tested out Steam's SteamLink in-home streaming over a 1G LAN connection and Parsec, but it really is just not as good and I would not be comfortable using it for a long duration. It has blurs and audio cuts here and there - it's just not a good time. I don't think this would benefit from a 10G link either, even if I could afford the $1.5k price tag I've specced on that possible upgrade. My CPU or the receiving CPU would probably be a bottleneck at encoding/decoding the data.

 

I'm now looking into running some sort of fiber optic display and USB cable upstairs, or running it over some other form of cable. Although, I don't really think it is that feasible to run one. Below is an architectural diagram of my home and dots where the PCs would be, with the attic and basement excluded. Blue is the PC I'd be sending the data from, and the red is where I would like to "place" an offshoot of my PC.

 

 

You can see, it's really quite unfeasible for me to run a cable there unless if I want to run it outside any more than it has to. I would have to follow similar to where my ethernet cable to upstairs currently goes, into the basement, up the side of the house outside, into the office, up into the attic's crawlspace, and then finally down into the bedroom. Well over 200 feet, I would say.

 

I now come to ask if there is any way I would be able to run displayport and USB over cat 5e and 6a through multiple switches? It would be trivially easy for me to place a PoE powered switch in the attic where the current cable to my hallway access point goes and to then drop a cable into the wall cavity next to where the proposed PC location would be.

 

I found this on amazon to my excitement at first: 

https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-DisplayPort-Pigtail-Style-B150-1A1-HDMI/dp/B013L1HIJU/

 

Sadly, after reading the reviews, it seems to not work if the ethernet connection goes through a switch or if the distance is over 125 feet.

 

I'm sort of clueless here at any other solutions. Is there such thing as PowerLine DisplayPort and USB or some other thing that might be able to help me out?

[cm992]

200ft displayport 1.4 for $400 Canadian on amazon link

 

if you can get away with usb 2.0 for your keyboard/mouse/headphones i found these 200ft cables for around $100 link1 link2

 

it will take more digging around to find 200ft usb 3.0

[shoutingsteve]

You could also consider SDI for video, it can go 1500 ft without degradation and is really pretty great.  but you would need to get converters on both ends.

[Exidor]

There are ways to run the video and I/O over optical and Ethernet.

Problem is I dont know of any that would work with a switch in the middle. Most of them are like direct converters.....

[Biomecanoid]

33 minutes ago, Zerxal said:

Looking for some advice here, as it may just be easier for me to purchase another low-spec PC.

 

I have a location upstairs in my home where I'd like to place an additional location of my main computer. My main work space is down stairs, but I also like to be able to have a computer upstairs. It's honestly quite a pain having to move over to my laptop and potentially download files to sync up all of whatever I was working on.

 

I've tested out Steam's SteamLink in-home streaming over a 1G LAN connection and Parsec, but it really is just not as good and I would not be comfortable using it for a long duration. It has blurs and audio cuts here and there - it's just not a good time. I don't think this would benefit from a 10G link either, even if I could afford the $1.5k price tag I've specced on that possible upgrade. My CPU or the receiving CPU would probably be a bottleneck at encoding/decoding the data.

 

I'm now looking into running some sort of fiber optic display and USB cable upstairs, or running it over some other form of cable. Although, I don't really think it is that feasible to run one. Below is an architectural diagram of my home and dots where the PCs would be, with the attic and basement excluded. Blue is the PC I'd be sending the data from, and the red is where I would like to "place" an offshoot of my PC.

 

 

You can see, it's really quite unfeasible for me to run a cable there unless if I want to run it outside any more than it has to. I would have to follow similar to where my ethernet cable to upstairs currently goes, into the basement, up the side of the house outside, into the office, up into the attic's crawlspace, and then finally down into the bedroom. Well over 200 feet, I would say.

 

I now come to ask if there is any way I would be able to run displayport and USB over cat 5e and 6a through multiple switches? It would be trivially easy for me to place a PoE powered switch in the attic where the current cable to my hallway access point goes and to then drop a cable into the wall cavity next to where the proposed PC location would be.

 

I found this on amazon to my excitement at first: 

https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-DisplayPort-Pigtail-Style-B150-1A1-HDMI/dp/B013L1HIJU/

 

Sadly, after reading the reviews, it seems to not work if the ethernet connection goes through a switch or if the distance is over 125 feet.

 

I'm sort of clueless here at any other solutions. Is there such thing as PowerLine DisplayPort and USB or some other thing that might be able to help me out?

Just buy a cheap NAS or make on with FreeNas. Put all your files in the NAS. Access them with your laptop or any other device all over the house.

 

Its a much more simple solution.

[Zerxal]

24 minutes ago, Biomecanoid said:

Just buy a cheap NAS or make on with FreeNas. Put all your files in the NAS. Access them with your laptop or any other device all over the house.

 

Its a much more simple solution.

It's not for just transferring files, it's also just being able to use programs at both places without needing to sync data continuously. 

 

41 minutes ago, cm992 said:

200ft displayport 1.4 for $400 Canadian on amazon link

 

if you can get away with usb 2.0 for your keyboard/mouse/headphones i found these 200ft cables for around $100 link1 link2

 

it will take more digging around to find 200ft usb 3.0

The issue is actually running the cables, it's not really feasible for me to run those cables as this is technically still not a must have.

[Biomecanoid]

6 minutes ago, Zerxal said:

It's not for just transferring files, it's also just being able to use programs at both places without needing to sync data continuously. 

 

The issue is actually running the cables, it's not really feasible for me to run those cables as this is technically still not a must have.

You don't have to sync data. You work on the NAS directly

[Zerxal]

8 minutes ago, Biomecanoid said:

You don't have to sync data. You work on the NAS directly

Should have said this in the original post, I intend to run games on this additional extension of my computer along with the other professional work.

[cm992]

You said you tried steamlink but I think you should try moonlight (if the host PC has an nvidia GPU) its a lot lower latency and just plain better in my opinion, you can use it to remote desktop from the laptop to your main PC on your local network, even over the internet if you forward some ports on your router. Depending on your routers wifi coverage of the upstairs room I think you'll be impressed. https://moonlight-stream.org

 

edit: the reason its good is because it takes advantage of the same protocol that nvidia built into its GPUs for shadowplay/shield streaming so its very low impact and low latency etc

[Zerxal]

5 minutes ago, cm992 said:

You said you tried steamlink but I think you should try moonlight (if the host PC has an nvidia GPU) its a lot lower latency and just plain better in my opinion, you can use it to remote desktop from the laptop to your main PC on your local network, even over the internet if you forward some ports on your router. Depending on your routers wifi coverage of the upstairs room I think you'll be impressed. https://moonlight-stream.org

I'd assume it uses GPU acceleration to encode?

[cm992]

Just now, Zerxal said:

I'd assume it uses GPU acceleration to encode?

Yes and there are a good amount of options on the recieving client for decoding

[cm992]

This is what the recieving client settings looks like

[Zerxal]

4 minutes ago, cm992 said:

This is what the recieving client settings looks like

Do the settings look the same on macOS? For testing, the receiving computer will be macOS.

[cm992]

17 minutes ago, Zerxal said:

Do the settings look the same on macOS? For testing, the receiving computer will be macOS.

I assume so but I dont have a mac to test it. You should try it out

[Zerxal]

2 hours ago, cm992 said:

I assume so but I dont have a mac to test it. You should try it out

Absolutely incredible. Just tried it out on a MacBook Pro 16" over a 1G wired connection and I could not tell any difference between actually being at the computer and over the connection.

 

Do you know if it places much processing strain on the receiving end? I'm thinking of using this to receive on a Raspberry Pi 3B+, but I'm not sure if itself decodes the 4K.

[cm992]

1 hour ago, Zerxal said:

Absolutely incredible. Just tried it out on a MacBook Pro 16" over a 1G wired connection and I could not tell any difference between actually being at the computer and over the connection.

 

Do you know if it places much processing strain on the receiving end? I'm thinking of using this to receive on a Raspberry Pi 3B+, but I'm not sure if itself decodes the 4K.

Im glad its working out for you. The Pi 3 B+ wont do 4k because its hdmi 1.3 and not very powerful but it should do 1080p 60fps. The Pi 4 B can do 4k 60fps, especially the 4gb or 8gb model.

[unijab]

There are thunderbolt solutions that let you put your monitor and USB devices at a distance....

 

Linus has videos about it....

 

 

Nice avatar

[Zerxal]

15 hours ago, cm992 said:

Im glad its working out for you. The Pi 3 B+ wont do 4k because its hdmi 1.3 and not very powerful but it should do 1080p 60fps. The Pi 4 B can do 4k 60fps, especially the 4gb or 8gb model.

Just tried it out on my 3 B+ and it was quite awful. Lot's of stutter and long latency. Ran a speed-test cli and I was only getting 300 mbps down while being directly plugged into the switch on my 1000 down/50 up connection from Comcast.

 

Anything you would recommend doing?

[cm992]

4 hours ago, Zerxal said:

Just tried it out on my 3 B+ and it was quite awful. Lot's of stutter and long latency. Ran a speed-test cli and I was only getting 300 mbps down while being directly plugged into the switch on my 1000 down/50 up connection from Comcast.

 

Anything you would recommend doing?

Did you try it at 1080p 60fps or 4K 60fps? Use the MacBook Pro or try a Pi4B 4gb if you want to do 4K

[Zerxal]

Just now, cm992 said:

Did you try it at 1080p 60fps or 4K 60fps? Use the MacBook Pro or try a Pi4B 4gb if you want to do 4K

1080p 60 FPS. Is the 4GB 4B actually able to handle a full 1 gig down connection?

[cm992]

1 hour ago, Zerxal said:

1080p 60 FPS. Is the 4GB 4B actually able to handle a full 1 gig down connection?

I believe so because the Pi 3B+ spec sheet says "Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0 (maximum throughput 300 Mbps)"

Whereas the Pi 4B spec sheet simply says "Gigabit Ethernet"

So I'm assuming that the Pi 4B doesn't have the same limitation mentioned on the Pi 3B+

However 300Mbps should be enough for a good 1080p60fps stream so I'm not sure why it was awful for you

[Zerxal]

1 hour ago, cm992 said:

I believe so because the Pi 3B+ spec sheet says "Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0 (maximum throughput 300 Mbps)"

Whereas the Pi 4B spec sheet simply says "Gigabit Ethernet"

So I'm assuming that the Pi 4B doesn't have the same limitation mentioned on the Pi 3B+

However 300Mbps should be enough for a good 1080p60fps stream so I'm not sure why it was awful for you

Could it be possible that the CPU on the Pi cannot decode the streaming link fast enough?

[TargetDron3]

You will be limited on a raspberry pi 4 because of you boot and run from a sd card, that is your weakest link (slowest writing bandwidth). 

Modify your install to run from the usb3 port with a ssd on a usb adapter and you will have a much quicker experience.  If you are going to be pushing it hard, invest in a 5v usb fan for the pi. 

[Zerxal]

13 minutes ago, TargetDron3 said:

You will be limited on a raspberry pi 4 because of you boot and run from a sd card, that is your weakest link (slowest writing bandwidth). 

Modify your install to run from the usb3 port with a ssd on a usb adapter and you will have a much quicker experience.  If you are going to be pushing it hard, invest in a 5v usb fan for the pi. 

Would a faster microsd card show any improvements?

[TargetDron3]

Just now, Zerxal said:

Would a faster microsd card show any improvements?

No. SD cards are only so fast. U3 rated cards are 30MBs.  You can get v rated cards that can do 60MB and i think the top is 90 MBs. 

Spend the money on a usb 3 ssd for best speed and longevity. Hell, even a mechanical drive would be faster than the SD card.