Streaming Windows PC to MBP M1 for PC Gaming

[MrMiao]

I have recently build a Windows NAS following Anthony's Old PC Server video to store pictures and videos. It is stored in another room so I use Window's built-in RDP to send and request files (although it's at ~12MBps which is another issue that may need fixing). I tried streaming a video on the host pc while on the MBP(14', 2021) and realized that it's better to stream the file itself into the MPV video player because the data transfer isn't fast enough, I'm guessing. Well, the issue is that now I would like to try gaming but game files wouldn't work on MacOS and streaming a game through RDP will probably not work.

 

Is there a way to run a window like RDP but over a faster connection such as gigabit ethernet or is there something wrong with my WIFI? I currently use a google nest mesh system. I Imagine LAN WIFI speeds to be faster than 12MBps.

 

PC Specs: i7-4770, Asus impact vii, 16GB DDR3.

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, MrMiao said:

I have recently build a Windows NAS following Anthony's Old PC Server video to store pictures and videos. It is stored in another room so I use Window's built-in RDP to send and request files (although it's at ~12MBps which is another issue that may need fixing). I tried streaming a video on the host pc while on the MBP(14', 2021) and realized that it's better to stream the file itself into the MPV video player because the data transfer isn't fast enough, I'm guessing. Well, the issue is that now I would like to try gaming but game files wouldn't work on MacOS and streaming a game through RDP will probably not work.

 

Is there a way to run a window like RDP but over a faster connection such as gigabit ethernet or is there something wrong with my WIFI? I currently use a google nest mesh system. I Imagine LAN WIFI speeds to be faster than 12MBps.

 

PC Specs: i7-4770, Asus impact vii, 16GB DDR3.

Confused what you're attempting here, a NAS is for storing the files only, they should always be played natively on the client machine using SMB shares.  Decoding a video to encode it again into a stream to decode it again is just plain crazy as the original files encoding will be far more efficient and better quality.

As for gaming, generally the easiest is to have Steam logged in on both machines.  Then on the destination machine it will list all games on any other copy of Steam logged in, such as the server, and let you choose to stream them.

[MrMiao]

23 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Confused what you're attempting here, a NAS is for storing the files only, they should always be played natively on the client machine using SMB shares.  Decoding a video to encode it again into a stream to decode it again is just plain crazy as the original files encoding will be far more efficient and better quality.

As for gaming, generally the easiest is to have Steam logged in on both machines.  Then on the destination machine it will list all games on any other copy of Steam logged in, such as the server, and let you choose to stream them.

The first part is something I put in unnecessarily and trying to explain my thought process of trying to stream a game and how slow it would be to decode-encode-stream-decode.

 

One of the games I play, Genshin Impact, isn't on steam. Got any methods for how I stream games such as that?

[Alex Atkin UK]

10 minutes ago, MrMiao said:

The first part is something I put in unnecessarily and trying to explain my thought process of trying to stream a game and how slow it would be to decode-encode-stream-decode.

 

One of the games I play, Genshin Impact, isn't on steam. Got any methods for how I stream games such as that?

Depends on your GPU, I believe NVIDIA still have their own solution in Geforce Experience but you have to use an unofficial client.

[MrMiao]

7 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Depends on your GPU, I believe NVIDIA still have their own solution in Geforce Experience but you have to use an unofficial client.

Alright I'll try them out

[MrMiao]

On 5/26/2022 at 12:06 AM, Alex Atkin UK said:

Depends on your GPU, I believe NVIDIA still have their own solution in Geforce Experience but you have to use an unofficial client.

Seems to work pretty well. resolution is a bit off but otherwise alright

[RonnieTiger]

On 5/26/2022 at 7:27 AM, MrMiao said:

I have recently build a Windows NAS following Anthony's Old PC Server video to store pictures and videos. It is stored in another room so I use Window's built-in RDP to send and request files (although it's at ~12MBps which is another issue that may need fixing). I tried streaming a video on the host pc while on the MBP(14', 2021) and realized that it's better to stream the file itself into the MPV video player because the data transfer isn't fast enough, I'm guessing. Well, the issue is that now I would like to try gaming but game files wouldn't work on MacOS and streaming a game through RDP will probably not work.

 

Is there a way to run a window like RDP but over a faster connection such as gigabit ethernet or is there something wrong with my WIFI? I currently use a google nest mesh system. I Imagine LAN WIFI speeds to be faster than 12MBps.

 

PC Specs: i7-4770, Asus impact vii, 16GB DDR3.

You want something like Steam's remote play as a first option, since this does in fact work with non-steam games too, is better optimized, Hardware agnostic and allows you to stream the desktop if you prefer (Dig around in the settings, or just stream a generic app like notepad or file explorer)

outside of that, there's nVidia shield streaming, some other options too though i'd recommend steam for gaming honestly.

Oh and make sure you have a good enough GPU  in there to do the encoding, while not mandatory i'd reccomend at least a basic nVidia card that supports NVENC (Like at least a GTX 750 or newer) or any of AMD's equivalent offerings, the bonus here is if you install something like PLEX on there for the movies, it can take advantage of the NVENC encoder for real time media transcoding without thrashing the CPU and can be accessed entirely from a web browser which is a huge plus.