How to use a laptop and desktop as one unit?

[Zegger]

In short: got an extra laptop lying around, wanna use it for youtube/wiki's/whatever while gaming, as if it were a second monitor.

Any ideas?

Long story: So i've got this laptop lying around from my old job (dell lattitute 5510), and they never asked for it back. I wiped it and did a clean install with windows 11. Desktop is running win 10.
Ideally i'd like to alt tab to it just as if it were a second monitor. I was using window's built in project to a pc function, but that is total ass. refuses to even see eachother 90% of the time.
I then briefly looked into using Dante, as that can stream video and audio, and i'm already familiar with it from work, but for a very different application.
But that requires buying hardware or a virtual license, and if i'm gonna spend money i'd just buy another monitor.

 

I'd like to achieve the solution over network, as i'd really like to learn and develop some more skill in that area.
If anybody is familiar with NDI, let me know if that's a possible solution. I'm gonna read up on that protocol anyway, as i could really use that knowledge at work.
If theres no decent free networking solution, i'll just take the audio from both devices and use a little physical audio mixer that i have anyway, and deal with the two keyboards i guess. maybe a cheap kvm to switch the input devices.

[Needfuldoer]

Windows lets you project to another PC with 'wireless display' (Miracast). I think the desktop may need a WiFi adapter.

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/screen-mirroring-and-projecting-to-your-pc-5af9f371-c704-1c7f-8f0d-fa607551d09c

 

8 minutes ago, Zegger said:

If anybody is familiar with NDI, let me know if that's a possible solution.

NDI might work, but I'm not sure how bad the latency would be.

[Zegger]

4 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Windows lets you project to another PC with 'wireless display' (Miracast). I think the desktop may need a WiFi adapter.

 

Yup, that's what im using for now. some days it works, most they just decide not to connect. the latency is also noticible.
Both are also plugged in to switch/router combo.

[wONKEyeYEs]

28 minutes ago, Zegger said:

if i'm gonna spend money i'd just buy another monitor.

That.

[kirashi]

1 hour ago, Zegger said:

In short: got an extra laptop lying around, wanna use it for youtube/wiki's/whatever while gaming, as if it were a second monitor.

Any ideas?

Long story: So i've got this laptop lying around from my old job (dell lattitute 5510), and they never asked for it back. I wiped it and did a clean install with windows 11. Desktop is running win 10.
Ideally i'd like to alt tab to it just as if it were a second monitor. I was using window's built in project to a pc function, but that is total ass. refuses to even see eachother 90% of the time.
I then briefly looked into using Dante, as that can stream video and audio, and i'm already familiar with it from work, but for a very different application.
But that requires buying hardware or a virtual license, and if i'm gonna spend money i'd just buy another monitor.

 

I'd like to achieve the solution over network, as i'd really like to learn and develop some more skill in that area.
If anybody is familiar with NDI, let me know if that's a possible solution. I'm gonna read up on that protocol anyway, as i could really use that knowledge at work.
If theres no decent free networking solution, i'll just take the audio from both devices and use a little physical audio mixer that i have anyway, and deal with the two keyboards i guess. maybe a cheap kvm to switch the input devices.

You could look into using something like Mouse without Borders or Symless Synergy software if you just want to run both computers side-by-side but only need a singular mouse + keyboard to control both. Would be a half decent way to see how the software networks on the LAN, too.

[Zegger]

14 hours ago, kirashi said:

You could look into using something like Mouse without Borders or Symless Synergy software if you just want to run both computers side-by-side but only need a singular mouse + keyboard to control both. Would be a half decent way to see how the software networks on the LAN, too.

These applications actually seem near perfect for my use case, got any personal experience with them? would you recommend one over the other?

[Zegger]

14 hours ago, kirashi said:

You could look into using something like Mouse without Borders or Symless Synergy software if you just want to run both computers side-by-side but only need a singular mouse + keyboard to control both. Would be a half decent way to see how the software networks on the LAN, too.

i went for mouse with borders, so easy to set up, almost exactly what i needed.

Now for the  audio, i'll go with a physical solution i think.

[Zegger]

As i'm in the middle of moving i don't have my mixer at hand. but the combination of Voice meeter and mouse without borders does everything i wish for.
With 0 perceptible lag!.. to my eyes anyway.
Load for running the videos is entirely on the laptop, leaving my meagre desktop resources to focus on gaming.

I'm so pleased, kinda stumped at how easy it ended up being lol.

[kirashi]

6 hours ago, Zegger said:

These applications actually seem near perfect for my use case, got any personal experience with them? would you recommend one over the other?

I used Mouse Without Borders waaaaaay back when it was a Microsoft Garage project - looks like it's built into Microsoft PowerToys now, which is kinda freakin' sweet cause PowerToys has a plethora of other useful features, some of which I'd argue should be damned well built into Windows by now. Anywho.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/mouse-without-borders

 

I've more experience with Symless Synergy though cause it felt more polished back in the day. I did some beta testing for them back when they were on version 1, then eventually bought a perpetual license even though I had almost stopped using it at that point because I believed in what they were creating.

https://symless.com/synergy

 

You'll have to play with both to see what works better for your needs though. Glad to point you in the right direction.

[Alex Atkin UK]

6 hours ago, kirashi said:

I've more experience with Symless Synergy though cause it felt more polished back in the day. I did some beta testing for them back when they were on version 1, then eventually bought a perpetual license even though I had almost stopped using it at that point because I believed in what they were creating.

https://symless.com/synergy

 

You'll have to play with both to see what works better for your needs though. Glad to point you in the right direction.

I had a lot of problems with v1 using it with Linux as the main PC, so stopped using it.  Recently went back as I was upgraded to v3 RC and its worked great moving between Linux and Windows.

[Bdavis]

I have used input director with great success in the past. You can control as many systems as you want with it. The most I've done is 3.