Running games over LAN.

[Kedar4795]

So I've looked around and can't find exactly what I'm playing for. So sorry if I'm duplicating a post. 

 

So I have an home media PC that runs 24/7 I have all my music. pictures, videos, etc on it so it can easily be accessed via any computer on the network. I have also dedicated 1 of the hard drives in the system to games. Which brings me to my question. How many different PC's could run a game off the media PC at the same time before you'd notice sever performance drop? 

 

Example I have my Origin games folder with BF3 in it placed in the media PC. Now lets say I have 3 computers with origin installed, reading the BF3 game files from the media PC. I've noticed in the task manager that each computer is using anywhere from 3%-17% of the 1gpbs connection at any given time, while streaming the game. So that would mean that the media PC connection would be 3x that. Obviously load times are a little slower than if it was running directly from the PC but it is what it is.

 

So would I be limited by the 1gbps connection or the Hard dive first? It's a Corsair Neutron 256 gb ssd. Also would the Media Pc's hardware play a roll in it. It's nothing specal.  Core2Duo E7500 @3.6ghz 8GB DDR3 1600 and a HD 6770.

 

Everything is being ran with through a gigabit switch with 1 gbps up and down per port capability. All cabling is Cat7.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

 

 

[Broseephus]

Sorry dude but it isn't as simple as that. Do some research on game streaming through Nvidia if you have an nvidia card or shield and I think Steam OS is working on it.

[skywake]

 

Ignore entirely the fact that you're talking about game files because you're really just sharing a network folder. The GPU in your HTPC won't make any difference at all. With an SSD? The network will be the bottleneck. Simple as that. Plus the thing about program data as opposed to media files is that you do a lot of random I/O rather than just streaming large chunks at once. Really you'd be better off running the games locally rather than streaming the files over the LAN.

 

And with Gigabit everywhere streaming the rendered video of the game makes a lot more sense. Install the games on your best gaming hardware and stream the video to your HTPC. Especially given the HDD in your HTPC is only 256GB anyway, it's not like it's a huge multi-TB NAS or something.