HTPC Questions

[Drip Trickle]

I'm trying to figure out what is needed to have a proper HTPC to remotely play form my desktop to my living room, its too far away to run a HDMI cable, but my living room TV is a LG G1. i have an old Asus G20 AJ that has a i5 4460 and a GTX 750 and 16GBs of ram. that will be the client. it was given to me for free so i wanted to make a Steam Machine out of it. my host machine has a 5900x, 6900xt and 32GBs of ram.

i ran into problems with the "steamOS" that is found listed through steam, it kept trying to search for some nvme location ( i cant remember the exact name, nvme01 or something) im no linux person but found "holoiso" it ran very poorly, laggy and everything so i dont know if i just didn't do it correctly (drivers, version or possibly to old of a machine) So i scratched that idea and continued with installing windows 10. i just wanted to see if i could stream to my living room before making to much of a hassle.

i have both machines wired, host is on a 2.5gb connection and the G20 is on a 1Gbe. both cables are CAT 6e @ 550mhz. it seems to be streaming ok except it doesn't load big picture mode and when launching some games you have to "ALT + TAB" just to bring up the game because it stays and doesn't switch out of the big picture mode, there is a few games it has issues running smooth, like it stutters. i changed the Vsync to variable and a changed a few other options. making those changes helped a lot and still experiencing some stutters. also experiencing little big planet wont go past 1080p, but other games allow me to change the resolution to 2160p?

So i am thinking of either buying a GPU or building HTPC. for the build it cost approximately $500 for everything. the hardware would be a Ryzen 5700G with 8GBs of ram, no GPU and just have the steam OS on it. or keeping this G20 and buying a RX6500XT for $150. or i could go with the the HTPC build but do a 5600x and a 6500XT.

the reason for the three different options is A). cost, just getting a GPU is far cheaper then building. B). Im not too familiar with the Encode/Decode performance of things. like does a RX6500XT decode better then the GTX 750, when it comes to H.264? does some of the decode get split between the CPU and GPU and the G20 is just not capable? Is my stuttering because the GTX 750 is lacking H.265 support? does the performance of the decode change via GPU/ iGPU (GTX 750 vs Vega 8 vs RX6500XT)? if i go the HTPC route, i dont really want to get a GPU if it really wouldn't benefit me playing 4K any more the then iGPU, and plus the energy difference along with the size of the case..

again this is just for remote play, at some point i would like to make it a UHD movie player but that's a different thought for a different time.

thanks and hopefully i get some information on remote play and maybe some insight on real world difference between the decoding performance and or linux. i don't mind learning and trying things with out breaking the bank lol.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So i went ahead and ordered a 6500XT on ebay, it is working fine. the picture looks better due to the HDR and allows for free sync on my TV.

so testing in remote play, it seemed to be doing much better in most cases, but i am still getting this very slight stutter. you can feel it/ see it happen every other second or so. checked the saved logs and i cant seem to figure out what "AvgConvertMS" is or does

comparing tests by looking at the streaming logs in the steam folder. using the GTX 750 to the 6500XT they both are getting 12ms "AvgConvertMS" of latency or processed how ever it is looked at. i tried looking for some information about the"convertMS" but had no luck.

here is a screen shot of what the graph looks like https://imgur.com/Kadsz6C

image link above is with the 6500XT. when using the GTX 750, the same test would show the red line wouldn't have as close of a signature to the other 2 colors. it also had a 10-15ms higher frame time "AvgframeMS" on the GTX 750 here is an example https://imgur.com/uV6up7m

i tested on my XPS 13 just for ♥♥♥♥♥ and giggles and got a steady line instead of spikes like both photos above (i didn't take a screen shot) but it was really high GPU utilization so the "AvgFrameMS" was up to 20ms higher

what would cause these high spikes? would it be CPU, RAM, Chip set, network card like if it has a buffer or something on the Remote client or is it the host machine? i have changed settings like "anti-lag"

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Use Win10 + Steam Client

Log into the same steam account on the client stream play PC. When viewing your games library it will have option to stream the game as long as the host gaming pc is on the same local network and also logged into same steam account

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Bad 💀 Motha님이 먼저 게시:

Use Win10 + Steam Client

Log into the same steam account on the client stream play PC. When viewing your games library it will have option to stream the game as long as the host gaming pc is on the same local network and also logged into same steam account

You dont need to be on the same network.

[Drip Trickle]

the remote play works and have gotten it to play, just some stuttering which is annoying. and it also works from outside my network, i just drop the resolution when using my iPhone, and dont experience any issues. but my question is for my HTPC and what is needed to get rid of these stutters. what hardware helps with the decoding, is there any other hardware that needs to be incorporated. like the i5 4460 being under powered for this task example like its the architecture and there is no way i can get the G20 to not stutter? and does the decoding performance differe from GPU to GPU/ CPU to CPU or CPU to GPU

[Drip Trickle]

Think I figure out the little big planet issue. It is only detecting my 2K and 1K monitors. It doesn’t detect my 4K tv that my client is hooked up to

[Illusion of Progress]

Drip Trickle님이 먼저 게시:

Think I figure out the little big planet issue. It is only detecting my 2K and 1K monitors. It doesn’t detect my 4K tv that my client is hooked up to

As far as I know, it won't? The host PC is only aware of the devices connected to it. You're merely streaming to the client, after all. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, though.

That being said, you did say other titles work fine in 4K so I'm wondering if you have DSR active or something to get it working in those, and it's just not working in Little Big Planet for whatever reason.

[Drip Trickle]

Illusion of Progress님이 먼저 게시:

Drip Trickle님이 먼저 게시:

Think I figure out the little big planet issue. It is only detecting my 2K and 1K monitors. It doesn’t detect my 4K tv that my client is hooked up to

As far as I know, it won't? The host PC is only aware of the devices connected to it. You're merely streaming to the client, after all. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, though.

That being said, you did say other titles work fine in 4K so I'm wondering if you have DSR active or something to get it working in those, and it's just not working in Little Big Planet for whatever reason.

Sorry my bad I should have put more information. I meant the game it self only labels my monitors. One is an HP and the other is a dell, and in the settings it labels the model I would assume. My dell is 1440p and my go is 1080p. In the options menu it only allows the maximum resolution of the selected monitor. So there for if I select my dell it allows me to play at 1440p. I do have VSR enabled (allows for higher resolution then what my monitor is actually related for) that’s what I had to do to get games to allow me to select 4k on the client end.

Some of these issues I think are not really related to my stuttering but are just annoying. Same with I have to have a keyboard on standby just so I can “alt + tab” to the screen playing the game. Like it just stays at a blank screen when launching the “stream” icon and doesn’t auto switch to the streaming session.

[Drip Trickle]

Drip Trickle님이 먼저 게시:

Illusion of Progress님이 먼저 게시:

As far as I know, it won't? The host PC is only aware of the devices connected to it. You're merely streaming to the client, after all. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, though.

That being said, you did say other titles work fine in 4K so I'm wondering if you have DSR active or something to get it working in those, and it's just not working in Little Big Planet for whatever reason.

Sorry my bad I should have put more information. I meant the game it self only labels my monitors. One is an HP and the other is a dell, and in the settings it labels the model I would assume. My dell is 1440p and my go is 1080p. In the options menu it only allows the maximum resolution of the selected monitor. So there for if I select my dell it allows me to play at 1440p. I do have VSR enabled (allows for higher resolution then what my monitor is actually related for) that’s what I had to do to get games to allow me to select 4k on the client end.

Some of these issues I think are not really related to my stuttering but are just annoying. Same with I have to have a keyboard on standby just so I can “alt + tab” to the screen playing the game. Like it just stays at a blank screen when launching the “stream” icon and doesn’t auto switch to the streaming session.

Also what is DSR?

[Illusion of Progress]

Something (Dynamic?) Super Resolution I think. I might have what it's called wrong but what it does is effectively create a custom resolution for your display that can be higher than your native/maximum. This used to be possible before DSR but now it's a slightly simpler thing with its own setting.

[Drip Trickle]

Updated

[Talby]

I use an i3-2130 / 4gb ram / 128g ssd / gtx760 2gb, no problems with 4k and steam streaming on local network. Could be your GTX750 is limiting your resolution?

[Drip Trickle]

Talby님이 먼저 게시:

I use an i3-2130 / 4gb ram / 128g ssd / gtx760 2gb, no problems with 4k and steam streaming on local network. Could be your GTX750 is limiting your resolution?

Thats what i thought and thats why i purchased the 6500XT. its definitely better but just still these slight stutters that make it annoying to play a smooth game

[Drip Trickle]

Drip Trickle님이 먼저 게시:

Talby님이 먼저 게시:

I use an i3-2130 / 4gb ram / 128g ssd / gtx760 2gb, no problems with 4k and steam streaming on local network. Could be your GTX750 is limiting your resolution?

Thats what i thought and thats why i purchased the 6500XT. its definitely better but just still these slight stutters that make it annoying to play a smooth game

Whats your hosts hardware?

[Drip Trickle]

Illusion of Progress님이 먼저 게시:

Something (Dynamic?) Super Resolution I think. I might have what it's called wrong but what it does is effectively create a custom resolution for your display that can be higher than your native/maximum. This used to be possible before DSR but now it's a slightly simpler thing with its own setting.

Sorry yes you were correct about the super resolution, I found that option under the nvidia control panel on the end client and AMD calls it VSR short for virtual super resolution. Same thing but different name. I did get it to stream to 4k by going into I think the option under client advanced settings I think or it was per game selecting max resolution to 4k.