Client Recommendations

[amarriner]

Hey all,
Anyone have any client recommendations with a small form factor? I bought an Acer Revo a few years ago that I thought I could repurpose and use for in-home streaming, but the graphics card is so bad, the display lag makes it unusable. I'd like something small and in the $300 range, though that may not be possible?

These Intel NUC devices don't seem too bad, but I'd be interested in hearing about anything else others have to say as well. Thanks!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=PPSSOXQHKTFMOF&icid=264425

EDIT: or maybe one of the Asus eee nettops?

[x[gizmo] / Trauma]

Intel NUC is a good solution, I use the 4th generation i3 version. But once you add the RAM and boot drive you're looking at a $500-600 investment. For that price I think I'd rather build a barebones that can support an upgraded video card. Even an entry level GeForce card would outperform the Intel HD 4400 or 4600.

[amarriner]

Yeah exactly. I was kind of thinking about this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856102053&cm_re=intel_nuc-_-56-102-053-_-Product

which is also 4th gen i3 for $279 and figured I could get by with 4gb of RAM and a 120 SSD which would put it at around $450. Like you said, though, I'm a little concerned about the graphics card in there.

[YourChagrin]

I'm considering getting this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KU54KPQ/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
For the price you get a full copy of Windows 8. A harddrive and RAM, both of which look to be upgradable, and the processor should be enough to support streaming as well as XBMC if you are looking to have a multipurpose client. For $250 it seems like a steal.

Anyone see any reason why this wouldn't be a good buy?

[amarriner]

I guess my only concern is I don't see what the graphics card is? That's what burned me on the Revo so I'd just be hesitant there.

Since x[gizmo] mentioned building one I started looking into it and actually it would be about the same price as the NUC and with parts of my own choosing. This is what I've come up with so far:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/amarriner/saved/QQDkcf

Clocks in at around $430. Could easily add more RAM and swap out an i5 instead of an i3, but I was trying to keep my costs down a bit. Hell, this could play some lighter games itself, but should easily do the trick for streaming I would think, right?

[YourChagrin]

I am not sure what significance a graphics card has on a client computer? Doesn't the client simply decode a stream from the host computer? In that case, all you would need is a decent CPU. Or am I missing something?

[x[gizmo] / Trauma]

To the best of my knowledge any of the 3rd or 4th generation Intel Core processors should be capable of hardware decoding the H264 stream from your host. So the power of the processor OR of the video card are not necessarily a huge concern if you're only streaming. The main thing I've run into after going the Intel NUC route is that I wish I had built something more powerful so I could play a wider variety of games locally on the remote box instead of streaming everything over the network. Especially with the NVIDIA hardware encoding being busted in the current implementation of Steam, makes it not so fun to play from the couch.

Having a machine with an upgraded video card would make it possible to run a good deal of games at 1080p on the local machine. But obviously, for streaming, it's not really necessary.

[x[gizmo] / Trauma]

Actually, someone else will need to chime in on the decoding potential of modern day processors. "Quick Sync was introduced with the Sandy Bridge CPU microarchitecture on 9 January 2011." So basically any Intel Core chip 2nd, 3rd, or 4th generation should be capable of hardware decoding the H264 stream. However, looking at my logs, my SteamOS machine isn't using hardware to decode. It's relying entirely on libavcodec which is far from ideal.

[Leo]

I have the non-haswell i3 NUC, with win 8.1pro, 4gb and 64gb sad... and it pretty much streams everything at 1080p 60fps.

(also streaming to: iMac i5 27" (2010), MS Surface 1, Macbook Air and a Zotac A8-5545 (NUC clone)

[YourChagrin]

Originally posted by Leo S:

I have the non-haswell i3 NUC, with win 8.1pro, 4gb and 64gb sad... and it pretty much streams everything at 1080p 60fps.

(also streaming to: iMac i5 27" (2010), MS Surface 1, Macbook Air and a Zotac A8-5545 (NUC clone)

How well do graphics-light games play locally on the NUC box or do you just stream everything regardless? About how much did the box (plus everything) run you?

[Leo]

Originally posted by YourChagrin:

How well do graphics-light games play locally on the NUC box or do you just stream everything regardless? About how much did the box (plus everything) run you?

So far I just stream everything to the NUC box, that way all the savegame and settings are maintained in the host. I was playing a twitch game (Battleblock Theater) with my nephew yesterday... local co-op with 2 xbox360 controllers... flawless. Neither of us could tell that the game was streamed.

That NUC i3 box ran me about $300:

$190 NUC i3 (used - Like New, from CEreseller on Amazon. They're still selling.)
$40 (crucial 4gb sodimm, split an 8gb pack that ran me $77 for 2 NUCs)
$20 Intel 3160 Wireless (AC) + bluetooth mini pcie
$50 64gb ssd drive

[amarriner]

Originally posted by Leo S:

So far I just stream everything to the NUC box, that way all the savegame and settings are maintained in the host. I was playing a twitch game (Battleblock Theater) with my nephew yesterday... local co-op with 2 xbox360 controllers... flawless. Neither of us could tell that the game was streamed.

That NUC i3 box ran me about $300:

$190 NUC i3 (used - Like New, from CEreseller on Amazon. They're still selling.)
$40 (crucial 4gb sodimm, split an 8gb pack that ran me $77 for 2 NUCs)
$20 Intel 3160 Wireless (AC) + bluetooth mini pcie
$50 64gb ssd drive

That's impressive you're able to stream via wireless. I've had varying degrees of success with that. Ended up running gig ethernet close to the TV. Which intel graphics is in the one you have? 4000 or 4400? That seems like a nice setup.

I ended up buying the parts I listed above (minus the crappy graphics card because it was worse than the embedded intel 4400 in the haswell i3) which ends up just under $400. I can add a better card in the long run if I want to have that device play some games, too. Case is a little larger than I would have liked, but as I said leaving room for potential upgrades.

[Leo]

Originally posted by amarriner:

That's impressive you're able to stream via wireless. I've had varying degrees of success with that. Ended up running gig ethernet close to the TV. Which intel graphics is in the one you have? 4000 or 4400? That seems like a nice setup.

I ended up buying the parts I listed above (minus the crappy graphics card because it was worse than the embedded intel 4400 in the haswell i3) which ends up just under $400. I can add a better card in the long run if I want to have that device play some games, too. Case is a little larger than I would have liked, but as I said leaving room for potential upgrades.

Sorry if I implied that I was streaming all that via wireless. In fact, I use gigabit wireless on my NUCs too. Just that I listed the wireless module in my pricing list because I did buy one (though disabled through Windows :))

I do have mixed wireles experience at my place though: I use Ubiquiti UniFi at home (basic AP Long Range (2.4ghz b/g/n) and Pro model w/ 5ghz A-band.)... The N-band gave me bad performance on 1080p MSI notebook, and the 5ghz A-band gave flawless performance on Macbook Air and MS Surface (though at 720p). I know, not apple to apple comparison, just some interesting tidbit from the devices I've tried out.

My NUC has the intel HD 4000. It's NUC DC3217IYE. I don't have any plans to run games locally, except maybe emus...

I think one of the biggest advantage of NUCs is that they can potentially survive in closed A\V cabinets. Previously I have Atom (NVIDIA ION) xbmc machine for video playback and that really heats up my cabinet... now I can have a virtually silent NUC, taking less space in the cabinet.. steam stream games flawlessly to it... and have my A\V cabinet closed to boot :)

Enjoy your new machine! Post more about it when you have it set up.

[amarriner]

I've been able to stream some stuff on N wireless, but it's not consistent enough to rely on. Works in a pinch (sometimes), but that's about it!

Yeah that was my interest in the NUC, too. So small and quiet and could fit in a lot of places. Does seem like a cool little device. I think the case I got is about double the size so not quite as concealable, but it fits where I'm going to want it to so that's fine.

Thanks, looking forward to it. Parts should show up tomorrow, I hope!

[YourChagrin]

Just to be clear, is this the NUC unit you purchased? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0093LINVK/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1EWB5TYF20T7Y

[Leo]

@amarriner: Sounds good. I havent checked the latency, but wired performance is quite astounding in my book. Controller latency usually stays below 1ms and display latency hovers around 20-50ms. Good enough to play twitch games!

@YourChagrin: that's the one. I see the seller i purchased mine from still has 'used - like new' ones for $189.99 too.