Streaming without a display hooked to the server?

[Phil]

So this is what I tried:

I have a quite powerful gaming PC connected via A/V-receiver to my TV. I started Steam there and then started Steam on my Laptop and started the game "God Mode" (randomly selected) via Streaming and it worked.
In the meantime I switched the A/V-receiver to the cable receiver so that server had no connected TV/display anymore. "God Mode" still ran. But since I wanted to test something else I stopped the game and wanted to start "Left 4 Dead 2". Didn't work. It disconnected all the time and it took some time to get a new Steam connection to the host. Every game I tried led to some crash on the host (which I saw via Remote Desktop).

So, does this only work with an attached display? That would suck quite hard.

[Hasney]

Yeah, the game running on the host hardware is running as it normally would. If the game wants to detect a display at startup, it will do it's normal thing and if it can't find it, not work.

You'd need to find a way (or Steam would) to fake a display on the host for it to work.

EDIT: Maybe ZoneScreen could work? http://www.zoneos.com/zonescreen.htm

[MikeSharpeWriter]

I'm not Expert in game engines. I think that DirectX, which most games use, is expecting to output to hardware but since the screen is "Virtual" the game can't output to it and crashes.

[Phil]

Hm... The PC/Steam could continue the normal output via HDMI but the A/V receiver would just ignore it. At least that was my expactation. Using additional software to circumvent that is a bit annoying, but thanks for the suggestion.

My main use for the streaming would be to continue playing games on a laptop if my SO wants to watch some TV on the big screen or to play on the laptop while lying in the garden. Having the TV to run would be quite the waste of resources (and not very good for a Plasma TV).

I hope they find a solution that is integrated into Steam. Otherwise it is quite useless for me. :(

[Hasney]

Yeah, the way HDMI works, it wouldn't handshake unless it was active.

If you've got a DVI/VGA output&input, I think it might work the way you expected the HDMI to work as then it just detects that it's plugged in. This is based on my experience with hooking my desktop to my TV via VGA

[Bloodred]

If your TV has a VGA input too you can probably connect that as well in order to provide a monitor for your PC when there's no HDMI. You don't have to use it, just have it connected and cloned with the HDMI output.

If not, maybe faking a monitor on your card's VGA output using some resistors would work. Fake a monitor, set it to clone your actual output and hopefully it'll work. I've never done it myself, but dummy VGA plugs are very simple to make and worth a shot (you need like 3 resistors, it may even work with a single one). I'm not sure what you can set in terms of resolution and such with a dummy plug.

http://rumorscity.com/2013/12/06/how-to-create-dummy-plugs-for-your-graphics-cards/