Is my dream setup possible?

Once I eventually get a house I would like to have my computer set up in a gaming room but also have a terminal station. The setup would allow me to have my audio and video routed to monitors and allow me control with a keyboard and mouse. I am not looking to run different virtual machines or seperate OS's or users on these monitors, I just want to be able to walk out into the garage turn on a monitor or hit a switch and continue doing whatever I was doing in my gaming room.

I have found a few reverse kvm switches but those only seem to use ps/2 and vga connections, are ethier not sold anymore or are very expensive. I was wondering if anyone here knows of a product or series of products I could use to help me accomplish my task.

I think the easiest way to accomplish this would be to to build a cheap, low power computer for the garage (and any other room you intend to access your main server from) then use Remote Desktop Connection to connect to your main computer and use it as if you never left. Sure it costs more than just buying a monitor, keyboard and mouse but remember you don't need a very powerful system at all to accomplish this. So you don't have to spend a lot of money on a descent rig.

Do you want to play games and/or watch videos in the garage just the same as your gaming box?

If so, I agree with Skillz, get a low powered PC and use something like splashtop to get to your gaming and do your thing. RDP would let you get away with quite a bit, but splashtop will let you play games and use full screen apps. Since its going over your LAN, it shouldn't be too laggy.

I will look into splashtop, my goal was to use the cheap low powered mini itx computer to connect to my main rig so I could take videos/games (mmo's or fps) to any room in the house and continue them just as if I had never left the gaming room.

would splashtop be good enough for 1080p gaming over a gigabit lan? I have been researching different things and it dosent sound like remote desktop/vnc clients are up to par for this kind of application yet.

Also my "sattelite" computers are going to be running linux (possibly Unbuntu) so i dont have to buy windows for every machine if that makes a difference.

Use an active DVI or HDMI splitter and use a dvi to ethernet adapter to run video over the network runs. Or just run lots of long DVI cables from Monoprice? Maybe use wireless mice and keyboards all connected to the main computer? There might be range issues with that. Or run lots of 15' USB active extension cables.

Splashtop is free I believe for use over a LAN. You could always just try it with what you have at the moment (any two PCs) and see if the input and output quality is acceptable to you.

The issue though is I do not believe they have a client for Linux.

They have a client for Android though. So a possible alternative might be to route everything through a tablet or even phone? You can attach whatever input/output you want as well as use it complete on the move. This would be similar to Nvidia's Shield.

I am going to give it a try tomorow, if that app does what I need it to do I will make it work with linux or I will get a copy of windows. hopefully the latency is fine over gigabit lan

Skillz said:

I think the easiest way to accomplish this would be to to build a cheap, low power computer for the garage (and any other room you intend to access your main server from) then use Remote Desktop Connection to connect to your main computer and use it as if you never left. Sure it costs more than just buying a monitor, keyboard and mouse but remember you don't need a very powerful system at all to accomplish this. So you don't have to spend a lot of money on a descent rig.

Click to expand...

Does remote desktop support the kind of video output that would be required for a video game?

Rusty4560 said:

Does remote desktop support the kind of video output that would be required for a video game?

Click to expand...

RDP will not, but I didn't expect the OP to be gaming in his garage when his gaming room would be better suited for that. I assumed he would do research on whatever he is working on in his garage, then go into the garage and load up that how to guide/research he did in the garage so he can do what he needs to do. For that scenario, using RDP is by far the easiest.

I'm still working on testing RemoteFX for gaming with server 2012 and multiple RDP stations, but that's far from a cheap solution if you consdier the cost of Server 2012 Standard

It's true my gaming room would be better suited for that but I think this would be a really neat setup. I enjoy gaming in my gaming room but I also enjoy hanging out in the garage, this way I will only have one expensive gaming computer I need to upgrade and I can use it anywhere I set up a terminal. I haven't had a chance to try splashtop yet because I have been bossy this week but I will get around to it this weekend.

I thought about Windows server but I will not buy a license for each satellite computer I am going to use Linux instead, probably unbuntu.