Long distance monitor connection?

[1Wolf]

Our home here is a 2 story home. We've got an office on the 1st floor, and sort of a "hobby room" on the 2nd floor. My wife's "main" PC gaming machine is in the office on the first floor. However...from time to time, she wants to play games on her main high-horsepower gaming PC from the hobby room instead of the office.

The thing is just too heavy for me to cart it up the stairs every time. So, up until now...without a better solution...every time she wants to do this I need to cart her 22" monitor upstairs to the hobby room and lay out a 50' spool of DVI cable to connect it to the back of her PC down in the office. Then I've got to cart her keyboard and mouse upstairs, lay out a big spool of USB cable and a USB hub to connect her keyboard and mouse down to her PC in the office.

It works. She's able to play without any artifacts on the screen or anything...but its a pain. The DVI cable is a real pain because its about 1/2" thick and is not very cooperative to string through the house.

I'm not quite up to speed on the latest gadgets, gizmos, cables, connections...etc. Is there a better way to do this?

To summarize. I need a long-distance means to connect a monitor, keyboard, and Mouse upstairs to the PC itself downstairs. I can purchase another monitor to leave permanently upstairs, another keyboard, and another mouse...thats all fine. But I need to be able to connect them to her main PC downstairs on a permanent basis, that doesn't kill her Frame Rates or game experience, and I don't need to keep hooking and unhooking things.

How is HDMI at long distances (25 to 50 feet or so?). Is it better than DVI? The Same? Is there another means of connection on modern video cards that is better for this sort of thing?

 

[Mr. B]

There are KVM's that work over Cat-5/Ethernet. I work at a TV station that uses these, but they're quite expensive.

 

[DesertCat]

Well one thought that comes to mind is one of the WHDI GTX460 cards that came out last year. I can't imagine their wireless range is gigantic, but it sounds like you are within 50' based on your cable runs. Of course this restricts you to that particular graphics card and it may or may not be within your desired performance range.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...-460-1GB-WHDI-Edition-Wireless-HDMI-Streaming

At the time of the linked PCPer article, the USB connection on their receiver still needed to be enabled. If that is up and running now, I would think a person could hook up a mouse and keyboard that way.

Edit: Oh, and though this is a discontinued product now, these can be found for sale through some search engine magic. I see them going for anywhere from $160 to about $325 depending on whether they are used, open box return, or original package. Kind of pricey but is a special solution. Nobody should have to pay the $500 price originally listed in the article.

 

[DlStreamnet]

KVM over Ethernet - was considering it myself - came to £100.