In-home game streaming has truly arrived, but it’s a Wild West of new tech. So which options work best?
Streaming games from your PC to other devices. It’s a crazy idea, right? It is if you really think about the nuts and bolts. Start with a control input from your client streaming device, whatever that may be. A precision flick of the mouse in reaction to gunfire behind you. That kind of thing. The signal has to be processed by the client box and then sent over your network to the host PC. That PC then processes the input and updates the game state by rendering new 3D frames, calculating some AI, number crunching the audio and everything else that goes into a modern game engine.
The result of all that is thrown together, encoded into a video stream and bounced back over your network. The client box then decodes this stream and pumps it out to a display, which itself has image-processing hardware that inevitably adds a little delay.
All this has to happen fast enough to be pretty much transparent to you, the end user, with your own wetware doing more than a little processing itself. Move mouse or press controller button, see the screen respond. It has to feel instant. That the latest in-home game-streaming solutions come tantalisingly close to achieving just that is an incredible technical achievement.
How the hell it’s all achieved in a passage of time measured in just tens of milliseconds we can barely comprehend. But it is and no doubt the whole process will only get faster, better and more responsive.
In-home game streaming, then, is a reality. It’s not yet ideal for every game or even every gamer. But having a single powerful PC pumping games to multiple devices around your house is one hell of an idea. And there are now a number of ways to do just that. What’s really exciting is that you can give it a try for not a lot of money.
Welcome, then, to our guide to the state of streaming on the PC, with a heavy emphasis on gaming. That includes everything from insight into the competing streaming platforms to looking at the best streaming boxes available. Let’s go.
First up, let’s set some parameters. Streaming means different things to different folks. For some, it can simply mean watching web video.
If that’s all you care about, then cheap and cheerful gadgets like Google’s Chromecast (or an Amazon Firestick) will get you over the line. Conceptually, those things are streaming simpletons, mere dongles you plug into your HDTV to enable web content on an otherwise dumb device.
The next step up is a fuller-featured streaming box, such as the Roku, which enables a broader range of functionality and apps. It gives you more options and access to more content. But we’re talking about the same basic functionality, namely video and music playback.
We, however, want more. Much more. All that media playback stuff is great. But there’s a killer streaming app that sets the bar much higher. That’s right, it’s gaming. Immediately, adding games into the mix means far higher performance expectations and hardware requirements. We’re dealing with much more complex streaming devices and services. It would also be pretty nice if our streaming box was a half-decent computing device in its own right. And we want it all for cheap compared to a full-power PC. Otherwise, what’s the point? Just buy another PC.
Is that a lot to ask? Maybe. But the hardware guys keep telling us what a great job they’re doing in terms of squeezing proper computing down into ever more mini packages, both literally and in terms of price. So why not?
Anyway, we all have a rough idea of what goes into basic media streaming. So, let’s tick that off as a known known and address the known unknown that is game streaming. We know we want to do it, but maybe don’t realise what goes into it. What exactly does game streaming mean, what do you need to get it done and what are the competing technologies on offer?
KEEPING IT LOCAL
We’ll start by saying we’re not talking here about cloud-based game streaming services delivered to anything with a web browser. What with the OnLive cloud gaming service finally and permanently shutting down earlier this year, the future looks shaky for cloud gaming. Instead, we’re concerned with in-home streaming from your main PC gaming rig to another device or display, typically but not necessarily, the HDTV in your living room.
That kind of streaming places far more demands on hardware and software than mere media streaming. It’s also a relatively new technology, making for a veritable Wild West of competing technologies and standards, sometimes complementary, but often antagonistic. That’s almost inevitable when the players involved, companies like Nvidia and Valve, are competing to dominate PC game streaming.
The default option is Valve’s In-Home Streaming tech that works with basically any graphics card, regardless of branding. If your 3D board is good for gaming on your PC, it’s theoretically good enough for in-home streaming courtesy of Valve. The main alternative is Nvidia’s GeForce Experience plus Shield GameStream platform. But that’s a far less flexible option. There’s also a third option in the form of the US$100 NZXT Doko, which doesn’t just take graphics card compatibility out of the equation, but guarantees universal game support, too. You’ll have to import it, though.
Whatever you go for, however, you’re into a whole new class of device compared to mere media steaming. That’s largely a consequence of the rigours of game streaming. For video playback, it doesn’t matter a great deal if there’s a bit of lag between a source device feeding the content and the screen on which you’re watching it. So long as the streaming device can decode the video without dropping frames, you’re basically golden.
Not so for game streaming. OK, you may not need the latest multi-core CPU or thousands of graphics shaders in a streaming box. Actually, that’s the very point of game streaming, to enable you to pump gaming action around the house from a single, powerful PC rather than having a pricey gaming rig in every room. But you do need something quick and responsive that can decode a video stream without introducing the great bane of game streaming — you need something powerful enough to minimise lag. You also want a platform that just works, something with broad compatibility with all your games. The question is, how much processing power is enough? While we’re at it, how much lag is too much lag? And what is the best game-streaming technology or platform on offer?
Unfortunately, there are no simple answers. There are no minimum specs to aim for, nor any millisecond metric we can point at and say this is what you should aim for in terms of lag. In our experience, once you get up to around 60ms or so, most people will notice the lag.
Of course plenty depends on the kind of game you’re playing and your subjective sensitivities to lag. Nailing the competition in a hair-trigger shooter can mean that every millisecond counts, making for pretty much the worst candidate for game streaming. A nice-looking strategy game, on the other hand, will be much more tolerant of a little lag. Conventional third-person, singleplayer console ports fall somewhere in between. Either way, if you haven’t experienced game streaming before, we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at just how responsive the technology has become.
There’s one other request we’re making of our streaming boxes. We’d ideally like them to be serviceable, usable computers in their own right. Allowances have to be made for the fact that these are very small and, compared to a full-fat gaming rig, cheap machines. And yet we’re still talking about a price measured in many hundreds, at least in most cases. It’s a significant investment to make, meaning a little standalone functionality would be nice.
POWER PLAYERS
So, we’re not expecting these micro machines to play games themselves. But we are interested in what they’re like as computing devices in their own right. In other words, everything from simple stuff like browsing the web (which can actually be quite resource intensive with the latest sexed-up web interfaces) and video playback, to a little light content creation on the side. Can they cope? This immediately raises all kinds of tricky questions. How much computing power is just enough? Do you need a full Windows operating system on your streaming box? Will a mobile operating system such as Android get the job done? Perhaps even some freebie open-source Linux action on a supercheap ARM chip?
Then there’s the minor matter of whether you’re looking for a permanent installation alongside your TV, or something more flexible, something more portable. There are an awful lot of options. Luckily, we’ve gathered together a group of devices this month that should provide pretty much all the answers to those questions.
We’ve got the money-no-object solution in the form of small form factor PCs with full-on Core processors. In theory, the likes of the Intel NUC and MSI Wind should deliver something nearing a compromise-free and full-feature Windows computing experience, together with the fastest, most responsive streaming experience.
Then there’s the Intel Atom option which retains the benefits of a full Windows OS and x86 compatibility with a bazillion apps, plus access to a proper desktop web browsing experience. Atom-based streaming boxes will cost you a lot less money. They can also be far smaller and run completely silently. But at what cost to performance?
You do, of course, have the option of stepping outside the Wintel box. Nvidia’s Shield platform is arguably what really got the whole in-home streaming revolution rolling. Nvidia, as ever, has put a lot of work into polishing its GameStream proposition, with a particular emphasis on reducing gaming lag.
But also in true Nvidia tradition, it’s come up with a thoroughly proprietary setup that requires end-to-end Nvidia hardware. You’ll need an Nvidia graphics card in your PC and you’ll need a Shield console or tablet plugged into your HDTV or whatever display it is you plan to use. You can’t even use a device like, say, a Google Nexus 9, despite it sporting exactly the same Nvidia Tegra K1 processor and also running Android. Nope, sorry folks, it has to be a Shield device. (And none of these are technically available in Australia yet — although you can find some local retailers selling imports.)
SEEING THE LIMELIGHT
Or does it? Actually, it doesn’t, but no thanks to Nvidia. Instead, give it up for Limelight, an open-source game streaming app that plugs right into Nvidia’s GeForce Experience interface and allows you to access all its gamewith streaming goodness, provided you’re running a GeForce graphics card.
Even better, Limelight is multiplatform. Versions for Windows, Android and Linux are available, opening up a whole new world of streaming options, including arguably the most intriguing of all, the tantalising prospect of turning the puny Raspberry Pi 2 into a powerful gaming PC. Remarkable, given the low price.
In practice, we’ve found the Windows version of Limelight to be patchy. The Linux variant, on the other hand, isn’t exactly user friendly. It needs a fair bit of setting up and command line expertise, by Windows standards at least. But then it was ever thus for Linux, wasn’t it. Limelight for Android is probably the slickest and easiest to use of all. That’s handy because it opens up a whole range of options. If you already have a decent Android tablet, for instance, you should be able to get game streaming running without spending a single penny.
Getting back to that Raspberry Pi, it’s seen here in its revised second edition. In many ways, it’s hopelessly outgunned, even after a hardware upgrade to a quad-core processor and a gig of RAM. But then it was always going to be. The Pi appears here really to satisfy our curiosity. Is it truly a realistic option for game streaming? Or is it just a toy, albeit a powerful one, for learning about computing?
The final joker in our streaming pack is the NZXT Doko. It’s a bit of a rule breaker due to not really being a computer in its own right. It merely mirrors the output of your PC to another display and has essentially no independent functionality. Disconnect your PC and the Doko drops dead.
The thing is, on paper it does that mirroring in such a clever, full-featured manner, it has us wondering whether all these specialised game streaming interfaces have got it wrong. Just stream your whole PC, USB ports and all, and forget about game compatibility and the need for specific hardware. Sounds like a no-brainer, eh? These are not the only streaming boxes out there, of course. But they do cover all the key options. At one end of the spectrum, you’ve got the relatively big money boxes with Intel Core processors. At the other end, it’s the preposterously parsimonious Raspberry Pi 2. In between, you’ve got cheap Atom boxes and tablets.
Of course, once you’ve picked your stream machine — and in some cases, before — you’ll need to take a view on wired versus wireless networking. In an age where wireless comms are assimilating almost everything, game streaming is arguably the final frontier of fixed wires.
STILL WIRED
No other app you’re likely to use is so sensitive to both bandwidth or latency. In theory, the latest Wi-Fi tech has easily enough bandwidth for what amounts to a glorified HD video stream with some control signalling slapped on top. But unlike conventional video streaming with its service-smoothing buffering, even the slightest connection glitch can be catastrophic for game streaming. Buffering is not an option.
All of which means that while wireless streaming can and does work, you need to be realistic about the limitations. Room-to-room streaming can be marginal, for instance. If you’re really serious about getting the highest quality streaming experience, we strongly recommend reacquainting yourself with Ethernet. That’s particularly true if you’re aiming for the current gold standard in game streaming, which is 1080p at 60fps. That’s a fair old bit of bandwidth, if you want to keep the image quality tip-top.
Oh, and for the record, our experience with powerline networking is that it’s not a great fit with game streaming. For whatever reason, be it protocol overheads or background noise, it tends to introduce too much lag. And that, folks, is the background to PC-based game streaming.