A million-[insert currency] idea: For free!

Fyron · #1 January 17th, 2007, 05:49 PM

No. You can use remote desktop/vnc to access a PC from a laptop too, but neither one is a solution to the problem at hand. You can't do much with hardware video streaming over vnc/rd. They can display the slow rate software video layer fine (the windows desktop), but they have much trouble with high frame rates (such as video files and 3d games).

Will · #2 January 18th, 2007, 12:31 PM

Remote Desktop is a little different from video streaming or VNC. Video streaming would be taking a fixed framerate capture of the remote screen, and VNC takes a series of screenshots and JPEG compresses them to send over to the viewer (no guarantee of fixed framerate). Remote Desktop, however, sends the actual Windows API messages to the client as well as the base machine. So, it would require a bit more computing power at the receiving end, but would lower bandwidth because all that would be needed to be sent is the theme information at the start (what color are titlebars, etc.), and the information Windows uses to set up a window. The result is instead of sending a picture of a 500x500 empty window that has a titlebar saying "Hello, world!", you send the messages Windows sends to create a 500x500 empty window with the same titlebar. The result is a much snappier response compared to VNC/video streaming for the interface (especially the mouse position), while having similar performance to sending something like a JPEG being displayed. --edit: or playing a movie, or a 3D game... you get the idea.

Fyron · #3 January 18th, 2007, 03:09 PM

3d games don't do much at all with the win32 api though...

frightlever · #4 January 18th, 2007, 06:07 PM

Oh okay. So the problem then is using existing technolgy for the display and waiting for compression and wireless technologies to catch up.

What I need for away from base computing is pretty much limited to browsing and ebooks. From the original post:

"Here's the pitch:
In this age of wireless internet, laptops are great, even if you never leave your house: You can surf on the sofa, browse in the bath... you get the idea. However laptops have their downsides:
- You can't pull out a graphics card or processor and slot in a new one as easily as you can with a desktop, so they quickly go out of date.
- They are bloody expensive to boot.
- Battery life limits just how "wireless" these machines can be."

Battery life is the real limit here. Valve are predicting the end of the GPU with increasing numbers of CPU cores so video cards are moot long term. I can also replace my CPU add memory etc to my main PC and not have to upgrade my wireless screen, right? But a 15 inch TFT is for buttons these days so the screen is becoming one of the cheapest, commodity, items in the set up. But wait there's more... wireless transmission speeds are changing every 18 months or so. Not as bad as with grafix cards but getting there. So who's going to settle for an old slow screen when there's a new faster one out with a better response time and more vibrant colours? Come what may there'll be an upgrade cycle.

Not convinced traditional gaming needs to be mobile anyway. How do you do mouse and keyboard with a lapscreen(tm)? Heck, if you want wireless gaming just buy a DS. In fact just buy a DS anyway, those things rock.

Oh and if we're not talking gaming so much then yeah PDA with RDP. Or a laptop since they're also a lot cheaper than they used to be.

Fyron · #5 January 18th, 2007, 06:44 PM

Certainly there would be an upgrade cycle, but it would be the cycle of the desktop rather than the laptop. Laptop upgrades typically require whole machines. You can do a little bit with PCMCIA cards, but its nothing compared to the piece-meal upgrading you can do with desktops.

You would do mouse and keyboard with a mouse and keyboard. They would either be wired to the screen, or wireless in their own rights. TFT on-screen keyboards are terrible, terrible input devices that shouldn't be considered.

You could make the screen have a PCMCIA card slot for the wireless adapter, making it updatable too. 0 need to stick with obsolete wireless tech in that case. Monitors can last a long, long time.

Will · #6 January 18th, 2007, 11:09 PM

Quote:

Imperator Fyron said:
3d games don't do much at all with the win32 api though...

Hence my saying that Remote Desktop would have similar performance to streaming video or a VNC connection when you're using a 3d game. In that case, all three are essentially doing the same thing (grab screen image, optionally compress, send), the only differences are in how the image data is sent.