3 ms·

Hey guys, I'm the author of the post. Let me know if you have any questions!

lynxaegon 10y ago
Good job! I see that your first picture is from Rocket League, i ussualy play rocket league using the steam controllers :) It would be really nice if the steam controllers could work with it.
- chrisd1100 10y ago
  Yeah, I hear you, we're getting there. Our next major feature release will be Raspberry Pi support with controller support.
  - justinsaccount 10y ago
    Does that also imply general linux support, or would you only have a closed source arm binary?
    - chrisd1100 10y ago
      Luckily the video processing libraries provided by Intel/NVIDIA/AMD are cross platform (Win32/Linux). So the arm specific video processing code for the RPI is a different can of worms, the rest of the client (window creation, polling for input, etc) should be able to support Linux and X11 generally.
      - justinsaccount 10y ago
        Cool. How 'gaming' specific is the platform itself? It seems very similar to an optimized version of PCoIP.
        chrisd1100 10y ago
        Actually not gaming specific at all. You can think of it like a high performance remote desktop app that happens to work really well for games.
erichocean 10y ago
I'm very interested is streaming 3D content creation UIs. A major issue with virtual filmmaking is the datasets are huge, which makes it very, very difficult to work with a remote team, because you can't effectively get the dataset to people's machines even just to work on. What I'd like to do is host our dataset AND the 3D content creation apps on our own hardware at Switch (in Las Vegas), and then have our employees and contractors throughout California access 3D content creation apps remotely, via something like your streaming approach. Thoughts?
- chrisd1100 10y ago
  We've heard of something like this before, and while we're very much focusing on gaming right now, our goal is to make Parsec general purpose enough to fit into a lot of different use-cases. I see no reason why it couldn't be used for what you're describing.
  - erichocean 10y ago
    Obviously, remote desktop "works" (as in: functions) today, we just want something with better performance, specifically, lower latency. :)
- kayoone 10y ago
  I just tested this service with a full blown 3D Development Environment like Unity3d using an AWS Instance and it works amazingly well and is very responsive. Through Amazon Gigabit connection everything installs in seconds as well. I had a fairly low resolution (800p) set, but i can totally see this being viable for CAD/3D Development etc.
  - erichocean 10y ago
    Thanks for the feedback!
pshc 10y ago
Hey, nice post! Quite a detailed write-up and an impressively optimized video pipeline. I'm curious how much end-to-end latency you experience on average?
- chrisd1100 10y ago
  On newer hardware (Geforce GTX 900+ series on the server side, recent Intel HD Graphics on the client) our system only adds 8-10 ms. On older rigs it might be somewhere around 20. Of course the network latency will go on top of that.
ddalex 10y ago
On the technology - can this be used to stream the games from the beefy machine I have in the basement? On the business side of view, how do you plan to make moniez?
- c0g 10y ago
  Steam in home streaming works very well for local streaming. You can add non-steam games to the library.
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    I wonder how well it would work with this setup if you were connected to it over a VPN. Presumably (despite the latency) it would consider it the same network.
- chrisd1100 10y ago
  Yeah, it can be used for in-home streaming or over the WAN. Making money, we plan to wrap up the cloud experience for you nicely and take a margin on it. But for personal use it will remain free.
  - ohstopitu 10y ago
    Given a nice price-point (~ the cost of Netflix, which I believe varies from region to region), I'll be a very happy customer. I have a beefy home PC that is showing it's age and I'd prefer to have a SaaS solution that I can access everywhere rather than role on my own! So if you guys do release in the next 4 months or so...consider me a customer.
ddalex 10y ago
What would it take to port this tech to Linux, on both sides (server/client)?
- chrisd1100 10y ago
  Client side, we've already done it (we have a Raspberry Pi client that actually works well, but still needs a bit of polish.). Server side I'm not sure. I know the Windows API for grabbing frames is really good, and I assume there's a similar API for Linux. Shouldn't be too bad. But you will likely see a macOS server first...
coldcode 10y ago
Would you not gain something by using Metal instead of OpenGL on Macs?
- chrisd1100 10y ago
  We actually tinkered a bunch with Metal, it will likely one day be the default, but we went with the broader support of OpenGL for now.
Matthias247 10y ago
You wrote about H.264 compression, but not on how you transport the compressed stream over the network. Can you elaborate a little bit about that? E.g. do you multiplex into a mpeg transport stream? RTP? UDP?
kayoone 10y ago
Really cool stuff, i have just read the article that inspired you to do this today because i wanted to actually test it. If i understand correctly you also have a Streaming Server to install in the local network, so it's basically doing what Steam in Home Streaming does ? How does it compare to that in terms of performance ?

Good job! I see that your first picture is from Rocket League, i ussualy play rocket league using the steam controllers :) It would be really nice if the steam controllers could work with it.

chrisd1100 10y ago
Yeah, I hear you, we're getting there. Our next major feature release will be Raspberry Pi support with controller support.
- justinsaccount 10y ago
  Does that also imply general linux support, or would you only have a closed source arm binary?
  - chrisd1100 10y ago
    Luckily the video processing libraries provided by Intel/NVIDIA/AMD are cross platform (Win32/Linux). So the arm specific video processing code for the RPI is a different can of worms, the rest of the client (window creation, polling for input, etc) should be able to support Linux and X11 generally.
    - justinsaccount 10y ago
      Cool. How 'gaming' specific is the platform itself? It seems very similar to an optimized version of PCoIP.
      - chrisd1100 10y ago
        Actually not gaming specific at all. You can think of it like a high performance remote desktop app that happens to work really well for games.

erichocean 10y ago

I'm very interested is streaming 3D content creation UIs. A major issue with virtual filmmaking is the datasets are huge, which makes it very, very difficult to work with a remote team, because you can't effectively get the dataset to people's machines even just to work on. What I'd like to do is host our dataset AND the 3D content creation apps on our own hardware at Switch (in Las Vegas), and then have our employees and contractors throughout California access 3D content creation apps remotely, via something like your streaming approach. Thoughts?

chrisd1100 10y ago
We've heard of something like this before, and while we're very much focusing on gaming right now, our goal is to make Parsec general purpose enough to fit into a lot of different use-cases. I see no reason why it couldn't be used for what you're describing.
- erichocean 10y ago
  Obviously, remote desktop "works" (as in: functions) today, we just want something with better performance, specifically, lower latency. :)
kayoone 10y ago
I just tested this service with a full blown 3D Development Environment like Unity3d using an AWS Instance and it works amazingly well and is very responsive. Through Amazon Gigabit connection everything installs in seconds as well. I had a fairly low resolution (800p) set, but i can totally see this being viable for CAD/3D Development etc.
- erichocean 10y ago
  Thanks for the feedback!

pshc 10y ago

Hey, nice post! Quite a detailed write-up and an impressively optimized video pipeline. I'm curious how much end-to-end latency you experience on average?

chrisd1100 10y ago
On newer hardware (Geforce GTX 900+ series on the server side, recent Intel HD Graphics on the client) our system only adds 8-10 ms. On older rigs it might be somewhere around 20. Of course the network latency will go on top of that.

ddalex 10y ago

On the technology - can this be used to stream the games from the beefy machine I have in the basement? On the business side of view, how do you plan to make moniez?

c0g 10y ago
Steam in home streaming works very well for local streaming. You can add non-steam games to the library.
- brazzledazzle 10y ago
  I wonder how well it would work with this setup if you were connected to it over a VPN. Presumably (despite the latency) it would consider it the same network.
chrisd1100 10y ago
Yeah, it can be used for in-home streaming or over the WAN. Making money, we plan to wrap up the cloud experience for you nicely and take a margin on it. But for personal use it will remain free.
- ohstopitu 10y ago
  Given a nice price-point (~ the cost of Netflix, which I believe varies from region to region), I'll be a very happy customer. I have a beefy home PC that is showing it's age and I'd prefer to have a SaaS solution that I can access everywhere rather than role on my own! So if you guys do release in the next 4 months or so...consider me a customer.

ddalex 10y ago

What would it take to port this tech to Linux, on both sides (server/client)?

chrisd1100 10y ago
Client side, we've already done it (we have a Raspberry Pi client that actually works well, but still needs a bit of polish.). Server side I'm not sure. I know the Windows API for grabbing frames is really good, and I assume there's a similar API for Linux. Shouldn't be too bad. But you will likely see a macOS server first...

coldcode 10y ago

Would you not gain something by using Metal instead of OpenGL on Macs?

chrisd1100 10y ago
We actually tinkered a bunch with Metal, it will likely one day be the default, but we went with the broader support of OpenGL for now.

Matthias247 10y ago

You wrote about H.264 compression, but not on how you transport the compressed stream over the network. Can you elaborate a little bit about that? E.g. do you multiplex into a mpeg transport stream? RTP? UDP?

kayoone 10y ago

Really cool stuff, i have just read the article that inspired you to do this today because i wanted to actually test it. If i understand correctly you also have a Streaming Server to install in the local network, so it's basically doing what Steam in Home Streaming does ? How does it compare to that in terms of performance ?