Hardware recommendation for XBMC + Steam In-Home Streaming
#31
any Ubuntu variant will do the Usenet thing fine.
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#32
(2014-04-25, 15:08)Airchtit Wrote: Hi, as you ordered your NUC already and the akasa case I'm considering, could you be so kind as to post a feedback on the OS you ended up with and what kind of streaming stats you get from steam both wired and not?

I'm part of the very few here who use both XBMC and Steam In-home streaming extensively and I'm really curious as to whether or not this small box could end in my bedroom/living room to replace my existing installation.

I'm a windows person so I would recommend it if you're not a tech savy but the latest linux distros include a good enough GUI and decent drivers to be used by anyone (especially ubuntu).

FYI, I've put the box together and will likely be doing the OS install tonight. Can't wait to get into the 2-week process of configuring the "perfect" XBMC again.

Also, it looks like wired ethernet will be pretty difficult for me to do, so I might only be able to provide wireless stats, unless I feel like putting a hole in my wall.
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#33
Thanks for taking the time to answer, I was really looking forward to that.

I'm using wireless only in my apartment anyway, works like a charm with just a standard N router. You just have to position it/the antennas correctly and figure out the right channel.

Doesn't take too long to configure XBMC for the second time if you transfer your settings files. It just has to dl the plugin updates at first start and that's it!
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#34
So steam in home streaming works OK for you over WiFi? I tried on my laptop with wireless n, maybe 3-4m away from router with a clear line of sight and I want getting lag of up to 10sec with borderlands 2. Haven't tried with wired.

OP a i5 3570 will play ps2 + Wii games at full speed so you may be able to with a i5 nuc, but its not a direct comparison as AFAIK nuc's have the mobile versions of the CPU.
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#35
(2014-04-30, 16:37)teeedubb Wrote: So steam in home streaming works OK for you over WiFi? I tried on my laptop with wireless n, maybe 3-4m away from router with a clear line of sight and I want getting lag of up to 10sec with borderlands 2. Haven't tried with wired.

I did it on my laptop with a very early In-Home Streaming beta. Was getting 1080p at 60fps with very few hiccups. Granted, the game I was playing was X-Com, so the glitches may not have been as apparent.
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#36
I -do- use Steam IHS and XBMC, though my XBMC box is powerful enough that it plays games locally on it's own hardware. However my HTPC is in the bedroom, so I use my laptop to run Steam IHS on the living room TV sometimes. I think I can help answer.

Now, client wise, the laptop is just an i7 2630QM with just the Intel HD 3000 video hardware. This seems to be more than enough to be a Steam IHS client for 1080p gaming. I imagine you could use some pretty light hardware to act as an IHS client with all this considered. I'd love to hear someone report their experiences with like, an E-350 or something.

However my own HTPC, the A8-3870K with Radeon HD 6850, has previously proven to not have enough horse power to be a IHS server. At the time that I tested this, IHS did not support the Radeon GPU for video encoding, so the CPU had to do both video decoding AND run the video game logic, I didn't get over 20fps. Supposively, Radeon GPU encoding is supported now and just testing I got around 35-45fps with the A8 as server. When using my monsterly i7 4930K with Radeon HD 7950 as the server, I get pretty solid 60fps results, but that thing has CPU power to spare. Both server and client are on wifi and it 'mostly works' but the occasional hiccup is seen. I hadn't tested on Ethernet yet. If using Ethernet, you'd probably see some pretty spectacular results. Even on wifi I found shockingly little lag but there were certainly hiccups present.
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#37
Well, a bit like DJ_Izumi, I have a monster IHS server and if I play on wifi only, I get max 10ms input delay and average 50fps which is fine on most games for me as I play from my bed with the Microsoft controller.
I would in no way competition FPS like this but it's a really nice option to have as my wife and I can then play some simple games like Sonic Racing, Lego... on sick days.

If I play on my tablet (Transformer T100) it's fine too but it depends on where I am located. I get some micro disconnections if I'm further than 30m from the router with some walls. It's perfect to play some Civ V during a trash movie for example.

As expected, the input lag goes lower with a wire between server and router.

Wifi n is more than enough for pretty much any Movie or TV show I watch, anywhere at home. As long as it's not a USB based adapter, it's fine.
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#38
So how is this build coming along? Heat issues? Wifi issues? is everything ok in the streaming world?
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#39
(2014-05-05, 22:28)Airchtit Wrote: So how is this build coming along? Heat issues? Wifi issues? is everything ok in the streaming world?

Eh. At this point, still just trying to wrap my head around Linux. XBMC is working pretty well now--with the exception of my other client's MySQL libraries disappearing constantly--but Steam is another story. I have no sound in Steam or Steam games, and Big Picture Mode's setting hint that Steam cannot connect to the "audio service." No fixes have worked yet.

I've tried streaming a couple games anyway, and was getting a moderately acceptable experience on the "Balanced" setting. "Beautiful" was unplayable. I think ethernet is really the way to go.

Another thing is that I'm not getting my xbox controllers working on startup. A simple terminal command starts it up fine, but putting the script in the start-up folders does nothing.
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#40
(2014-05-06, 19:37)ratzofftoya Wrote: Eh. At this point, still just trying to wrap my head around Linux. XBMC is working pretty well now--with the exception of my other client's MySQL libraries disappearing constantly--but Steam is another story. I have no sound in Steam or Steam games, and Big Picture Mode's setting hint that Steam cannot connect to the "audio service." No fixes have worked yet.
Most likely due to a conflict with some other programm grabing the audio device and not releasing it.

If you use an ubuntu or derivative, you most likely have the Pulseaudio sound server installed. It grabs all audio devices and "users" (XBMC, Steam, any other sound-playing app) talks to Pulseaudio to have sound played. A bit like DirectSound in Windows. Normally there's nothing to do here. Go to XBMC settings and make sure that XBMC releases the audio device when not in use, and the audio device used is "Pulse" or something similar. Also go to Steam configuration and check what audio device it wants to use. If you can select "Pulse" or "Pulseaudio" or something like that, it should work (as Pulse will do the mixing part so everyone plays nice with eachother).

If you don't have Pulseaudio running, then the setting in XBMC to release the audio device becomes mandatory. And Steam may have also something similar. (I haven't looked).
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#41
And this is why my box runs Windows 7. :X
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#42
Yea, I would really highly recommend running Windows if gaming is important to you. Sure it'll work in Linux, but you'll probably work a lot harder to get it going in Linux than you will in Windows. It's almost plug and play if you're using Windows, and I don't know that you'll miss out on anything by not using Linux.
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Hardware recommendation for XBMC + Steam In-Home Streaming0