How build a PC (or server) that will run gaming virtual machines and "access" VMs through LAN on thinclients (or zero clients)

hello ladies and gentlemen!
I had a computer and it cracked.
for last 4 months I was looking to build up a hardware that is capable to run 4 Gaming VMs that will be accessed through LAN in other rooms in the house, by my children.
at the same time they need to run different apps for their homeschooling platforms, may be other VMs for that would be needing.
on other hand I will be using the hardware or a dedicated VM on it to study (learn and test) learning machine.
additionally I want to extend its usage as a media center for my smart tv and for devices to store mediafiles and access if needed by smartphones.
and appetite will rise…
so for now I need a hardware requirements and then setup it properly to handle:

  1. 4 gaming VMs for simultaneously gaming that will be used by thinclients through LAN - also these VMs must have internet access.
  2. 4 desktop VMs for running homeschooling tasks and apps - also with internet access.
  3. a VM for deep learning machine study (learn & testing)
  4. media center in house

who can help me with hardware requirements and setting up steps?
budget is about ranging within $4-7k

thank you in advance!

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What’s your definition of “gaming”? I don’t think there are any remote display protocols that don’t introduce a lot of lag/latency, so unless you’re talking minesweeper, I think you’re going to be in for a bad time.

Best I can find is this: Secure Reliable Transport - Wikipedia
Not trivial to get your VMs outputting to an uncommon protocol like that, however.

If you’re going to have 4 video cards and then use DP to ethernet converters, that might be more practical. I’d bet 4x $100 PCs would game much better and be cheaper, though.

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If you really want vm’s it would be best to get each vm a gpu and use parsec or moonlight to stream to a thin client. (Check if the gpus are supported for your use case though.)

Hyper-V may work, linux is most common for guides and what I use mostly.
For your budget, I would use a threadripper or Epyc processor.

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is this some sort of software?
is it like the app that stays in the zeroclient and accesses the VM through LAN?

ok, I can see that there is some latency problem might occur.
anyway the only thing I can do is to have all in one heavy duty hardware in one place and use VM on it through my home LAN.

the problem right now is that I didn’t find exactly how through LAN cable I can get on “end-user device” (example zeroclient) the access to VM that is hosted in another room?

other misunderstanding I have is:
in my house is a fiber optic cable that brings the internet into my hall, and in there I have the nest for router where all LAN cables start and go to all the rooms ?
I plan to put my host for all VMs in office and in rest of the rooms should be “devices” (zeroclient) that just connect LAN cable in socket and should access the VM, what do I need to do so this would work?

or!?
may be I should place the host in the hall where the router is placed (in the hall) and all LAN cables starts from?

before I’ll be figuring out what software solutions to apply, and from what I can see there are some solutions already you described…

I am still confused that the “device” must be like so I can put a monitor, keyboard and mouse - so as end-user to just “do what” to access the VM through LAN?

do you have some sources where I can see how to set this all up?

thank you!

You can build a machine that does gaming on 4 images. The hard part would be remote. You might be able to get a thunderbolt to work. You would need 4 thunderbolt cards. I have not tried passing through a thunderbolt in vm. I write this on a machine that can run two images and pass them through a screen keyboard. You would need a machine that would support at 54 PCI lanes. That is for all the cards. That having the gpu run in 8x mode.

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