I've been wanting to use linux on my personal computer for a long time, but never changed because of the games. Now that my income is a little bit better and I can afford to buy another computer with a mid tear video card, I would like to know what you people think is better: Use the steam streaming to play my games from my windows pc to the linux or to use a USB switch (or even manually switch the cables) to play my games?
I understand that a lot of you will probably suggest dual boot, but that doesn't work for me. I've tried before and it didn't work, I will no get into the reason for that because it is just going to be a boring story.
Bottom line is: Steam streaming is really good? Or is it better to switch cables (monitor keyboard and mouse) from one pc to another?
PS: If this is the wrong category, please let me know.
hell man, my main pc is a 2500k on water and a gtx 970 also on water
and i have this bullshit old dell ladditude thats dual core with 4gb ram. over the wifi, on a usb dongle on usb 2.0 (dongle is a belkin n150) i can stream off of my main desktop to the laptop , while using an xbox gamepad on the laptop, and it works JUST FINE no complaints from me. it can hang up when you first launch or when you exit, but ive learned that its because my main pc went into the locked screen state, where you would have to sign back in after the, uhh screensaver times out
Long story short id go with either and or both, they will both work about the same.
So my Dad's got a sweet pc (nvidia 780 with a comparable processor). He hardly uses it so I figured I'd use the steam streaming with his pc being the host sense I'm on linux and he's on windows. I ended up with better graphics and could play games that my linux box simply could not run. The only problem I really had was with a few usually older games that required you to hit "play game" or some other menu but from the host computer. These games I could have also ran in wine.
I've also used the switch method and it worked about the same. Realistically if you've got them connect via ethernet or have really good wifi (wireless n or higher). I'd do both just so i dont have to unplug and replug cables everytime I need to do something on windows or vice versa.
A KVM switch is a good idea. I would opt for that method since its actually really easy implement. If you already have two computers that you wanted to swap between then its just a matter of buying a switch. One of the pros of this method is you can have both computers doing two (or more) completely different tasks and they wont interfere with each other. You're not really limited in what software you can run this way either.
Guess I will go first with the steam streaming (and remote access if necessary). I was worried about lag/delay from the streaming and a possible delay coming from a KVM switch (only used those on servers).
Steam streaming works well for me, but there are downsides. Graphics don't look as good when streaming, some games don't recognize when I right click (kerbal space program, besiege). Hopefully it will get better, both PC's are connected over ethernet so I don't think it's a bandwidth issue. I would say play native versions of games and stream if they don't have one.