Network use of Gaming PC
- by Matthew Patrick Cashatt
Background
After YEARS of waiting, I built the custom gaming PC of my dreams:
Intel i7 - 975 Extreme Edition 3.3ghz (overclocked to 4.0)
ATI Radeon 5970 2gb
Corsair 256 gb SSD Drive
2 TB Sata II 3.0 7200rpm data drive
12 GB Kingston Hyper-X (1600mhz) DDR3
Windows 7 Ultra 64 bit
And so on. . .
Problem
I hooked this beast up to our home theater and settled in for a great gaming season only to realize a couple of drawbacks:
It's hard to accurately wax bad guys using a keyboard in your lap whilst reclined on your couch (and using a wireless keyboard).
It's hard to read the text on the screen (i.e. menus, etc). I find that a 1:1 ratio (screen diagonal inch to inch away from screen) is optimum, but using the home theater, it's more like 1:3 which has me squinting unless I sit on the coffee table.
The wife always seems to want the TV the same time I do and, unfortunately "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" and Battlefield BC don't mix.
I am losing the battle in the home theater room, but the PC has to stay there (long story).
So, this leaves me with the option of playing in my home office which is about 30 feet away from the home theater. I am a software developer so I have a pretty decent set up in my office--multiple 1080p monitors, HP Envy 17 which can run games like Crysis in 720p with out stammering too much. Also, I can game very comfortably at my desk in the office.
Still, even though the set up in my office can run games well enough, I don't want to regress to that when I have worked YEARS for an awesome gaming PC that can run everything on ultra high settings.
My Question
What are my options for running my games on the beastly desktop in the Home Theater, but physically playing in my office about 30 feet away? A really long HDMI cable? LAN/RDC?
Details that May Help
We have an open crawlspace so running cable from HT room to office is no problem.
I already have networked the house with a LAN
Any help is GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks,
Matt
