Steam Server - thoughts

[gl30]

If you're referring to my initial post, it would be a Xeon based server with likely a 280x streaming to a Celeron based NUC.

Sorry for being unclear: I actually meant what would you be using to stream the footage? Is it hardware or software-based streaming?

[Bluecube]

It's Steam streaming - streaming Steam based games over the network from the server to be played on the client machine. Steam does all the hard work and no further software is required.

[scaryjim]

My concern would be the power consumption which would be a tad high I imagine.

Like I said, if you went for the L5000-series Xeon's they're pegged at 50W TDP each, so a pair shouldn't really be any worse than a top-end consumer CPU of the same age! Although I guess server mobos might draw a bit more power depending on features.

There're all sorts of interesting options when you start looking three or four generations back on the server side; particularly with Intel's very good IPC since the Core 2 days. The fact that you can get a 6-core Hyperthreaded Xeon with a 60W TDP is just remarkable, IMNSHO....!

[Nox]

I did this.

To stream to multiple computers at the same time from one server you now also need two other bits of software (unless steam have fixed it again, you didn't need to at one point). I choose softxpand and sandboxie, but you could possibly find alternatives.

I would not recommend the GPUs in the server approach, do you really want the machine on all the time? That's probably an additional £200 a year in power costs.

I also wanted to look at thunderbolt networking going forward, but just ended up using it as a regular computer without streaming in the end (albeit with two monitors, keyboards and mice with separate login sessions)

Nox

[Bluecube]

I would not recommend the GPUs in the server approach, do you really want the machine on all the time? That's probably an additional £200 a year in power costs.

I have my server on 24/7 anyway so it's not really an issue. I would have to fiddle with the Windows power settings to ensure the graphics card only came on full whack when needed but apart from that it's a moot point.