
Run your own high-end cloud gaming service on EC2 - arcticbull
http://lg.io/2015/04/12/run-your-own-high-end-cloud-gaming-service-on-ec2.html
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joblessjunkie
I might not mind if Valve just made all the games available this way. No
download, no waiting: a button in the Steam client starts streaming the game
immediately.

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drummer32
I think they already do. You begin the download and after it has downloaded
some portion of the game you can launch it and the stream the rest.

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albertoleal
I didn't know about this. Which games?

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fletchowns
Blizzard games also do this, you usually only have to download about 25% to
start playing

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kpcyrd
It's kinda weird how hackers are pioneering the technology that's going to be
the DRM of the next decade.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
Computer people aren't known for doing things that are in their long-term self
interest.

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path411
Only if you view DRM as intrinsically evil.

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sciencerobot
This looks hard. Somebody should automate this and charge me a few bucks for
it ;)

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SomeCallMeTim
Like, umm, Amazon's AppStream? [1] There's a process that involves,
approximately, running an installer on a virtual Windows desktop, after which
you can stream an app to a Windows or Mac desktop or laptop. Or to a
Chromebook (!!). You _can_ even stream to an Android or iOS device, but
without a physical keyboard or mouse you can't DO much with apps. [2]

And considering how much work we've done to cut down on latency, I wouldn't
expect the Steam streaming app running over a generic VPN connection to even
come close in performance -- the VPN is almost certainly going to run over
TCP, while AppStream will run over UDP, meaning in any but the best network
environments AppStream will clobber a VPN connection for latency.

[1] [https://aws.amazon.com/appstream/](https://aws.amazon.com/appstream/)

[2] Disclaimer: I work on AppStream for Amazon, but my opinions are my own and
don't represent Amazon. I'm just commenting as someone who has a lot of
experience playing with the product.

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motdiem
Ahem - a bit late to this thread, but any pointer as to how to run a steam app
with amazon appstream ? I've tried installing both games from humblebundle
packages and steam + one game, but it seems to fail to properly package the
app and launch it.

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SomeCallMeTim
Hmm. I don't know what's different, but I KNOW Steam games work on AppStream.
I remember playing Arkham Asylum from my own Steam account.

As a developer I have tended to prefer the "standalone instance" route, and I
almost certainly installed Steam that way: Follow the standalone instance
instructions [1] and then log in to it as a remote desktop, installing
whatever you need.

If the Steam _install process_ needs GPU acceleration, then you'll also need
to set up a VNC server on the instance and connect that way. Windows' "Remote
Desktop Connection" can't use the GPU, where a VNC connection can.

BUT beware: Make sure your VNC password is as strong as possible; maybe even
turn off VNC when you're not actively using it.

Good luck!

[1]
[http://docs.aws.amazon.com/appstream/latest/developerguide/a...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/appstream/latest/developerguide/appstream-
test-app-ec2.html)

~~~
motdiem
Thanks for the insights - Digging into it, my first install was standalone and
failed for no proper reason (trying to run guacamelee from the humblebundle -
no meaningful error message was given).

Steam games seem to fail whenever something needs to be admin, most likely
installing directX on first - run. I'm going to try running them once first
before packaging the appstream and then see how it goes.

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rcheu
Did this work? I'm looking into doing this as well.

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jzelinskie
I wonder how this compares to nVidia's commercial GRID product[0]. They
claimed latency up to 150ms from their recent announcements. I'm sure AWS can
spike to worse than 20ms.

Either way, I still think adding latency will poorly effect certain types of
games: online/twitchy ones predominately. It's cool how easy it is to set
something like this up on AWS, though.

[0]: [http://shield.nvidia.com/grid-game-
streaming](http://shield.nvidia.com/grid-game-streaming)

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kondro
I have never noticed latency spikes like that from Amazon through transit…
especially not for anything as trivial as 10Mbps which even a Micro instance
is capable of sustaining.

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JoeAltmaier
Its not about the instance, its about the datacenter. They share routers, and
somebody somewhere needed the bandwidth at the same time you did. So random
latency.

We run office collaboration software in the cloud but not on Amazon. Rackspace
has better latency guarantees, or at least better average latency.

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gabeio
This would even be great if you have your own tower computer/high power
computer and have an okay laptop... (even save on paying for EC2, with better
ping!)

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bicknergseng
For this, check out Splashtop. I've been using it for years and it works
great. They even have Win8 touch integrations so you can play Civ 5 touch, and
an OS X client so you can use a Mac from a tablet or phone.

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malnourish
How does it compare to Steam In-Home Streaming? Can you use it over a
(sufficiently fast) network?

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bicknergseng
I haven't tried Steam's streaming yet or Nvidia's Shield based streaming (have
a Shield, but needs a 6 or greater series card and I have a 5 series).

Splashtop does work with OS X, tablets, and phones, and also works over the
internet (with additional latency obviously). I'll give Steam's streaming a
shot sometime soon.

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schlarpc
The OTOY AMIs do something similar to this. They use the GPU's onboard
encoding as far as I know, but they don't stream through Steam - it goes
through some custom HTML client.

[https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-
profile?id=795808b...](https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-
profile?id=795808b7-f99d-426d-bb03-8aa79ff5b65e)

(Disclosure: AWS employee)

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SomeCallMeTim
Also: Look at Amazon's AppStream. It sets you up with Windows app streaming
automatically.

(Disclosure: I work on AppStream at AWS.)

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voltagex_
Can AppStream use GPU acceleration? Does it support custom apps?

Edit: sorry for not reading the info - the answer is _yes_ , one of the use
cases listed is CAD.

[https://aws.amazon.com/appstream/use-
cases/](https://aws.amazon.com/appstream/use-cases/)

Looks like it's not supported in Sydney which kills it for me. Any hints as to
when that might be coming?

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SomeCallMeTim
Sorry, but I'd get fired if I started leaking any information about future
plans. If I even knew. Which I can't say if I do. ;)

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catchmrbharath
I am asking a tangential question here. Is there any service that can stream
android games / apps?

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pjc50
What on earth is the use case for this - using something that's only available
on Android on a non-Android device?

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dagw
Quickly testing Android apps on your laptop without having to deal with an
emulator?

Concrete example, I've just finished the first beta of our companies new
Android app. Now I want to show everybody in the company to get feedback and
generally let them know what is happening.

Hard: Convince everybody to install the beta on their phones, and then
convince everybody with an iPhone to borrow an android phone and test it
there.

Easy: Send everybody a link that they can click and have the latest beta show
up running on their desktop.

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dailen
I imagine you could run something like BlueStacks on an Azure cloud and allow
people to remotely control it. Probably costly though.

[http://www.bluestacks.com/](http://www.bluestacks.com/)

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thom
I can also confirm that Football Manager 2015 runs pretty well on a c4.8xlarge
36-core Xeon machine, for they eye-watering cost of about $1.65 an hour in
Spot instance costs.

Always wondered if you could break even hosting leagues on there.

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shurcooL
Wow, this is so incredibly cool. As a big fan of OnLive, I saw a lot of
potential in the approach being used for making old school classic games
available remotely, without you having to manage to keep them around locally.

It's really neat that you can do this yourself, and seeing the costs as low as
they are is pretty encouraging too.

Nice job!

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yeukhon
How about spot insance + EBS. Can your "EBS" not be terminated after spot
instance is overbidded in this case?

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jhgg
Yep. That's correct. EBS isn't terminated when your SPOT instance is.

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yeukhon
Thanks. Looks like that'd be the cheapest way to run g2.2xlarge.

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kondro
I would probably recommend setting everything up with an on-demand instance to
begin with. You don't want your whole machine to be terminated as you're
configuring things.

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yeukhon
Well it's a good point. 2 min is probably still too low.

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dailen
How do you get the $0.11/hr rate as opposed to the spot rate?

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dailen
Nevermind, found it :-P

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adamnemecek
i'd be interested in seeing a screencapture of this.

