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Comment by sciencerobot | Hacker News Reader

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

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/

[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.

>the VPN is almost certainly going to run over TCP, while AppStream will run over UDP

OpenVPN offers UDP mode, and I believe Hamachi (the VPN software mentioned in the article) uses UDP by default as well.

That would help a lot, then. But the Steam in-house streaming feature may not have the same latency compensation features that we've built into AppStream.

I mean, why would it? You're not likely to have a high ping time inside your LAN.

doesn't appstream require that the app is appstream-aware? my understanding is that you can't just take an arbitrary windows binary an appstream-ify it.

The VPN solution might have worse performance than an appstream app, but it works with the existing catalog of steam games.

The app is NOT required to be AppStream-aware, no. (Not since we created "Zero Touch" mode, anyway!)

We periodically install random Windows apps (including games) to test the stack. Games work well. Too well, you might say. ;)

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.

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...

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.

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

Yeah for sure. 1900 hrs? I wouldn't do 100 in a calendar year so this would be a way better option for me than having to constantly upgrade to keep ahead of new boxes. (well constantly == every other year).

It's not quite the same thing, but X.IO [1] from OTOY does a lot of the things mentioned, and can even run Steam directly without having to use in-home streaming (and we can take advantage of things like NvFBC to cut down capture time).

Going that method you lose the price advantage you'd get with the spot market, but a lot of the underlying complexity is removed.

Disclosure: I work for OTOY

[1]: https://www.x.io

How would you go about running steam on X.IO ? do you have to "Appetize" steam or the game itself ?

It would be awesome if someone created an AMI after they finished those driver steps, at least. If I do it I'll be sure to post back here.

I know you can't share AMIs derived from marketplace snapshots, so I suspect the same may be true of Windows instances. The marketplace instance restriction is rather annoying as CentOS and Debian publish their official images through the marketplace.

If I was to sell this as a SaaS type of thing, would I be infringing on any of Steam's TOS or anything?

I've been wanting to do this myself and prepared by registering several iterations of steam + host + box + cloud + remote.

The major annoyance is that since Steam doesn't let you do it outside your LAN, you have to use a VPN solution to make the remote server appear like it's local. I've been building my infrastructure and prepping for everything with the hope that one day they'll allow for the ability to enter a remote address.

If not, and when I'm ready, I'll just have to get my users to download some kind of utility that automates all the VPN functionality, graphics driver installation, and server-side management.

Forget the TOS, it's certainly copyright infringement, since the licenses don't give you the rights to distribute game assets to third-parties.

A SAAS where people sign in with their own steam accounts (oauth), and stream games they own, would be fine though right

It's hard to say. Cablevision did win the lawsuit relative to their remote DVR service, which is promising.

I'm pretty sure thats Nvidia GRID. Also you don't have to pay for the games there, they are part of the subscription. You do need a local Nvidia GPU though.

Agreed.

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