Long-range gaming. Would this work?

Baboonanza

Baboonanza

Baboonanza

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I have a gaming PC upstairs with a 24inch monitor, and while this is perfect most of the time it has occurred to me that it would be quite nice to be able to hook it up to play games downstairs on the 40inch sometimes. Without moving it :)

My plan:
- 15m metre HDMI cable
- XBox 360 wireless USB controller
- Setup the controller so it will work as a mouse, this should be good enough for launching games.

The main bit I'm dubious about is the range of the controller. There's probably about 15 foot straight-line distance between the sofa and the upstairs PC with only 1 wood floor in between. I don't have any experience with wireless controllers though, will I get away with it? If not is there an alternative solution?

Is there any other reason this won't work? It'd be a bit annoying to buy the stuff, route the HDMI cable and only then discover it was a follish plan!
 
Awesome idea!
I'm afraid I don't have any answers about the controller but perhaps you could consider a one of those wireless programs/cards/dongles that transmits between pc & monitor wirelessly? I'm sure I read about them somewhere and it would beat someone tripping on a cable in the middle of a battlefield warzone :P
 
Would it be possible to run a USB extension through your ceiling so you could drop the dongle through or would it not just be easier to buy an xbox as you game with the xbox controller anyway?
 
its a good idea and certainly one id like to get a resolution to. I previously had a 5.8Ghz AV Sender but it didnt have the right connections for me to use with the PC. If there was a powerline type transmitter that would be wesome.
 
I bought one of the MS dongle thingies that allowed you to use a 360 wireless controller on the pc. Thing is, when i pressed button on the controller it turned the flippin 360 console on.....i was upstairs and the console was as far away as it could be downstairs. So wireless distance probably wouldn't be an issue.
The only issue i'd see is the 15m hdmi cable. This is where quality of cable can ake a difference.
 
think you'd need normal cat 5e as HDMI need high bandwidth, probably more than a power line could provide unless your using the gigabit ones.

I'd say buy simple cat5e cable and the adapters

Phil
 
King Arthur said:
This would be a better HDMI solution mate.

Phil
Click to expand...
Thanks for pointing that out. It wouldn't be as convenient as an HDMI cable for me though, I'd have to route 2 cables instead of 1 etc. Depending on the route I take I may also be able to get away with 10m, in which case I think HDMI is definitely the best option. I'll have to do some detailed measuring this weekend.

An AV sender would be the ideal solution but I'm highly sceptical that it could handle 1080p resolution at a decent framerate.

Thanks for the input guys, I think since nobody has convinced me it won't work I'll just give it a go. I'll be sure to let you know how I get on.
 
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Baboonanza said:
Thanks for pointing that out. It wouldn't be as convenient as an HDMI cable for me though, I'd have to route 2 cables instead of 1 etc. Depending on the route I take I may also be able to get away with 10m, in which case I think HDMI is definitely the best option. I'll have to do some detailed measuring this weekend.

An AV sender would be the ideal solution but I'm highly sceptical that it could handle 1080p resolution at a decent framerate.

Thanks for the input guys, I think since nobody has convinced me it won't work I'll just give it a go. I'll be sure to let you know how I get on.
Click to expand...

Don't forget about the connector size, you're probably going to need a 1" diameter hole to get an HDMI plug through. If you have access to the equipment you could easily crimp connectors onto cat5 after you feed it through.

On the other side of the coin if you go the cat5 route you can't feed a DVI signal down from a PC, only native HDMI. ATI cards do have a native HDMI output though AFAIK.

You'll need about 2.5Gbps of bandwidth for a 1080p signal @ 50 fps so AV senders are right out.

I have the USB 360 dongle so i'll check the range of the 360 controller for you when I get a chance and report back.

Also http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-040-OK will not work with powerline ethernet. They're not ethernet devices, they just happen to use the same type of cable.
 
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