RDC, VM, and Windows 2008 Server in one 'networking solution'

I have a rather whole load of questions to ask that are all related, so I'm going to do it all in one go.

my current situation: my not-living-with-me brother is getting an E-350 netbook. I currently run a macbook pro 13" 2010. I'm looking to make myself a windows 7 desktop. I was thinking that since I'm a nice guy, I could setup the netbook to remote connect into the desktop for some more horsepower.

this is my planned setup: RDC into the desktop from my lappy for normal everyday usage(so my laptop stops burning my lap). use the desktop directly when I want to game. Setup a VM on the desktop that the netbook will RDC into.

does that work? Keeping in mind that I will be connecting over starbucks and university connections and they regularly cut out; i would really, really hate to randomly use work cause of a bad internet connection.

some more random questions:

can i game over RDC?
can i bootup my desktop if its off?
how do i see my laptop's battery life?
if i'm using VMs, should i invest in the 2600 vs the 2600k?

is there any reason I should use a mac os x RDP client over a windows RDP client? keep in mind, I HATE the bootcamp drivers and if i had to boot into os x to get better touchpad functionality, so be it! - i don't really expect 4-finger gestures to work.


ps, no comments about the 'fact' that i shouldn't be trying to use windows on a macbook. i'm really tired of hearing it.

 

i haven't really read your stuff, just the questions:

gaming over rdc, no. too slow, and too much delay if you would get enough fps.

to boot up the desktop, you can look into "Wake on Lan". depends a bit on your home setup, the desktop, etc. but doable.

what do you want the battery life for? should be visible in the top right on osx, bottom right on windows.

no clue about the processors.

yes, use the rdp client for macosx from osx. you know how windows + apple touchpad don't work well. even gestures should work as long as they translate into key commands the rdc understands.

 

I think gaming over RDP can be difficult. While it does work thanks to RemoteFX, you still need a decent network connection and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.
Also I think RFX is picky with graphics card models.

Crysis in a virtual machine? Yes, with RemoteFX! - [H]ard|Forum

So it will probably work if you're RDP gaming in the same LAN, but then again what's the point. At Starbucks? No way.

You can always try it out. You mentioned university, maybe get a copy from MSDNAA? That's your only chance I guess, since it's very expensive.
Otherwise, get a copy here, but it only gives you a 180 day trial: Try Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Trial

In the end, the network connection will be the biggest bottleneck.

 

1. For the netbook, it will be faster to run windows 7 locally. Also, battery life will improve since constantly using the wifi will probably use more energy as opposed to running windows 7 on the laptop.

2. For desktop, you'd probably want to invest more on the ram or ssd. So buy the non-k version and use the saved money to get either of them.

 

even you are on G bit lan, gaming is still not going to be good. G bit lan max out at around 100MB/s which is signicantly slower than RAM speed which is much slower than VRAM speed(one of the key difference between dedicated GPU and say Intel GM950)

 

The way I see it, RemoteFX takes care of that.

 

I am not a gamer(never own one PC game) so can't tell. If the game needs to transfer large amount of data to the final display device, I can't see how RemoteFx is going to fix it. RemoteFx may very well be a good solution for 3D based drawing where instead of sending pixels(that is basically what the original RDP does and that get enhanced overtime), it sends drawing commands(thus low bandwidth requirement). May be new games now are all like that.

EDIT:
Currently, I am on a 100Mbps LAN and I know that video/audio is very jerky when playing via RDP. If I am RDP into my home machine(ADSL 10/1), even site like bing(which is graphic heavy) is not usable.

 

That's beacuse you don't know how it works, and neither do I.
There's a huge difference between RDP and RDP with RemoteFX.
I suggest you check out the video in my first link above. Crysis is being played on a 1 GHz ARM A8 thin client.

It's not perfect, and it's not made for games, but it's far better than anything I've seen on RDP before.

 

I don't know how it works doesn't mean it can deviate from fundamentals or Microsoft would be trumpetting it big.

~2.39 in the video, the HP guy said 'for those who played this game may notice that it is a bit jerky'.

I am sure RemoteFX is a much better thing than prior but if there is raw bandwidth/latency requirement, there is.

Reading between the lines(the guy mentioned that there is a DSP in the demo thin client for RemoteFX codec) so it seems like it is just another form of compression(or other tricks) to reduce the bandwidth/latency demand at the expense of processing power on both end(which is fine).

EDIT:
A quote from a guy in the link you provided.

This is good because I wanted to start out small and scale up if possible.

RDP over to the VM, make usre to go into the options and change the "experience" to its highest level.

First test was Aero. Displays fine. No lag at all in the Aero Gui.

Second test was YouTube. 360p video plays fine. 480 video has a teeeeeeny bit of lag. 720p video is too choppy.

This didnt leave me very confident.

Loaded up UT1999. Not playable whatsoever.

 

Yes, and he also says why. It's beacuse of the 200 MB VRAM limit, and that they're trying to increase it.

Remember that the video is old, older than retail SP1/RemoteFX.

End users seem to have very different experiences, I've seen both good and bad.
I think it mostly boils down to graphics card dupport.

One single comment doesn't tell me much, besides, isn't UT99 OpenGL?

Here's another comment:

I prefer trying it myself before I judge.

 

thanks for the replies guys!

for gaming, I seem to have excluded some important points in this version of the post lol. my gaming would include "singleplayer FPS and multiplayer RTS". I wouldn't dare consider playing multiplayer FPS through a networked connection. but really, its not a major concern for me.

so, there is no problem with RDC into a VMed windows 7 professional?

does anyone have any concern over RDCing through a public network?

so, what does happen when you RDC and your connection dies? the session is destroyed and all data is lost? I don't have any other machines to test this out with atm

one of the reasons that I want to allow the netbook to RDC into my machine is because I'm under the assumption that it would be easier to help them debug their problems. My brother is one of the most gullible people ever and WILL get his machine infected. He's also pretty loose with passwords and such. Is there anyway he could compromise my machine by installing malware/viruses or by releasing any passwords? I would assume no, since its a VM, but just want to be safe.

also, my budget is large enough for 16GB of ram and a crucial M4 256GB. although, its currently only specced for 8GB of ram atm.

anyone have any CPU usage benchmarks? I'm just wondering how hot my macbook would get....

about the battery life thing, if I make the RDC window full-screen(I can do this right?), that would hide the laptop's/netbook's taskbar right? which means that I can't see the battery life left. I was assuming this was the case and was wondering what I could do so my laptop wouldn't unexpectedly die.

 

RDP is very nice for all the other mentioned task. If the link dies, your session is still there and when you reconnect again, whatever has been done on that machine would have been done. I sometimes do this for 'batch' task.

RDP is not for 'debugging', there is a very similar thing called 'remote assist' which is basically shared desktop session using RDP protocol.

But if you mean remote admin, it is perfect. If there is only one reason for me to pay the extra for a W7 pro vs W7 home premium, it would be RDP.

 

right, the main purpose of the netbook connection is for giving access to the hardware, but if its there, I might as give myself the ability to 'flash' the OS if too much is in the fan.

 

Windows 7 System image can be very helpful for the netbook, also a proper HOSTS file.