Netmeeting for games?

[Moogie]

Hiya

Me and Seppie would like to be able to watch when the other is playing a game on their PC. Like a video conference, such as what Netmeeting can do... only, something that actually works.

Pointing your webcam at the monitor is low quality but the framerate is far superior to using conventional desktop sharing software... what we need is something in the middle. Not too high quality, but not with massive amounts of lag either.


Does such a program exist, and if so, where might we aquire it?


Thankees

[SaintNuclear]

I think it\'ll require too much bandwith and RAM.
You could just use some IM service, and when you\'re away playing a game, put that in your away message.

Plain, and simple.

[Moogie]

We could... but that\'s not the point. We\'re constantly in contact so we know when we\'re playing games. What we want is to be able to observe them, out of boredom, or curiosity, or whatever.

Desktop sharing doesn\'t take up too much RAM/bandwidth, so I figured something that allows us to see games wouldn\'t be too difficult. Netmeeting just shows the observer a black screen; it doesn\'t even attempt to render it.

[Xandria]

Well Mogura, if what you\'re looking for is a program to share your entire screen, then what you want is a series of programs called \"VNC.\"  Basically, you run the server program on the computer you want to host the screen from, and the other computer runs a client that connects to the server via IP:port.  Once that link is established, it forwards the entire screen (with different levels of compression, size, etc. depending on the client settings) to the client every time a change is made.

This program is exteremely useful in server management, such as what we have at home.  Our home domain server/web server just sits in a closet with nothing but a power cable and network cord plugged into it, and whenever we need to modify it we just run the VNC client on someone\'s computer and connect to the server.  The Linux version of VNC server is even more fun, but that\'s a bit off topic

However, I can\'t say this will be exactly what you want, Moogie.  I have had a couple problems in the past getting the VNC connection to work across firewalls and routers.  But the thing I\'m more concerned about is that you say you want to use it to forward gaming screens.  VNC isn\'t meant for that type of graphic intensity (and no, I can\'t think of any program that is, because there isn\'t much practical use for it), and I have had issues with VNC not even working at all when you try to go into a full-screen game.

But if you still want to give it a try, their website is http://sourceforge.net/projects/vnc-tight/.  If you have trouble or you just want more info on the subjuct, you\'re welcome to send me an IM/PM and I\'ll see what I can do


EDIT: spelling/grammar

EDIT2: Oh yeah, and netmeeting just sucks in general.  If you actually go through the manual you\'ll see that it\'s not really meant to work over the Internet.  So it\'s only useful if you want to video conference with someone in the same building as you, which is kind of pointless...