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How can I broadcast my desktop (like Windows Remote Desktop, VNC, etc.) while I'm playing a game, with enough speed that my gameplay will be somewhat smooth? Can anyone recommend some other software (Mac OS, Linux)?

VNC framerate is just a little low. I can understand someone will say that the latency is just too high, but with a service like OnLive (http://onlive.com) which is over the internet, I have a hard time believing that my local network is too slow to handle it.

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    OnLive does video compression; VNC and RDP do not (AFAIK). You'll need something that does it.
    – Matthew Read
    Commented Jan 14, 2011 at 21:14
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    @Matthew that is not true, VNC has several compression modes. Depending on client, you can set it to do JPEG compression, which may end up being fast enough. RDP also does compression, but it works at GDI level and hence is rather bad for things like video or games - in fact I suspect you can't even use RDP for games.
    – RomanSt
    Commented Jan 14, 2011 at 23:45
  • @romkyns, by "video compression" he means that it compress "images in motion" much more efficiently than just JPEG compression of individual screenshots (which is what VNC does).
    – Denilson Sá Maia
    Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 20:30
  • @Den VNC does some basic inter-frame compression (like copying regions around), but it would obviously suck for games compared to codecs like h264.
    – RomanSt
    Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 20:57
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    For any programmers out there willing to take on a challenge, the x264 encoder (which is open source) has a zero-latency option and can compress video game footage rather well in real time at 60 fps.
    – RomanSt
    Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 21:00

3 Answers 3

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If you want to broadcast your game play over the internet, take a look at Justin.tv (http://www.justin.tv). Unfortunately I haven't hosted any live gaming sessions on it, but I watch a lot of games using the site. The game play appears smooth and does not display any lag. This video shows how to set up your computer for broadcasting WoW.

A lot of people use it so I think it would be a good choice. If you only want to share your desktop on a LAN, this might not be suitable.

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  • Justin.tv has a Broadcast Video Games page with a download link to Dyyno program. (found this page while following a link shown in the video above) But that program is free only for the first 10 broadcasts.
    – Denilson Sá Maia
    Commented Sep 12, 2011 at 1:13
  • You can use Flash Media Encoder from Adobe (free). justin.tv/p/video_games.. this link describes how to set it up for consoles but you can pass the stuff about the console, tv and probably the mixer to get it set up for a PC
    – Gayan
    Commented Sep 12, 2011 at 12:37
  • twitch.tv is a site, owned by justin.tv, but designed specifically for those looking to stream games to the public, but this may not be a good idea if you don't want whoever to watch it, but only specific people.
    – user16736
    Commented Jun 27, 2012 at 15:16
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As of right now the best option to stream video games from your computer to people is the program XSplit. Fantastic program and is free as long as you are not using it for commercial use. It makes it extremely simple to setup and stream without any problem. It works with twitch.tv and several other streaming sites flawlessly.

Most of the Starcraft 2 streamers I believe now use this program. Which is why I started to use this program to stream to my friends while laddering and it really does make streaming easy.

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If you just want to stream locally, you might want to use ffmpeg. It can use x264 coded with zerolatency option for streaming. See ffmpeg streaming guide.

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