Power Transmissions the Future of the Laptop

[Xittenn]

I bought a 'puta recently and a laptop was an appealing option. The only problem with a laptop is it lacks power for the price I'm willing to pay! So today I was thinking, well maybe I could just se up a web cam and point it at my monitor and program it to accept voice commands over the phone. Well that's kind of dumb, right! Why would anybody go and do a thing like that. So I added a VR helmet or a monitor. This still didn't sit right; there's always remote desktop. Well I'm pretty sure there are currently some pretty major limitations on remote desktop. First off, and correct me if I'm wrong, the hosts RAMDAC is not transmitted via internet to the guests computer. This would be a high bandwidth consuming process even at lower resolutions. This brings me back to the top............communicating control commands. Well remote desktop is sort of a two way process where two computers are required, but I don't want a computer to control another computer I want a keyboard, mouse and monitor. High speed extreme now communicates @ 16MegaBits/sec, that's pretty fast. Over the next few years we could be seeing speeds high enough to say transmit a video buffer with the little bit extra necessary to transmit control commands. Could we eventually see the replacement of the laptop with a wireless net transmitted control interface. I say this with the power hungry dev team super heroes in mind(animators and game playas'.) Who wants to carry around a ten pound computer. Where is the power going to come from. Well litteraly why not?????

Edited June 23, 2009 by buttacup

[insane_alien]

so basically you want a thin client rather than a laptop?

 

this isn't a new thing, it has been done pretty much since the introduction of the computer to the business place and universities. terminals with limited computing ability(even none) communicating with a central server/mainframe that does the heavy lifting.

 

this fell out of fashion slightly as terminals with some serious computing ability behind them became widely available and most terminals on a network are classed as computers in their own right but it is still possible to send commands to a server farm to do the really heavy lifting.

 

also, can you try rewriting that with paragraphs, it was really difficult to read.

[Xittenn]

I was in control panel last night and I started playing with the extended options like monitorless operation; for the blind. Maybe voice over operation isn't such a bad idea.........applications; lot's thereof!

[bascule]

First off, and correct me if I'm wrong, the hosts RAMDAC is not transmitted via internet to the guests computer.

 

In most remote display protocols, a virtual framebuffer (rather than the physical framebuffer) is transmitted to the remote host. Same idea, just done in software rather than hardware.

 

so basically you want a thin client rather than a laptop?

 

Yes, in particular see:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray

 

this fell out of fashion slightly as terminals with some serious computing ability behind them became widely available and most terminals on a network are classed as computers in their own right but it is still possible to send commands to a server farm to do the really heavy lifting.

 

Indeed, there's little point in thin clients when you can get a gigahertz netbook for around $250

[Xittenn]

In most remote display protocols, a virtual framebuffer (rather than the physical framebuffer) is transmitted to the remote host. Same idea, just done in software rather than hardware.

 

.......which is remote desktop; rebuilding the desktop through bits of information on the porting computer. This still requires a fair amount of processing power on the porting end, if not the entire software package. You will never have a [math] 486DX^4 100 [/math] port a Core II Quad and have it run Crysis!

 

 

 

Indeed, there's little point in thin clients when you can get a gigahertz netbook for around $250

 

Eliminating the need to have a computer may not be so apparent at the moment but may in the more near future become something of an interest. The current power guzzling liquid cooled gamer extremist machine cannot be replaced by a laptop. A sufficiently high bandwidth connection directly connected to the RAMDAC could give certain individuals more freedom in their lives thereby preventing health problems causing death! Even more so in the future when the standard @ home begins to seriously outperform the laptop machines again we may see a return to the 'thin client!' Power consumption, I'm sure, will be the dividing line between the two. No one will want to carry around a fifty pound battery and this will one day be the case..................unless portable fusion becomes available.

 

Gaming aside you can also include mobile 3D Animation, CAD, CAD/Physics Simulations, Mathematical Modeling..............I'm sure there are more these are my favorites though.........

 

I don't see the analogy of ARPANET days to the present thread at hand!

 

 

<side note> Should anything I say be unclear or seem unwarranted please address your concerns with precise questions or requests of further details/sources on the specific points of concern!

 

Thank you, DaPincess...........

Edited June 24, 2009 by buttacup

[bascule]

.......which is remote desktop; rebuilding the desktop through bits of information on the porting computer. This still requires a fair amount of processing power on the porting end, if not the entire software package. You will never have a [math] 486DX^4 100 [/math] port a Core II Quad and have it run Crysis!

 

 

These people have Crysis running over a remote display protocol:

 

http://www.onlive.com/

 

Gaming aside you can also include mobile 3D Animation, CAD, CAD/Physics Simulations, Mathematical Modeling..............I'm sure there are more these are my favorites though.........

 

The Sun Ray protocol (as well as RDP and many others) support 3D over remote display protocols.

[Xittenn]

These people have Crysis running over a remote display protocol:

 

http://www.onlive.com/

 

The Sun Ray protocol (as well as RDP and many others) support 3D over remote display protocols.

 

Absolutely and I expect to see this trend continue or at the very least commence in winter 2009!

 

http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/brianmadden/archive/2007/11/05/remote-display-protocols-for-vdi-will-rdp-be-enough.aspx

 

First article that came up on google, note the section "What about bandwidth?"

 

All this really just further backs up what I was saying, especially the part about Crysis not being playable on a ported 486.....unless you are basically just dumping the video buffer over the net!

 

It's interesting to see some of these solutions finally coming about. I still argue that one day a complete frame by frame upload of the RAMDAC may be an available and used option. Why make two computers, when you can have one? Why power two computers when you can power one? Playing Crysis on the desktop I have just bought requires me to set the graphics mode to mainstream as opposed to gamer or enthusiast! There is so much room to grow in terms of computing power and rendered output. Even the liquid cooled beasts lack luster at their best. If the argument here is there will always be a little encoding of the transmission and decoding on the client end then well sure. The difference between the two ends however may be like comparing a house to a skyscraper.

 

There are presently no high end protocols that support ultra thin to thin clients with an accurate render of the original output and that's at 1280 * 720 @ 30 fps mainstream........................

 

1280*720 24bit 30fps = roughly 500MBits/sec : )

 

Sun Ray is used on a local area network..................via ethernet!

Edited June 25, 2009 by buttacup

[insane_alien]

i don't think thin clients are going to make a significant come back.

 

especially because there are many many computers that do not have access to any significant amount of bandwidth. and also, there is a huge amount of lag existing on the internet today, go play a multiplayer FPS like halflife 2 deathmatch. people will be complaining of lag and all that is being transmitted there is some compressed position and event data that is rendered client side. if everyone is having their desktop streamed to them uncomprssed then:

 

1/the internet is going to be slow as hell

2/lag will go through the roof

 

the reason for this is the actual physical network of the internet is a bit shoddy. millions of km of fibre and copper would have to be dug up and replaced and expanded. internet hubs would need to be expanded, multi gigabit/s connections need to be prevalent and so on.

 

you mention 1280*720 24-bit 30fps screens. well, who do you know who runs at that? my LCD gets refreshed at 75Hz and is also at 1920X1200. thats about 4.2Gbit/s.

 

a lot of gamers will be running similar or even more bandwidth demanding screens.

 

and then there is your upload speed. what if you want to watch a blu-ray film. well, you're out of luck as a thin client has nowhere near the grunt to decode this so its going to have to be shipped off to the remote server, decoded and then sent back.

 

it's just not going to happen as we have an ever increasing amount of lag critical high bandwidth applications.

 

if the state of our applications was that of 1992 and we had the modern internet then it could probably work but we have progressed.

 

EDIT: My above calculation was merely for my desktop, when we consider the laptops (3 of) we get 4.5Gbit/s so in all we would need a connection capable of providing 8.7Gbit/s and that doesn't include overhead and other things.

 

and all of that needs to be wireless (my desktop uses a wireless connection) as the current maximum wireless connection available is ~300 Mbit/s under favourable conditions then we have a long way to go yet.

 

not to mention current average connection speeds which are around 2Mbit/s where i live(i have 10Mbit/s), also under favourable conditions. The only way to transmit the video information to my computers would be to use heavy video compression. while this is somewhat acceptable for movies and stuff, it is not for general computing. stuff like typing. have you seen text under heavy video compression? it is nearly unreadable if it is readable at all. and anyway, who is going to buy a multi gigabit connection just to do some typing every now and again (or like my parents, play solitaire).

 

oh, and your 1280x720 24-bit 30fps screen ismore like 664Mbit/s rather than 500. thats 32.8% larger than you said. quite a significant error. not to mention most computer displays run at 60fps anyway which gives 1328Mbit/s which is 165.6% error on what you said.

 

seems you are grossly underestimating the bandwidth required.

Edited June 25, 2009 by insane_alien

[Xittenn]

1/The exact figure was of little to no concern. <roughly>

 

2/that was the mainstream figure..........I run 1680*1050, the figure however was still better than onlive....way better!

 

3/I don't know of any gaming engine that actually renders 60 fps, they render 30; monitors refresh at 60!

 

4/I get a full 16Mbits/sec no problem; individuals who want this service will undoubtedly pay for it. Most individuals who require a laptop can afford the expense. A good deal of those who use laptops presently will be switching to cell phone internet connections with qwerty!

 

I'm just making a prediction in saying we'll solve the bandwidth problem around the same time as we run into laptop bottlenecks!

[insane_alien]

1/ it should be, because that number is multiplied for every person online. and that is a massive error even for the first order approximation we are making here.

 

2/ and in the future resolutions are only going to increase. 1920x1080 will likely become common sometime next year.

 

3/ and it is the screen refresh rate that you actually need to supply, the gaming framerate is unimportant. and gaming engines can render faster than that. go ask at a gamer forum.

 

4/ and? thats way above average for an internet connection and is still not enough.

[bascule]

i don't think thin clients are going to make a significant come back.

 

I think we're kind of seeing it in the form of Netbooks. Many people these days can do everything in a web browser and don't need any actual installed software.

 

That said, Netbooks are still absurdly powerful compared to what computers used to be just a few years ago. They're not really "thin" in the traditional sense.

---

Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

I still argue that one day a complete frame by frame upload of the RAMDAC may be an available and used option.

 

That doesn't make sense. Why not do it in software?

[Xittenn]

That doesn't make sense. Why not do it in software?

 

The difference between the two ends however may be like comparing a house to a skyscraper.

 

Laptops are going to cap because of battery limitations. The need for computing power and the supply of it through @ home solutions or server based solutions will not.

 

"What about bandwidth?

 

This "server-based computing" technology is of course also known as "thin client computing" technology. But what does "thin" refer too? The client device? The protocol? (The LCD screen?

 

In the early days of RDP and ICA, it could be said that the protocol was the "thin" part, and in fact many people used Terminal Server and Citrix to make three-tiered apps work across WAN links. But now that we're talking about remoting full and true desktops, that whole "20kbps" per session thing can be thrown out the window.

 

Regardless of protocol, regardless of technique, a true “desktop-like” experience is only going to happen with bandwidth. Some of these approaches require more bandwidth than others. As Peter Ghostine said, “no one is going to be able to squeeze an elephant through the eye of a needle. While compression algorithms will always advance, if a user wants to watch a video at 24 frames per second, that’s a lot of data that needs to go across the network. Period."

 

Delivering a few business apps in 1998 via RDP or ICA is very different than delivering a whole and completely functional desktop in 2008!"

 

 

 

Again it may not be that there will be absolutely no software compression, but I'm thinking it will be something closer to this:

 

 

 

"Screen-scraping

 

The general idea with “screen scraping” is that whatever graphical elements are painted to the “screen” on the host are then scraped by the protocol interface and sent down to the client. This can happen in two ways:

 

* The client can contact the server and pull a new “snapshot” of the screen from the frame buffer. This is how VNC works.

* The server can continuously push its screen activity to the client. This can be at the framebuffer level, the GDI / window manager level, or a combination of both. (This is how RDP and ICA work.)

 

Login Consultants' Benny Tritsch adds a note of caution regarding the term "screen scraping:"

 

Over the years, this screen-scraping has become very advanced. RDP, ICA, and other protocols don't simply look at pixels on the screen and compress them into graphical images. Instead this process is enhanced by analyzing the screen content and identifying screen regions that are being reused (such as icons, fonts / glyphs, dialog boxes, etc. Those graphics elements can be cached at the client side, so if the host needs to send one of these elements, it only transmits the reference number of the cached element and the new coordinates. This dramtically reduces the amount of data transmitted and thus increases performance and user experience. This cached information can even be used for enhanced local echo effects, like Citrix's Speedscreen Local Text Echo for the standard GDI output.

 

So even though the specific term "screen scraping" is no longer an exact literal representation of what is happening, the term is used more broadly to describe this general concept."

 

and with this on the horizon,

 

http://gigaom.com/2009/02/01/by-2012-koreans-will-get-a-gigabit-per-second-broadband-connection/

 

it may be more suitable to just scrap those ugly notebooks and replace them with a VR helmet or flat screen with a built in buffer connected to an internet connection; fully serviced!

[bascule]

If you think software-based remote display protocols are inadequate, I suggest you try out a Sun Ray