Anybody successfully run SL over Remote Desktop or some such thing?

I make couple's animations, and it would be advantageous to be able to run an instance of SL on my second computer without bothering with a monitor, remotely accessing it from my main system, just for getting my testing alt in the game and on and off poseballs.

Remote Desktop is working fine for other tasks, but SL complains about needing 24-bit color when I try to start it up remotely. Yes, I've downloaded and installed the MS patch that allows high color depth over Remote Desktop, but it's not working. Or maybe I just missed something dumb.

I know there are also a few other options for remote access such as the various flavors of VNC, but I'm hoping someone has actually done this and can offer advice before I start installing things and trying them all out. Anybody done this?

Thanks in advance.

You do know that you can run two SL clients on a single computer? With each one logged into a different account?

Yes but I'm already running SL and Poser and any number of other things on my main rig, and I have this second computer specifically set up for tasks such as this - so why would I further burden my main system if I don't have to? Also, the SL client is hardly a lightweight little utility one can run many instances of on a whim

Okay

Hi Anti!

*oops, editing because I missed info in the first reading*

Have you tried GoToMyPC?

Hiyas Mr. Anti!

Have you considered a hardware solutiion? Belkin (and others) makes a KVM switch that allows you to share one keyboard and monitor with up to 4 computers. Here's a link to the Belkin site, I'm sure you could find thousands of other KVM switches elsewhere around teh innerweb.

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatSectionView.process?Section_Id=203859

Anti -

Remote Desktop Connection 6 is a new revision for Windows XP SP 2 users, with support for network level authentication, 32-bit color support, font smoothing and more.

You should be able to download it from Microsoft's site, or find it here

"You do know that you can run two SL clients on a single computer? With each one logged into a different account?"

How is this accomplished on a Mac?

Try here:
/164/26/169133/1.html


...havent' done it myself..my poor mac is nearly overwhelmed running one session

I have a 2 machine setup, with 2 monitors, one keyboard and mouse, no KVM. I just move the mouse between screens. I would recommend getting a second monitor and using this:

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

So much easier than trying to deal with a remote desktop solution.. The only problem I have with Synergy is that mouselook is jacked up on the secondary machine.

Wow, lots more replies this morning.

Nephilaine - added to list of things to try at some point, thanks.

Hiyas Saucey! Not a bad idea, it grates against my "well this should just work, dammit" nature but I'll definitely consider it

Travis - yeah that's the patch I mentioned in my first post, I should have been clearer what I meant. I guess it's a new version, not a patch

Zaphod - I already run dual monitors on my primary machine, and I have extras laying around, it's just an issue of space and, well, looking for the most elegant solution. Especially since I already have things set up and a nice workflow keeping my second box headless and running various tasks via Remote Desktop as needed, it works great but SL is being finicky
But thanks for reminding me about Synergy, handy-looking program whose name I always forget

Anyway thanks for all the suggestions thus far - definitely some food for thought, if I can't get it working exactly the way I hope to.

Remote Deskop leaves the remote puter alone, and actually draws everything in the local session, so assuming OpenGL works at all, SL would be using software rendering.

Other remote proggies actually capture the screen of the remote puter and stream that, which may or may not work.

Thanks Kitty, that would explain a lot. I guess I'll just end up trying various things and see if any of them work.

There is probably a way to get it to work, but performance will probably be not all that good. remote desktop, vnc and all the like solutions do not like programs who update the screen very much... and sl would be an example of such an application. It will also heavily tax your network (specially if you're on wireless), because it would have to send the screen updates from the remote computer continously to the "working" computer....

I would only try remote desktop and like systems for this if you really ran out of other options.

I run three computers on a network, but don't share resources. So each computer has its own monitor and keyboard etc.

If a computer is running one instance of Second Life, running a second instance, or running any other program at all, is a fool's errand.

I just set up my work space logically. I can move the keyboards easily. I run my graphics programs on the computer with the best monitor. The other two computers can each run a separate instance of Second Life when I need them to. I get the monitors arranged so that I can easily look to whichever one I need to see at the time. It took me a bit of time to get used to my setup, but it works pretty well for me.

i use this with no problems at all... http://www.radmin.com/