These computers are both receiving a stream of a Cortex Command instance running on a Cloud server somewhere in Amazon's massive infrastructure. The laptop is receiving it through wifi. Otoy recently made an AMI called Orbx.js available which allows high quality video to be streamed to users right in their browsers. It was originally meant to be used for high speed rendering and modelling.
The key is that you can access the same Amazon cloud instance from multiple computers with Orbx.js
Here's how to do it: (this will cost you ~$0.80/hour that you run it, and ~$11 in Storage/Month)
- 1) Sign up for an Amazon AWS (Amazon Web Services) account. Here you have to enter payment info, however the act of creating an account doesn't cost money by itself.
- 2) Go here and click "Continue" and "Launch with EC2 Console" on the server that's in the region nearest you. (Take note of the box under this describing Security Group Settings. Copy/Paste it somewhere, you'll need it later).
- 3) In the next screen, go to GPU instances on the left, and select g2.2xlarge (or whatever is there). You need a GPU instance in order to encode and stream live video from the server. (A side benefit is that it's an extremely powerful GPU).
- 4) Skip to "Configure Security Group". This is where that box I told you to copy earlier will come in handy. Input all of the rules from that list. (The rules that don't have an explicit name are Custom TCP rules) This is important, otherwise you will get a timeout error when trying to connect to the game.
List of ports (copied here for your convenience):
21
80 (HTTP)
443 (HTTPS)
1000 - 1100
3389 (RDP)
5090
5900 - 5910
8090 - 8300 - 5) Review the settings and make sure you're alright with everything. Note that it is setting aside 100gb of EBS storage for this instance. That amounts to $11/month that the instance exists.
- 6) It should bring you to your EC2 console now. Make sure it says the correct region in the upper right corner, then click instances in the sidebar on the left. You should be able to see your instance in the list.
- 7) If you're ready, launch the instance. From this point forward, you're incurring a ~$0.80/hour charge (until you right click the instance to stop it).
- 8 ) Click the connect button on top and it will guide you through Remoting into your new instance. During this process, you will need to create a special keypair file, and then reupload it to amazon to decrypt the password to log in to your instance. Please note, you will not be able to play games through remote desktop, this will come later.
- 9) You're now logged in to your instance. Go to the start button and start typing "task manager". Click on the first result to open the task manager (this is how I do it
). Under the command line portion, you should be able to find a GUID. It will look something like this:
Copy down that GUID (it is case-sensitive) into a text file or something, you'll need it in a couple steps. - 10) Here's where you can go wild. Install Steam if you like. I went the quick way and downloaded build 18.
- 11) Now it's time to try using Orbx to access the instance from your computer. Use this URL, but replace <ip> with the public IP of the instance (it says in the list view of the instance from the EC2 console) and <guid> with the GUID you copied down earlier.Code:http://aws.otoy.com/?connect=//<ip>:8090/?NOCRYPTO=1;STATUS=1;AUTOLOCK=0;WAN=12;START=cmd.exe;GUID=<guid>
- 12) If you did everything right, you should see a black box with a Command Console in the middle. If you want to start up Cortex Command (Build 18) enter the two lines:Code:cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Data Realms\Cortex Command\Code:"Cortex Command.exe"
If it times out, your security group settings weren't done properly (you can edit them from the EC2 console). If it shows an authentication error, well, you have the wrong GUID. Redo Step 9. - 13) Hopefully a copy of Cortex Command will pop up. You can then bring other players in by giving them the URL:Code:http://aws.otoy.com/?connect=//<ip>:8090/?NOCRYPTO=1;STATUS=1;AUTOLOCK=0;WAN=12;GUID=<guid>
- 14) Stop the Instance from the EC2 console when you're done. Terminate it to release the Storage.
There are several other commands that can be used in the URL as mentioned in the Official Guide:
Code:
Audio is supported in all of the above browsers, but must be turned on by adding AUDIO=1; to the connection string.
The default bandwidth cap is set to 12 Mbps, which is enough to cover a 1080p stream at good quality for normal desktop applications. You can change this setting when you connect to the host by setting WAN=n, where n is the bandwidth cap in Mbps. The minimum bandwidth for a 60 fps ORBX stream is 3 Mbps. If you are on a 2 Mbps line for example, you should use “WAN=2;MAXFPS=30;” to cap the stream at 2 Mbps and 30 fps.
When using native ORBX, with UDP, the bitrate does not need to be set, as the ORBX stream automatically detects the instantaneous available bandwidth, and adjusts the stream on the fly. This functionality will be added to ORBX.js once browsers properly expose UDP web sockets to JavaScript.
ORBX.js offers partial support on several non-WebGL browsers - including iOS browsers and IE10/11 - through a 30 fps simplified i-frame only stream (typically 2x the bandwidth of a normal ORBX stream).
The default bandwidth cap is set to 12 Mbps, which is enough to cover a 1080p stream at good quality for normal desktop applications. You can change this setting when you connect to the host by setting WAN=n, where n is the bandwidth cap in Mbps. The minimum bandwidth for a 60 fps ORBX stream is 3 Mbps. If you are on a 2 Mbps line for example, you should use “WAN=2;MAXFPS=30;” to cap the stream at 2 Mbps and 30 fps.
When using native ORBX, with UDP, the bitrate does not need to be set, as the ORBX stream automatically detects the instantaneous available bandwidth, and adjusts the stream on the fly. This functionality will be added to ORBX.js once browsers properly expose UDP web sockets to JavaScript.
ORBX.js offers partial support on several non-WebGL browsers - including iOS browsers and IE10/11 - through a 30 fps simplified i-frame only stream (typically 2x the bandwidth of a normal ORBX stream).
If you have any other problems, you might be able to find the answers on this forum:
http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=64