Viewing DirectX application remotely

Question

We're working on an application that displays information through a Direct3D visualisation. A late client request is the ability to view this application via some Remote Desktop solution.

Has anyone done anything similar? What options are available / unavailable? I'm thinking RDC, VNC, Citrix...

Any advice?

Answer 1

I think you can still use all of the normal D3D tools, but you won't be able to render to a surface associated with the screen. You'll have to render to a DIB (or some such) and Blt it with GDI to a normal window HDC. RDC/VNC/Citrix should all work with this technique.

Performance will definitely suffer - but that's going to be the case over remote desktop anyway. In fact, if I were you, I would mock up a VERY simple prototype and demonstrate the performance before committing to it.

Good luck!

Answer 2

I think Windows 7 has D3D remoting stuff - probably requires both client and server to be W7 though.