Yet another Hacker News

47 points taubek 1 hour ago 23 comments

teruakohatu 51 minutes ago | parent

I am amazed that there is an ESP that can handle this and with just 32MB of RAM:

https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-dev-kits/en/latest/e...

Shank 48 minutes ago | parent

I own 3 JetKVMs, of which two of them stopped working, one of which doesn't boot at all and the other that never connects to network. The third I took out of service because the keyboard wouldn't send input when it was connected for more than a couple months. I'm sure the newer hardware is better, but I'm very unhappy with my JetKVMs.

skerit 47 minutes ago | parent

At least you got them. I'm still at the "We will send you an email to do a final shipment confirmation once ready" stage.

philjohn 43 minutes ago | parent

I have two and one stopped working, but they were great and sent me a replacement motherboard and a toolkit to swap it over. Did you try reaching out to them?

yokoprime 29 minutes ago | parent

I've had good experiences with mine, only thing is that wifi and ethernet claims the same IP which causes my Unifi controller to freak out and send alerts

theanonymousone 47 minutes ago | parent

It may be worth noting that this is not _that_ KVM, but this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KVM_switch

I learnt this first myself from HN, a few months ago.

stingraycharles 42 minutes ago | parent

What KVM were you thinking of, the virtualization?

LoganDark 37 minutes ago | parent

Probably Kernel-based Virtual Machine, yeah.

theanonymousone 4 minutes ago | parent

Yes

herrherrmann 37 minutes ago | parent

My first thought was “ah, this must be a JVM for Kotlin by the creators of Kotlin (Jetbrains)!”

LoganDark 27 minutes ago | parent

Ugh, people have been sending me jeans memes so much that I thought this comment said Jotlin...

yonatan8070 10 minutes ago | parent

It not exactly a KVM switch, which allows you to have one set of keyboard, mouse, monitor connected to multiple PCs and switch between them. This is an IP KVM, which lets you send keyboard and mouse inputs and view display output remotely over the network.

cyh555 3 minutes ago | parent

Right, I was confused when it has the wifi/ethernet port

LoganDark 32 minutes ago | parent

Are there any good KVMs for gaming? Right now, I use a capture card for video, connect the mouse directly to the destination, and use a piece of software called Deskflow to transmit my keyboard. But Deskflow occasionally crashes, so it'd be nice to have a hardware solution (also that can be used for BIOS/etc). And Deskflow also won't work if I install SteamOS, once Nvidia works.

I looked at making a solution myself, but for some reason, simulating a USB client device in software is extremely annoying, and requires specialized hardware that is also very expensive. So at that point, why not just get a KVM...

I frequently switch between 1080p and 4K for gaming since I don't like resampling artifacts. Never found a KVM that can handle 4K properly even for productivity. The mistake can be as basic as assuming a 100% scale factor.

peroo 21 minutes ago | parent

Why do you need to use a KVM rather than Sunshine+Moonlight? That's pretty much the gold standard for remote gaming.

LoganDark 12 minutes ago | parent

The practical answer for right now is that I don't want software screen capture, but it also does not do any of the things I wanted to be able to do by having remote inputs directed to the hardware rather than simulated in software. Namely it requires software installation on the server, which means OS support becomes a thing, you can't use it in BIOS/firmware, etc.

noelwelsh 21 minutes ago | parent

I don't really understand your setup, but if you throw enough money at ATEN they will be happy to give you a KVM that handles 4K @ 240Hz. Supporting high refresh rates is the main thing that would keep from using most KVMs for gaming.

swiftcoder 11 minutes ago | parent

> simulating a USB client device ... requires specialized hardware that is also very expensive

Pretty much any off-the-shelf SBC can present itself as a USB HID device like a keyboard. You can buy a very capable rp2040-based board for <$5.

What part of this equation requires expensive hardware?

LoganDark 7 minutes ago | parent

The part where I want wired ethernet to that SBC, not some funky proprietary wireless chip as in ESP32. I almost found a solution, but I've been unable to get my picoprobe to properly flash and reset the board for some reason, so I haven't been able to use it for development. I'll have to troubleshoot that again sometime if I enter another bout of caring.

xcafebabe 5 minutes ago | parent

Most KVMs that fail at 4K get the EDID wrong. They either send their own fixed one (often maxing out at 1080p or 4K30), or they reconnect the display on every switch, so the OS thinks it's a new monitor and resets your scaling. Look for one with EDID emulation.

For high refresh 4K you also need HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort with DSC support, and a lot of "4K" KVMs don't have it.

Also, 1080p divides evenly into 4K, so turn on integer scaling in the Nvidia or AMD settings and 1080p will look sharp instead of blurry.

LoganDark 2 minutes ago | parent

Yes I do use integer scaling, that's what makes 1080p bearable on my 4K display and not other resolutions that don't divide evenly into 4K.

An annoying quirk is that I have to use the Nvidia control panel specifically to get Windows to send a 1080p signal as otherwise, it will just upscale 1080p to a 4K signal. It makes no fucking sense to me why that would be the default but whatever.

noelwelsh 29 minutes ago | parent

I have an ATEN KVM [1] that gets a solid "it does the job" from me. Occasionally a connected computer won't pick up the K, V, or M, and I'll have to reconnect a few times.

I use it to switch between my work laptop and my personal PC, and for this situation 4K is a must have. That, and the choice of HDMI instead of DisplayPort, and things that would keep me from getting a JetKVM.

[1]: https://www.aten.com/gb/en/products/kvm/desktop-kvm-switches...

skolos 25 minutes ago | parent

or make one yourself: https://github.com/espkvm/espkvm