Can I play PC games from a WD EX2 connected via a 50 feet network cable to laptop?

[arnprasad]

Hi..the only computer in my house that has a decent graphics card is my dell 5575 that has nvidia 1050.

I have all my media files on my WD EX2 (https://www.amazon.in/WD-Diskless-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B01AWH05KK) .

My laptop has limited storage since its SSD.

Hence cannot have too many 30-80 GB games on it. My WD EX2 has >1 TB of free space. Its location is ground floor and I currently access it on first floor by a cheap network cable.

If I download these games onto the WD - can I play it on my laptop? I am guessing even cheap network cables are faster than say USB3 connected to external hard drives?

my other option is to buy a WD 1.5 TB for around 3500 and save my games and connect that to my laptop.(https://www.amazon.in/Elements-Port...1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1574783799&sr=1-1) - but trying to avoid it since this is for my kids and hence casual gaming once in a while

 

[jai1611]

You can try. May depend on the game. Have seen cases where people use 10gbps network connections for this. Not sure if a normal LAN would work

 

[Rud31]

I suspect it would depend more on your system RAM and GPU's VRAM. If they are big enough then besides slow initial load time, it should work OK.

 

[codwapeace]

Hi..the only computer in my house that has a decent graphics card is my dell 5575 that has nvidia 1050.

I have all my media files on my WD EX2 (https://www.amazon.in/WD-Diskless-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B01AWH05KK) .

My laptop has limited storage since its SSD.

Hence cannot have too many 30-80 GB games on it. My WD EX2 has >1 TB of free space. Its location is ground floor and I currently access it on first floor by a cheap network cable.

If I download these games onto the WD - can I play it on my laptop? I am guessing even cheap network cables are faster than say USB3 connected to external hard drives?

my other option is to buy a WD 1.5 TB for around 3500 and save my games and connect that to my laptop.(https://www.amazon.in/Elements-Port...1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1574783799&sr=1-1) - but trying to avoid it since this is for my kids and hence casual gaming once in a while

No. You can't. You can, but load times will be horrible. A better option will be to keep the installation folders on your network drive and copy only the specific games that you wish to play, if you don't want to purchase a hard drive.

 

[arnprasad]

Thank you...during the black friday sale managed to get a 99 dollar XFX RX 570 4GB...so now my desktop too should rock 1080p games for kids. But I will save your advice..am sure will be useful someday!

Also currently I dont have any games subscription service and hence games are downloaded from pirate sites. But after i get the graphics card installed..will get xbox service and since they will play at max two games at a time...no need to download and save many games - which was my predicament earlier

 

[arnprasad]

No. You can't. You can, but load times will be horrible. A better option will be to keep the installation folders on your network drive and copy only the specific games that you wish to play, if you don't want to purchase a hard drive.

Hi..can you explain this in simple english please. Say I got a 80GB game. So I will save it on my Z drive which is my WD. So when I start install the game, it will show me the path - I am guessing even if the game itself is on Z drive, it will by default show C drive? is it here that I do some changes? If so what are these changes please..explain step by step. My understanding is if I go with default folder during installation..my C drive gets hit with the 80GB? which is what I want to avoid...I got three computers..two desktops and one laptop and all three have limited space... Also everytime I logon to Windows..I have to go to Windows explorer and click on the Z drive and activate it as by default the Z drive is not activated. I hope in this situation also, I can install and play games on the WD (meaning I want a large chunk of the 30/40/80 GB post installation to be on Z drive)