alt Hacker NewsAre 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.
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KVMs are for rebooting and recovering servers without needing physical access. Maybe you would have some chance with HDMI splitter connected with an EDID dummy plug and an HDMI-Ethernet capture encoder thing, and some dedicated KVM for just keyboard and mouse, but idk.
> 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?
Why do you need to use a KVM rather than Sunshine+Moonlight? That's pretty much the gold standard for remote gaming.
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 me from using most KVMs for gaming.
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.
https://www.store.level1techs.com/products/kvm do some that might be suitable, they produce some of the highest end desktop-spec KVMs I know of. They're not cheap though.