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tim dettmar edited this page Apr 28, 2021 · 3 revisions

Frequently asked questions

Q: What is Telescope?
A: Telescope is a high performance remote desktop streaming application using the RDMA protocol.

Q: How does Telescope work?
A: Telescope uses RDMA capable NICs in order to facilitate high bandwidth transfers over RDMA. An RDMA transfer does a kernel bypass, significantly reducing the client and server CPU usage that would be taken up by the TCP/IP stack.

Q: What do I need to use Telescope?
A: You will need:

  1. Two PCs running Linux with RDMA support using X11. Wayland is currently not supported, as Wayland doesn't provide capture APIs.
    We plan to support Pipewire for capture once it is more well supported.
    Currently we have tested with the following distributions:
  • Ubuntu 18.04
  • Ubuntu 20.04
  • Debian 10.3
  • RHEL 8.2

  1. Two network cards with compatible RDMA implementations.
    Both cards must support the same RDMA protocol and version. Typically, RoCEv2 NICs are backwards compatible with RoCEv1 NICs, but RoCEv1-only NICs are incompatible with RoCEv2-only NICs. Note that RXE (Software RoCE) is RoCEv2 only. Please refer to the compatibility matrix for details.

  2. Enough bandwidth between the two machines to support your streaming resolution.
    Bandwidth in Mbps can be calculated by: width * height * bpp * fps / 1048576.
    Telescope currently streams at 60fps @ 32 bpp.

Q: Can I use Telescope without an RDMA Capable NIC?
A: It is possible to run Telescope without using RDMA NICs by using Software RoCE (rxe). However, the device running software RoCE will require more CPU power to process RDMA transfers, as the kernel is used for moving data rather than DMA transfers.

Q: Does Telescope support iWARP NICs?
A: We have not tested iWARP support. If you have an iWARP NIC, please try it and let us know!

Q: Can Telescope run on my Windows machine?
A: No! Windows sucks. Microsoft has decided to lock RDMA features behind Windows 10 Pro for Workstations, a $300 product.
However, we plan to modify our DMA transfer system for compatibility with Looking Glass SHM for Windows guests running on Linux machines.

Q: Does Telescope support audio?
A: Telescope does not plan to support audio on its own, so we recommend you use the PulseAudio network driver.

© 2021 Telescope Project Developers
(Tim Dettmar, Vorachat Somsuay, Jirapong Pansak, Tairo Kageyama, Kittidech Ditsuwan)
This repository is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, Version 3 with the distribution terms specified in the license.

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