There is lack of documentation on this theme, tutorials videos etc. I found some old and for ue4. Is it possible to stream from your local computer over public IP address so when I go to coffe shop I can stream my UE5 scene from my computer at home? And can somebody put me in that direction, tutorial, video something where to start? I want to avoid payed subscriptions on some sites because I have my own domain and I would like to post on it (use it as some canal for my computer at home (I am noob at networking)).
Question is these sites that pixel stream your scene, how do they utilize rendering?? What rig do they have?? what if let say 20 people at same time from different locations open browser and went on same IP for scene ? How that work I guess you have to have some serious rig to operate that real time. What is threshold if there is for this ?
This is so many questions about this, but it would be life saver for my presentations if this is possible.
I completely understand your concerns, and they’re very valid. Here’s what I can share based on my experience:
Yes, it is possible to stream from your local computer over a public IP address. However, you’ll need to run the signaling server on a cloud machine with a public IP address. It can even be a cheap virtual machine (VM).
Here’s a brief rundown:
Run the app on your local machine with the following commands:
Your local machine will connect to the signaling server, and you can use the public IP of the signaling server to stream the app.
However, there are a few challenges you might face:
Latency: Depending on the distance between your local machine and the signaling server, you might experience additional latencies.
Home Network Performance: If you’re using a typical home network, performance might not be optimal and could include packet drops.
Multiple Users: If 20 people connect to the same IP, they’ll be competing for control, as only one app instance would be running on your computer. Everyone would be interacting with the same session.
We’ve used a platform called Streampixel: https://www.streampixel.io/ , which we found to be quite cost-effective at €99 per month for unlimited streaming minutes. They operate a cluster of RTX 4090 GPUs. So, whenever someone accesses the streaming link for your project, a new app instance runs on one of their dedicated VMs. Plus, they let you embed the streaming within your custom domain.
Setting up custom pixel streaming solutions requires a lot of coding and testing, as the current infrastructure primarily offers a starting point. For scaling, pixel streaming platforms are ideal unless you have a robust team of developers and DevOps engineers.
I hope this answers your questions. I enjoy helping people with pixel streaming, as I faced similar challenges a couple of years back. My research and development helped me create the platform I needed.
Thanks for your reply, I will just need to clarify my questions more.
For my local computer coffe shop pixel streaming I need it so I can present it to client, my work is design field, so it would be good to use it, because you dont land jobs that easily and 99€ is too much for me if I fail
For Pixel streaming site 99 € is fair price for month, considering that that will be payed from client I think it is fair price
What is signaling server( I am noob for networking) and can you put step by step what to do so I can run this ?
Challenges: Latency, Home network performance I guess I need some numbers to know what we deal with , I have 200Mbps download, upload 15Mbps and ping is 6ms, is that enough for local ?
For multiple users, lets say 20 people I didn’t ask that for my local configuration but for site like streampixel.io and similar sites. My clients want to be capable at least 20 users at same time. How much users can handle 1 GPU. Does it multiple cluster GPU rise users exponentially or linear? Is there some numbers on this?
How far these servers can be? I opened some servers from Europe that are in USA and it open heavy scene without problem, although it is design for game would be laggy.
Is his streampixel.io somehow connected to you ? I see they have discord also that would maybe help also.
I’m unfamiliar with the streampixel.io platform so I’ll let InfinityVoid provide more info on that topic.
As for what the signalling server is, it is a server that both the Unreal Engine and the remote peers connect to in order to manage connections. More information can be found on the Unreal Engine docs, both here and here.
Yeah, this is actually a very common question, and you’re thinking in the right direction. Short answer: yes, you can stream your UE5 scene from your home PC and access it from somewhere like a coffee shop. But the hard part isn’t Unreal, it’s networking.
If your computer is at home, it needs to be reachable from the internet. That usually means you need a public IP (or something like dynamic DNS), and you’ll have to set up port forwarding on your router so incoming traffic reaches your machine. On top of that, WebRTC (which Pixel Streaming uses) really prefers HTTPS, so you’ll likely need an SSL certificate too.
Where most people get stuck is NAT and firewalls. For example, coffee shop networks are often very restrictive, and your home network might also be behind something called CGNAT (basically meaning your ISP doesn’t give you a real public IP). In those cases, even if everything looks correct, the connection just won’t establish unless you use a TURN server (like CoTURN) to relay traffic.
If you’re just starting out, don’t try to solve everything at once. First get Pixel Streaming working on your local network. Then try accessing it from another device on a different network (like your phone hotspot). Only after that start worrying about HTTPS and TURN. This step-by-step approach saves a lot of frustration.
About your other question on how these streaming services work: your Unreal app runs on a machine with a GPU, renders the scene there, and then sends a video stream to the browser using WebRTC. NVIDIA GPUs are commonly used because of NVENC, which handles real-time video encoding efficiently.
Now for the “what if 20 people join” part. There are two ways this is usually handled. Either everyone connects to the same running instance and just watches (or shares control), or each user gets their own separate instance. If you want proper interaction per user, you almost always need one instance per person. That’s where things get heavy, because now you’re scaling machines, ports, sessions, etc. It’s basically turning into a mini cloud infrastructure problem.
If you’re running everything from home, the first limitation you’ll hit is your upload speed. Even a single high-quality stream can take a big chunk of it. Then comes stability and network restrictions. It can work for personal use or small demos, but it gets unreliable pretty quickly when real users are involved.
If your goal is just “I want to open my UE scene anywhere and show it to people without things breaking,” then honestly this is exactly why platforms like Vagon Streams exist. Instead of dealing with port forwarding, TURN servers, scaling, and all that, you just upload your build and stream it.
