Given the recent controversies surrounding Discord and the fact that the end user is a product of Twitch, I wonder if there is any “bare bone” solution to stream my gaming session to a friend who’s on Windows. I’d rather that they didn’t have to do anything except clicking on a link or perhaps installing a piece of software but with no need to do any configuration. From their perspective, it should "just work.

On my side
Should I set up a webserver into which I feed an OBS stream? Or can perhaps ffmpeg work as a server on it’s own? I’m on Arch Linux, playing games on Steam, within dwm within X11.

On my friend’s side
No idea how a windows user is supposed to receive such a video feed.

Edit: text and voice chat, we’re considering Signal for.

  • DefinitelyNotBirds@lemmy.mlBanned
    2·
    3 days ago

    Bare bone streaming tools like Sunshine work cross platform if your friend runs Moonlight on Windows. This setup beats Discord or Twitch for low latency gaming sessions with friends. Have you tried Sunshine and Moonlight yet?

  • Ooops@feddit.org
    11·
    4 days ago

    Discord alternatives are complicated, because Discord is conceptual bullshit. It started as voice communication, yet became popular for the text communication.

    So you won’t find a good replacement (unless something new created in particular to mimic discord), because the things it now provides are better handled by seperate applications.

    PS: OBS should already work on it’s own, without a dedicated webserver on your side. Basically every media program (also browser) should be able to handle streams

    OBS’ WHIP (WebRTC-HTTP Ingestion) support should allow direct connection to web browsers.

    (I’ll will take a look at it when I’m home)

      • Ooops@feddit.org
        1·
        4 days ago

        wtf?

        Pleass tell me you are just talking about discord channels instead of proper issue trackers and not something even more stupid…

        • Landless2029@lemmy.world
          3·
          4 days ago

          Both.

          People have locked channels with info instead of a readme in a repo.

          And

          Channels for opening issues with topics for bug tracking.

          For example check nexus mods authors…

    • durinn@programming.devOP
      2·
      4 days ago

      Thanks! I just installed OBS - also trying out a few variants from the AUR - but it gave an error saying “couldn’t load frontend-tools plugin”, didn’t recognize/pick up the Steam and/or the game’s window, even though I tried the game in various screen modes, and WHIP wasn’t in the streaming servers/sources selection section. I did some limited troubleshooting, but gave up, because my friend says they have Steam too. We’ll try out Steam’s “native” broadcasting function later tonight and see if we’re satisfied with that + chat/voice chat through Signal.

      Thanks for your time and input! :)

      • Ooops@feddit.org
        3·
        4 days ago

        Oh, I assumed you already had setup OBS…

        And WHIP is probably unneccessarily complicated anyway.

        I was able to stream the output of my V4L2loopback-device (the virtual camera created with OBS’ output) to a browser accessing localhost:<port> with Motion without any setup other than creating a single-line config file defining the port…

        • durinn@programming.devOP
          1·
          4 days ago

          Yeah, sorry, I was unclear on several parts in the post. Thanks anyways! If Steam’s native broadcasting turns out to such, I’ll try something else.

    • zealouscurmedgeon@lemmy.ml
      1·
      4 days ago

      There’s quite a few Discord alternatives. IMO Stoat and especially Fluxer are pretty discord-like. Fluxer is pretty new and still working out kinks. They support (Stoat) or will support (Fluxer) self-hosting and Fluxer will implement (limited) E2EE. I have heard of other alternatives like Root, TeamSpeak, Mumble but cannot speak to them.

      • Ooops@feddit.org
        3·
        4 days ago

        Teamspeak and Mumble (which I prefer because it’s free and open-source… also already vastly superior sound quality years ago when Teamspeak was stil the common option most peope used) are indeed “separate applications” doing only one of the jobs… voice communication in this case.

        • stringere@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          4 days ago

          Boggles my mind that teamspeak has always sounded better than discord, and yet dicksword swallowed TS’s market. Something teamspeak handled (haven’t used in ages, cannot say if it still does) was people speaking at the same time.

      • Hexarei@beehaw.org
        2·
        4 days ago

        The main trouble with Stoat and Fluxer from what I’ve seen is that they’re both trying too hard to be Discord, while neither of them are quite hitting the mark. They’ll be interesting to follow in the future

    • mub@lemmy.ml
      2·
      2 days ago

      Electron is a relatively recent thing. What did Devs do in the past?

      • ormith@lemmy.world
        2·
        2 days ago

        Native software, usually only for Windows. And probably no webapp or a very limited one.

      • airikr@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        Yes, but if you ask me, native softwares is not webapps in any kind and form.

    • Rando@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      4 days ago

      Second this, me and my friends have been using it since the day it came out (I am the one hosting it) and it checks all the boxes for us.

      I was never able to get my group to switch away from Discord but this has finally done it

      • airikr@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        4 days ago

        Noice :) And yes, it looks like Discord and works like Discord for each update (if not better) and I have searched for such software for many years. Based in EU no less :D

        Matrix with Commet would have been a good alternative for me, but I hate how Matrix is built (you are literally forbidden to delete channels you have created).

  • onlinepersona@programming.dev
    2·
    3 days ago

    TL; DR use Jami

    You want something to stream low latency, don’t you? Honestly, that means peer to peer, not centralised (I. E streaming to a server which then streams to your friend). OBS will use large buffers (multiple seconds) that are then sent out to the server.

    I would suggest using Jami. It’s peer to peer chat with peer to peer video and audio calls. It’s the simplest solution I’ve found. Matrix has MatrixRTC (or whatever they call it) but you will need the Element client and will need to activate RTC in the “labs”. Not sure if it’s in the stable build or the beta.

    Signal can also stream peer to peer (webrtc like every other) but it compresses a lot and encrypts on top of it. You could have low latency but you will have visual artefacts and there’s no way to tweak the settings.

  • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    31·
    4 days ago

    You might want to try a service based on XMPP instead of Matrix due to how Matrix caches all the chats its users are in. If you want to go the XMPP route, Movim is the most similar to Discord.

    For streaming, I’ve heard of Owncast as a FOSS alternative. I don’t stream nor do I watch them, so please don’t consider this more than pointing out what’s available

  • juipeltje@lemmy.world
    2·
    4 days ago

    Luckily i barely use discord, but i have one small usecase for it where it is pretty much irreplacable, which is that i use it to voice chat with a friend when playing games with crossplay support, since he is on ps5, and discord now having ps5 support makes that the go-to app.

  • pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    4 days ago

    I have the same question, but a particular problem I am having is the need to chat via text while streaming instead of audio for accessibility purposes. Discord’s game overlay worked okay for this (not great, but usable) on Windows, but doesn’t run at all on Linux, and every alternative I look at seems very voice chat focused. Steam does have chat options within the overlay but doesn’t seem to have good chat history options.

    • durinn@programming.devOP
      1·
      4 days ago

      I’m using a separate little laptop to chat, in this case, with Signal. It’s a little inconvenient, but on the other hand, if you don’t have multiple monitors, you are at least free from chat notifications in your gaming screen/window. :)

      Yet another though, if you have an Android phone, just plug in a keyboard and use the phone for chat. :D

      • pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        4 days ago

        I’ve considered that a few times, and have done the 'phone chatting while gaming" solution, but it gets pretty unwieldy quickly in my experience, sadly.

  • procapra@lemmy.ml
    2·
    4 days ago

    Whatever your preferred matrix client is. That’s the alternative. Element, Nheko, Fluffychat, all decent options.

    Is it perfect? Hardly. Is it the best you’re going to get short of some cheap discord knockoff? Yes.

    • Holytimes@sh.itjust.works
      12·
      3 days ago

      Matrix is a beyond dog shit discord replacement.

      If you need something to replace teams sure it’s passable. By dear fuck is matrix garbage.

  • ISOmorph@feddit.org
    2·
    4 days ago

    Never tried it myself, but doesn’t steam have a feature to stream to your friends? Your friend would just need to install the client and create an account. All the other options in this thread are just if you want to serve your streams to a broader audience