NZXT DOKO Remote Desktop Gaming Review

Performance

The DOKO is designed to be plug and play, so setup is a very easy task indeed. I simply plugged in the power cable, hooked up the ethernet cable to my home network, hooked the HDMI into my display and the whole thing powered up. The DOKO supports USB OTG, I’ve connected a wired Xbox 360 controller, a Steelseries APEX RAW keyboard and a Razer Deathadder gaming mouse; all of the devices worked without issue as soon as the DOKO was powered on.

A rather nice boot logo; reminds me of the old PS2 boot background.

The DOKO automatically searches for updates at boot, after a quick prompt screen it downloaded, auto installed then rebooted.

After the reboot, it loaded to the main interface, where I can see it has already auto-detected my desktop PC. It detects all systems on your network that have the DOKO desktop app installed, which is a very light piece of software that only took 30 seconds to install.

There’s some settings to tinker with, nothing too technical and I didn’t need to change any of these settings.

Click on the PC you want to stream and it starts the connection process, this takes a few seconds and everything is automatic, shortly after clicking I can already see my PCs desktop streaming to my external display via the DOKO. I can immediately use any of the peripherals connected to the DOKO to control my PC remotely – awesome!

What better way to test the unit that to fire up a few games. I tried Skyrim, Borderlands and Dungeon Defenders first.

On the left you can see my gaming PC, which is running Borderlands natively, on the right, is the display connected to the DOKO. I’ve also tested this on my TV in the living room and on a display upstairs, the results were the same. Also, I didn’t have any issues connecting the DOKO through a 5-port switch that I use to extend my home network.

Desktop usage on the DOKO is very good, I was able to use it to browse the web, watch YouTube videos, stream some Amazon Prime videos, even using it to play music from my PC through my surround sound and more; it all worked perfectly. Gaming is a mixed affair, there’s no lag, at least not on my own network, but it’s certainly a good idea to make sure you have a decent router that can handle the video throughput without bottlenecks. The DOKO is only capable of 30Hz, so those who game at 60Hz or above will see a difference, although I could make a joke that console gamers won’t notice much of a difference (sorry).

Playing 3rd person action games such as Dungeon Defenders, Mass Effect and Tomb Raider, to name but a few, proved very comfortable. The video quality is perfect and while the 30Hz limit may sound bad, it’s absolutely fine for when you want to break away from the desk, kick your feet up on the sofa and enjoy your games on the big screen. First person shooters, at least those that you would tend to use a keyboard and mouse on, do feel a little less tight, so twitchy shooters like CS:GO aren’t really ideal. Games like Borderlands where you can play a little more casually with a controller, are certainly better suited to streaming in this fashion.

What I do like, not really a feature as such, is that I can play games on my PC and they can be watched on the big screen. If you’re having a LAN party or a little tournament, you could use this to throw a spectator mode to a remote display so anyone not in game could see the action.