Deployment Overview

Architecture Overview

CloudGaming is a peer-to-peer cloud gaming and remote desktop solution that streams Windows applications to browsers with ultra-low latency using WebRTC.

Browser Client
    │  WebSocket (SDP/ICE)
    ▼
Signaling Server (Node.js :3002)  ◄──► Redis Pub/Sub (multi-node)
    │
    ▼
Windows Host (C++ / Go)
  ├─ WGC Capture  →  D3D11 GPU copy  →  FFmpeg NVENC/QSV/AMF H.264
  ├─ WASAPI Audio  →  Opus encode
  └─ Pion WebRTC  ──── SRTP video+audio ──►  Client
                   ◄─── DataChannels (input) ──  Client

Matchmaker (Node.js :3000)  — host registration & session assignment

Components

The platform consists of four main components:

Component	Technology	Purpose
Windows Host	C++ (WGC), Go (Pion WebRTC)	Captures and encodes game video/audio, handles input
Signaling Server	Node.js, WebSocket, Redis	Coordinates WebRTC connections between hosts and clients
Matchmaker	Node.js, Express, Redis	Manages host registration and assigns clients to available hosts
Client	HTML5, WebRTC	Browser-based game streaming client

Prerequisites

For All Components

Node.js 16+ and npm
Redis 6+ (for production multi-instance deployment)
Git

For Windows Host

The Windows host requires a modern NVIDIA, Intel, or AMD GPU with hardware encoding support.

Windows 10 version 1903+ or Windows 11
Visual Studio 2019 or 2022 with C++ desktop development workload
NVIDIA GPU (NVENC), Intel GPU (QuickSync), or AMD GPU (AMF)
FFmpeg with hardware encoding libraries
Go 1.19+ (for WebRTC stack)

For Production Deployment

Signaling Server: 1-2 GB RAM, websocket support
Matchmaker: 512 MB RAM minimum
Redis: 256 MB RAM minimum, persistent storage recommended
Windows Host: 4+ GB RAM, dedicated GPU, Windows Server or Desktop

Deployment Order

Deploy Redis

Set up Redis first as both the signaling server and matchmaker depend on it.

# Local development
redis-server

# Production: Use managed Redis (Railway, AWS ElastiCache, etc.)

Deploy Signaling Server

Deploy the WebSocket signaling server that coordinates WebRTC connections.See Signaling Server Deployment

Deploy Matchmaker

Deploy the matchmaker service for host registration and client assignment.See Matchmaker Deployment

Build and Run Windows Host

Compile the C++ host application and configure it to connect to your signaling and matchmaker services.See Host Setup

Deploy Client

Host the static HTML client on any web server or CDN.See Client Deployment

Production Architecture

For production deployments, consider this setup:

Multiple Signaling Servers: Scale horizontally behind a load balancer, using Redis pub/sub for cross-instance communication
Matchmaker: Single instance or active-standby for high availability
Redis: Managed Redis with persistence and automatic failover
Windows Hosts: Multiple hosts in different regions for load distribution
Client: Served via CDN (Cloudflare, Vercel, etc.) with HTTPS

Environment Configuration

Key environment variables used across components:

Variable	Component	Purpose	Default
`REDIS_URL`	Signaling, Matchmaker	Redis connection string	`redis://127.0.0.1:6379`
`WS_PORT`	Signaling Server	WebSocket port	`3002`
`PORT`	Matchmaker	HTTP API port	`3000`
`HOST_SECRET`	Matchmaker, Host	Shared secret for host authentication	`to-change-in-prod`
`SIGNALING_PUBLIC_URL`	Matchmaker	Public WSS URL for clients	-

All services support .env files for configuration. See individual deployment guides for complete variable lists.

Quick Start (Local Development)

For local testing, you can run all components on a single machine:

# Terminal 1: Redis
redis-server

# Terminal 2: Signaling Server
cd Server
npm install
npm start

# Terminal 3: Matchmaker
cd Server
node mm_server/Matchmaker.js

# Terminal 4: Client
cd Client/html-server
npx http-server . -p 8080

# Terminal 5: Build and run Host (see host-setup.mdx)

Security Considerations

Before deploying to production:

Change HOST_SECRET to a strong random value
Enable WSS (WebSocket Secure) by setting REQUIRE_WSS=true
Configure ALLOWED_ORIGINS to restrict client origins
Use HTTPS for the matchmaker API
Consider enabling JWT authentication with ENABLE_AUTH=true
Set up firewall rules to protect Redis

Next Steps

Windows Host Setup - Build and configure the Windows capture host
Signaling Server - Deploy the WebRTC signaling infrastructure
Matchmaker - Set up host registration and session management
Client Deployment - Host the browser client

Getting Started

Deployment

Components

Configuration

Operations

Architecture Overview

Components

Prerequisites

For All Components

For Windows Host

For Production Deployment

Deployment Order

Production Architecture

Environment Configuration

Quick Start (Local Development)

Security Considerations

Next Steps

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Getting Started

Deployment

Components

Configuration

Operations

Documentation Index

​Architecture Overview

​Components

​Prerequisites

​For All Components

​For Windows Host

​For Production Deployment

​Deployment Order

​Production Architecture

​Environment Configuration

​Quick Start (Local Development)

​Security Considerations

​Next Steps

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Architecture Overview

Components

Prerequisites

For All Components

For Windows Host

For Production Deployment

Deployment Order

Production Architecture

Environment Configuration

Quick Start (Local Development)

Security Considerations

Next Steps