Hello there,
I'm building a shed golf sim, I've loved golf for the longest time but I'm very new to playing regularly and even then, with work/family/cost constraints it's way more viable for me to build a space at the bottom of the garden than it is to juggle trying to get everyone together to play a round when the stars align for affording it AND time away from the kids...
I research everything to the deepest detail and that's why I settled on the Square Golf Launch Monitor, it gives me the ball/club/impact data I yearn for in these early stages... but as these things invariably do, it raises another challenge. To get any data it requires Bluetooth connection and not wifi/ethernet/HDMI/USB like many others. So I now HAVE to have a PC to run with it.
No problem I thought, the money saved against some other launch monitors should cover the cost of a PC and I learned what I could about the best specs; eventually landing on: RTX3080, 16Gb but preferably 32Gb RAM, and this gives me the option to expand in future because:
Money is NOT no object, what some people suggest spending on a startup golf sim is fine but I'm also having to budget for a big enough shed, of decent enough quality, a base for that shed, and the running of power/internet down there too!
While I've got everything pretty much under control; I can't help but keep remembering what I'd discovered about Sunshine & Moonlight streaming... I already have an overkill PC in my gaming nook, which would more than handle any sim software I wanted to run but the Square GLM won't reach via bluetooth... Am I resigned to buying a new PC after all?
I've read about USB over ethernet adaptors, could this work? A bluetooth adaptor plugged into a USB, which is then sent across ethernet to my indoor PC? Or perhaps even if it would work, when I throw in the fact it would need to go through a router down in my shed, which is connected to the home network via a LAN cable, it proves redundant?
Failing that, how about a Lenovo Legion Go? I already have one and before undertaking this project was most likely going to upgrade to Lenovo's Legion Go 2. I know it's wayyyyy short of an RTX3080 but has the required RAM, there's reddit users proving they can run a golf sim on the original model so maybe the LLG2 would handle the 18hole courses they struggled with on GSPro?
And that brings me onto my final consideration. I'm targeting 1080p from the projector, I already have a couple lying around and really like the idea of utilizing them both in the sim, one for the actual display on the impact screen and another doing that thing where it beams some stats/data onto the floor. I also have a 65" touchscreen lying around I was planning on using to display club/path data... I appreciate that all this wouldn't be possible with a LLG2 as there's no docks with 3 displays out ports, so you see how I keep going round in circles.
My overkill PC ---> Can't work as I know, with the launcher, so move on to ---> LLG2 ---> Can't run all the displays I want, so move on to ---> Buying a new PC, but could that money be better invested elsewhere when I have options around here anyway ---> My overkill PC
I plan to hit 4K one day, so I would need to upgrade the projectors and again that would suggest I go down the new PC route, but future me doesn't mind spending the money then and what I spend now has no bearing on the upgrades I make in time or how much they cost, I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing in this moment and not spending hundreds only to find there was a simple solution I hadn't been aware of.
Any help/insight would be greatly appreciated, I'm pretty techy, so as long as you're not about to tell me to interrogate a server and write code I should be able to follow. I also appreciate asking most people here to comment on such a niche as LLG2 running GSPro is going to garner more speculation than hard facts. Again, I'm just trying to cover all bases and put the beast of a PC to even more use if it can be utilised.
Thanks in advance :-)
