Yes, RDC is excellent. In an RDC configuration, the host (i.e. the Windows PC) does all the computational work. I think there may be some algorithms that allow for graphical elements onscreen to be transferred as elements (and not bitmaps), so that graphics can be accelerated, but other than that, the computational work is done remotely.
What this means is two things:
- If you do offline calculations like rendering on a remote computer that is faster than yours, you'll see a speed benefit.
- The more visually intensive a program is, the more poorly it performs in a remote desktop environment.
I've primarily used RDC over the internet. On an intranet, to give you an example, it's typically fast enough to do most office tasks and basic graphics, but you can't play video on it effectively (just as an example). In a very simple intranet setup (e.g. gigabit ethernet and just a few clients on the network), you might get better results.
So if what you're after is to speed up non-realtime / offline calculations in Maya, you're probably fine. If you're thinking that you'll benefit for realtime stuff in Maya because of the better graphics card in the PC, you're probably on the wrong track.
What's a good program out there that does the opposite of this (control Mac computer from Windows). I know there's VNC, but are there others? Will Microsoft release a RDP client for Mac?
For Mac as host / server, the built-in server is fine to use. VNC is
the protocol to use on the client side. If you have the Apple client software, use it. Otherwise, there are different clients; many people like one called Chicken of the VNC (CotVNC).
As for Microsoft releasing a client... they already provide a client for their protocol (RDC), linked above. They're not likely to release a client for
Apple's protocol -- that would be Apple's responsibility. But there are plenty of Windows VNC programs.
