https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-eFO1Gm--U
Adapters can be absolutely fascinating when they work I find, this looks perfect for someone like me, I want to have a dual PC setup exactly like this so I can render on one machine then game while I wait for the frames to finish. My only issue is potentially dealing with monitor switching as I have two monitors currently but presumably this sort of adaptor takes care of that? Would definitely save a lot of money in the long run not having to do silly things like buy an extra monitor just to play games on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn184dc-NZ0
Answered my question about monitors, It handles HDMI as well as USBs.
I've had good luck with the TESmart 4-port 4k HDMI KVM switch. There are also 2-port options, and 2-port-dual-monitor options.
I've mostly stopped using the actual monitor switching though; I just use remote desktop.
I feel like the hardware option would be potentially safer, wouldn't want to expose a machine to any potential hacking because of an over-reliance on software being used on a network etc.
... a KVM is hardware.
Or are you talking about RDP? If your machine is vulnerable to RDP hacking, you've done something horribly wrong in your network setup. They're (presumably) all going to be connected to the internet through a NAT anyway, so opening a firewall exception to RDP LAN connections is really not any additional risk.
My particular setup has them all on the same 1GB wired ethernet switch; for most uses it's the same responsiveness as directly using the machine on its own physical hardware.