Topic: Cloud-Gaming

[redk84]

Hi
Was a "gamer" as a kid and not much of one now in my adult years....

Have a few tech savvy mates who are going on about cloud-gaming, especially with announcements from Microsoft (Project xcloud), PSN existing already and more recently Google (stadia)...

Gaming is big money and it seems that this is going to be the next huge step and quite revolutionary.

As I understand it you will be able to effectively play games without needing dedicated consoles, i.e be able to stream as you play...

Will this be something which the main players (Sony and Microsoft) will dictate or as with Google now coming into the market with all its servers and ready-made clientele through youtube (for example), be the next major opportunity for a company to establish itself?

As with the way we consume television and music has become split over various providers with no end in sight, I am guessing gaming is going this way?

Not necessarily questions that people will have an answer to but it is an area that I'm interested in and was hoping this topic would be somewhere people could discuss   

[Upinsmoke]

Yes gaming is going this way but in my opinion still at least a generation away from becoming mainstream. Two main obstacles for me are that i will always have lag, I don't give a shit what Google said, people lagged and had resolution issues with Assassins Creed through chrome and that was only 1080p. Google were chatting about 4k and even 8k. Absolute pie in the sky talk in 2019. No mention of price and no mention of speed requirements tells you all you need to know right now. I mean people will use it of they give zero shits over graphical fidelity and frame rate etc. But its not for me.

[WhereAngelsPlay]

Onlive wasn't too bad and that was years ago,whilst it was great for single player stuff it was nowhere near good enough for multi,tech has come so far since then I would expect the next launch to be near spot on.

[has gone odd]

Not for me either, It will have some kind of audience though. I have collector blood so having physical copies appeals to me more, kids today perhaps not so much.

However, to have a zero, or near to zero latency streaming game is pure fantasy right now. Then you factor in the speed and quality of fibre and broadband and you reduce your audience even further.

Netflix is fine for renting a movie or TV show, gamers want to tweak and modify their experience which you would be unable to do over s stream. So no, wont be giving streaming games another thought.

[johnybarnes]

I bought an Nvidia Shield mostly for playing films in 4k but I've also tried the streaming games feature - I have 100mb Virgin connection I think and it streamed decent quality games with no issue. Yous in the know will tell me its not 1080p/4K but it looked high quality. I was mostly impressed by the convenience of playing a game I didn't own within a few seconds of clicking on it, zero downloading.

[Upinsmoke]

I've got the shield too as well as 100mb virgin broadband.

It does stream at 1080p but I've had issues where it drops to 560p and there is some latency issues. But its pretty good considering you get a few games for free with it.

[Trim0582]

At some point there will be a switch over, especially for consoles, it would allow the manufacturer to create very low spec machine and do server side process, like Citrix's ICA protocol  only sends screen refresh and mouse and keyboard clicks, that is fine when creating a Word document, but 4k? Not for a while.

I have BT Fibre to my home at 120mb/s and I have huge issues streaming games on playstation now and they only stream at 720p, I get lag, screen tearing and really fuzzy low definition images so frequently, I don't stream games anymore.

The hosting technology is there already but the bandwidth to deliver to the end user isn't, not sure even the 5G network could handle that.

[Crimson]

So, anything happend on this front since 2019?

I want to play games on PC like I used to when I was younger, but don't have a machine for it now. I'm also not interested in investing in one. What I do have is a Mac mini (2018), which of course is terrible for games.

I was looking at Shadow (?) earlier as I read somewhere they had the Total War-series on their platform.

Anyone have any experience with this or other services and can give some input if it's worthwhile (for me) to spend any time on?

[MBL?]

I’ve tried ps now, ge force and stadia. It really depends on the type of games you play. Anything that needs fast reactions is not doable in my experience as there is noticeable lag. It also may be worse depending on where you are compared to the servers meaning one of the services might be good for me but terrible for you and vice versa.

It wasn’t for me to be honest and even the games that are suitable for it can drop in quality beyond what is acceptable at times.

[naYoRHa2b]

I've tried PSNow, Xcloud and GeForce Now. All have their pro's and cons. From my experience GEForce Now seems the best in terms of quality. It's responsive and a decent picture. PSNow actually seemed to have the least amount of latency but the poorest picture quality and Xcloud had the best picture but the most latency which meant games like Forza and Gears just lagged like crazy from the point of steering and shooting.

I've seen loads of people have better experiences though so it seems like it varies massively.