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I think some folks are missing the really neat thing about this: remote play. Steam supports playing games remotely on another computer. So your desktop is doi

by mabbo 5y ago

I think some folks are missing the really neat thing about this: remote play. Steam supports playing games remotely on another computer. So your desktop is doing the heavy lifting, but you can view the game on your TV in the livingroom. Now you can be playing the game on your Chromebook as well. Then the next step is that Google Cloud offers you an on demand high end gaming machine, pay by the minute, which runs Steam on Windows x86 and has an instant VPN to your Chromebook. I set this up successfully once on an AWS machine and a very low end laptop running Ubuntu, but I couldn't get the hardware accelerated video encoding to work right. 3 seconds per frame made the game hilariously unplayable, but it did function.

allanbreyes 5y ago
You can do remote play on a Chromebook right now with Moonlight! Works great (for me). Some other alternatives include Parsec and Rainway, and probably a few others I'm missing.
jchw 5y ago
> Then the next step is that Google Cloud offers you an on demand high end gaming machine, pay by the minute, which runs Steam on Windows x86 and has an instant VPN to your Chromebook. I find it difficult to believe they'd offer this, given that they already have Stadia. I do see how this could be more appealing for consumers, but aside from competing with themselves, I also would be curious about the economics. Considering how expensive GPUs are, is it even possible the prices for an on-demand gaming service could ever make that much sense? With Stadia, they are making you buy the games through Stadia itself, where they would get a cut of the revenue, which probably helps subsidize the actual cost of the service a bit more. There's also other very irritating issues. For example, a litany of AAA game companies do not allow their games to be streamed via GeForce Now, even though it would be running your own copy that you bought from your Steam or other library. I assume they would fight to earn additional money on game streaming, even though the money simply isn't there. This is unfortunate, but perhaps it's OK. Lower end devices will be getting more and more powerful and eventually I'm sure even reasonably priced Chromebooks will be able to play games decently. Given this launch only applies to newer Intel processor based Chromebooks, that day is not today... but still, it certainly could be on the horizon.
- crummy 5y ago
  > I find it difficult to believe they'd offer this, given that they already have Stadia. Isn't Stadia moving to a PaaS for purposes just like this?
  - technobabbler 5y ago
    I don't think Google really has a game plan (no pun intended). They never gave Stadia the dev and marketing resources it needed so it just died on the vine. Their "pivot" is more like a surrender, I think, an act of desperation where they hope other companies will pay them for their tech that never really took off with consumers. Thing is, porting to Stadia is so much work vs flicking a switch in Steam to publish to GeForce Now. And Stadia can't cross play or cross save with anything else by default, making it a very lonely ecosystem.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      That is why they are now writing a Windows emulation layer for Stadia, which I think won't convince anyone that isn't yet bought into their Stadia sales pitch. See last week Stadia sessions for developers.
      - dmitriid 5y ago
        > they are now writing a Windows emulation layer for Stadia So they are going in the same direction as LiquidSky.
        pjmlp 5y ago
        > LiquidSky shut down their service on December 17th, 2018 while they focus their efforts on building a new streaming platform. > As of 2018, LiquidSky was acquired by Walmart and now focusing on other projects. I guess that is where Stadia will land as well.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  It feels to me like the only logical economic future for game streaming is as a value add for a game subscription service (so like, xgp and xcloud as a logical pairing).
technobabbler 5y ago
Every time I've tried Steam Play, even over hardwired gigabit, it's been laggy, buggy, and crash prone. There was always display switching problems, controllers and keyboards not being detected correctly, graphical issues, etc. Just a PITA. GeForce Now works much better and doesn't require you to have your own GPU. Do need fast internet though.
- sen 5y ago
  I use Remote Play regularly (bed-bound lots due to medical issues) and never had a problem, but have found it’s finicky on your setup. Eg it never really worked on my ISP-provided modem/router but once I got a UDM (for unrelated reasons) it worked flawlessly and has ever since. The fact I can lie in bed with laptop plugged into bedroom TV and use a PS4 controller to play games running on my gaming PC in another room is truly awesome.
  - technobabbler 5y ago
    What is a UDM? And I believe you. I wish I knew what the variables were. I really wanted to like Remote Play and even got special hardware for it (Steam Link, Shield TV, etc.) and still couldn't get it to be reliable.
    - alphager 5y ago
      Unifi Dream Machine, a prosumer router/wifi AP combo.
      - technobabbler 5y ago
        Roger that, will have to check it out!
    - sen 5y ago
      Yeah as alphager said, it’s a router by Ubiquiti that solved a lot of my networking issues. I wish I knew what exactly it was that made Remote Play work, but that was just one of the many things that didn’t work before then I realised later suddenly worked with my new router.

by mabbo 5y ago

allanbreyes 5y ago

You can do remote play on a Chromebook right now with Moonlight! Works great (for me). Some other alternatives include Parsec and Rainway, and probably a few others I'm missing.

jchw 5y ago

> Then the next step is that Google Cloud offers you an on demand high end gaming machine, pay by the minute, which runs Steam on Windows x86 and has an instant VPN to your Chromebook. I find it difficult to believe they'd offer this, given that they already have Stadia. I do see how this could be more appealing for consumers, but aside from competing with themselves, I also would be curious about the economics. Considering how expensive GPUs are, is it even possible the prices for an on-demand gaming service could ever make that much sense? With Stadia, they are making you buy the games through Stadia itself, where they would get a cut of the revenue, which probably helps subsidize the actual cost of the service a bit more. There's also other very irritating issues. For example, a litany of AAA game companies do not allow their games to be streamed via GeForce Now, even though it would be running your own copy that you bought from your Steam or other library. I assume they would fight to earn additional money on game streaming, even though the money simply isn't there. This is unfortunate, but perhaps it's OK. Lower end devices will be getting more and more powerful and eventually I'm sure even reasonably priced Chromebooks will be able to play games decently. Given this launch only applies to newer Intel processor based Chromebooks, that day is not today... but still, it certainly could be on the horizon.

crummy 5y ago
> I find it difficult to believe they'd offer this, given that they already have Stadia. Isn't Stadia moving to a PaaS for purposes just like this?
- technobabbler 5y ago
  I don't think Google really has a game plan (no pun intended). They never gave Stadia the dev and marketing resources it needed so it just died on the vine. Their "pivot" is more like a surrender, I think, an act of desperation where they hope other companies will pay them for their tech that never really took off with consumers. Thing is, porting to Stadia is so much work vs flicking a switch in Steam to publish to GeForce Now. And Stadia can't cross play or cross save with anything else by default, making it a very lonely ecosystem.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    That is why they are now writing a Windows emulation layer for Stadia, which I think won't convince anyone that isn't yet bought into their Stadia sales pitch. See last week Stadia sessions for developers.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      > they are now writing a Windows emulation layer for Stadia So they are going in the same direction as LiquidSky.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        > LiquidSky shut down their service on December 17th, 2018 while they focus their efforts on building a new streaming platform. > As of 2018, LiquidSky was acquired by Walmart and now focusing on other projects. I guess that is where Stadia will land as well.
mikepurvis 5y ago
It feels to me like the only logical economic future for game streaming is as a value add for a game subscription service (so like, xgp and xcloud as a logical pairing).

technobabbler 5y ago

Every time I've tried Steam Play, even over hardwired gigabit, it's been laggy, buggy, and crash prone. There was always display switching problems, controllers and keyboards not being detected correctly, graphical issues, etc. Just a PITA. GeForce Now works much better and doesn't require you to have your own GPU. Do need fast internet though.

sen 5y ago
I use Remote Play regularly (bed-bound lots due to medical issues) and never had a problem, but have found it’s finicky on your setup. Eg it never really worked on my ISP-provided modem/router but once I got a UDM (for unrelated reasons) it worked flawlessly and has ever since. The fact I can lie in bed with laptop plugged into bedroom TV and use a PS4 controller to play games running on my gaming PC in another room is truly awesome.
- technobabbler 5y ago
  What is a UDM? And I believe you. I wish I knew what the variables were. I really wanted to like Remote Play and even got special hardware for it (Steam Link, Shield TV, etc.) and still couldn't get it to be reliable.
  - alphager 5y ago
    Unifi Dream Machine, a prosumer router/wifi AP combo.
    - technobabbler 5y ago
      Roger that, will have to check it out!
  - sen 5y ago
    Yeah as alphager said, it’s a router by Ubiquiti that solved a lot of my networking issues. I wish I knew what exactly it was that made Remote Play work, but that was just one of the many things that didn’t work before then I realised later suddenly worked with my new router.