4 ms·

I just tried out Nivida's alternative - Geforce Now - this weekend and I am quite impressed. There is a free version where you que up, otherwise its $10/mo or

I just tried out Nivida's alternative - Geforce Now - this weekend and I am quite impressed. There is a free version where you que up, otherwise its $10/mo or $20/mo if you want 4k and a dedicated 4080. The main selling point to me is that you can sync Steam, Gog, Epic, Ubisoft, or EA accounts and play any of your purchased games that are compatible. You can play in the browser, via a dedicated program, or with one of their Shield TV boxes. The latter would run ~$150 + controllers or mouse/keyboard, so that is part of the way to a PS4.

solardev 3y ago
FYI, GeForce Now also works fine on a plain old Chromecast with Google TV ($30), which you can connect standard Bluetooth controllers to (say, Xbox controllers or leftover Stadia controllers with the firmware upgrade). The Shield is a luxury version that does basically the same thing with more horsepower. I imagine you can use any similar device (like an old Android phone or an old laptop) for the same purposes... if it can stream Netflix, it can run Geforce Now. The main downside of GFN is that it's a publisher opt-in, and many games aren't available on it . But for the games in its catalog, it works REALLY well -- so much so that I much prefer it to the dedicated gaming desktop I used to have, because it's so much quieter and cheaper (both in terms of an upfront hardware purchase and in electricity costs, between the GPU itself and needing to cool down the room). There are also services like shadow.tech and AirGPU that let you run virtual Windows boxes with a GPU, cheaper than you'd get from AWS or GCP, but able to run any game you want.
- binkHN 3y ago
  > ...GeForce Now also works fine on a plain old Chromecast with Google TV ($30), which you can connect standard Bluetooth controllers to (say, Xbox controllers or leftover Stadia controllers with the firmware upgrade). How is the latency in this configuration? I thought the main reason Google used the Wi-Fi built into the Stadia controllers was to get around this.
  - solardev 3y ago
    I wouldn't want to play a shooter on it, but (say) Baldur's Gate 3 co-op with Xbox controllers worked great. Latency wasn't an issue. I think the Bluetooth latency is going to be less than the wifi latency (Chromecast has no ethernet port) plus the roundtrip to the Nvidia servers anyway. (edit: Chromecast with Google TV, that is. Chromecast Ultra, a different device, does have ethernet) I've also used GeForce Now on a hardwired gigabit fiber connection on my desktop, and even then I wouldn't consider the latency suitable for competitive first-person shooters. But it worked great for most other genres of games. Basically anything will work fine where a software cursor is used (where you don't update frames until a hover or a click), as opposed to a crosshaired 3D game that requires constant frame redraws on every mouse motion (shooters). That's just me though... as a lifelong PC gamer, many actual consoles + smart TVs (especially when they're not in gaming mode) also have unacceptable latency to me, but I think millions of people wouldn't even notice. It's worth a shot, especially if you can just hook up an existing computer to your TV (via HDMI or whatever) and get a feel for it that way. The Stadia controller thing over wifi thing was always bullshit. I had their controllers and it was never noticeably better or worse than a standard Xbox controller wirelessly connected to GeForce Now. And once Stadia died they enabled Bluetooth on it and it still works fine. shrug* Stadia's marketing made a lot of questionable, and sometimes demonstrably false, claims.
    - binkHN 3y ago
      > Chromecast has no ethernet port I exclusively used the Chromecast Ultra that had the Ethernet port in the power supply when using Stadia with the controllers.
      - solardev 3y ago
        Yeah, that'd probably work better, but any hardwired connection would vs WiFi. i.e. it's not how your controllers connect to the device that matters, but how your device connects to the Nvidia servers. GFN works WAY better on a hardwired connection, but it's tolerable on a wifi TV (if occasionally glitchy, in terms of compression artifacts)... I wouldn't call that latency per se, just wifi instability.
- ortusdux 3y ago
  >> GeForce Now also works fine on a plain old Chromecast with Google TV Thanks, I did not know that!

solardev 3y ago

FYI, GeForce Now also works fine on a plain old Chromecast with Google TV ($30), which you can connect standard Bluetooth controllers to (say, Xbox controllers or leftover Stadia controllers with the firmware upgrade). The Shield is a luxury version that does basically the same thing with more horsepower. I imagine you can use any similar device (like an old Android phone or an old laptop) for the same purposes... if it can stream Netflix, it can run Geforce Now. The main downside of GFN is that it's a publisher opt-in, and many games aren't available on it . But for the games in its catalog, it works REALLY well -- so much so that I much prefer it to the dedicated gaming desktop I used to have, because it's so much quieter and cheaper (both in terms of an upfront hardware purchase and in electricity costs, between the GPU itself and needing to cool down the room). There are also services like shadow.tech and AirGPU that let you run virtual Windows boxes with a GPU, cheaper than you'd get from AWS or GCP, but able to run any game you want.

binkHN 3y ago
> ...GeForce Now also works fine on a plain old Chromecast with Google TV ($30), which you can connect standard Bluetooth controllers to (say, Xbox controllers or leftover Stadia controllers with the firmware upgrade). How is the latency in this configuration? I thought the main reason Google used the Wi-Fi built into the Stadia controllers was to get around this.
- solardev 3y ago
  I wouldn't want to play a shooter on it, but (say) Baldur's Gate 3 co-op with Xbox controllers worked great. Latency wasn't an issue. I think the Bluetooth latency is going to be less than the wifi latency (Chromecast has no ethernet port) plus the roundtrip to the Nvidia servers anyway. (edit: Chromecast with Google TV, that is. Chromecast Ultra, a different device, does have ethernet) I've also used GeForce Now on a hardwired gigabit fiber connection on my desktop, and even then I wouldn't consider the latency suitable for competitive first-person shooters. But it worked great for most other genres of games. Basically anything will work fine where a software cursor is used (where you don't update frames until a hover or a click), as opposed to a crosshaired 3D game that requires constant frame redraws on every mouse motion (shooters). That's just me though... as a lifelong PC gamer, many actual consoles + smart TVs (especially when they're not in gaming mode) also have unacceptable latency to me, but I think millions of people wouldn't even notice. It's worth a shot, especially if you can just hook up an existing computer to your TV (via HDMI or whatever) and get a feel for it that way. The Stadia controller thing over wifi thing was always bullshit. I had their controllers and it was never noticeably better or worse than a standard Xbox controller wirelessly connected to GeForce Now. And once Stadia died they enabled Bluetooth on it and it still works fine. shrug* Stadia's marketing made a lot of questionable, and sometimes demonstrably false, claims.
  - binkHN 3y ago
    > Chromecast has no ethernet port I exclusively used the Chromecast Ultra that had the Ethernet port in the power supply when using Stadia with the controllers.
    - solardev 3y ago
      Yeah, that'd probably work better, but any hardwired connection would vs WiFi. i.e. it's not how your controllers connect to the device that matters, but how your device connects to the Nvidia servers. GFN works WAY better on a hardwired connection, but it's tolerable on a wifi TV (if occasionally glitchy, in terms of compression artifacts)... I wouldn't call that latency per se, just wifi instability.
ortusdux 3y ago
>> GeForce Now also works fine on a plain old Chromecast with Google TV Thanks, I did not know that!