Shadow - stream a high end PC to you device, play games on ultra

[Herbalizer]

I shall certainly report back.  Doesn't seem that hard to shift them if you wanted to sell it, lots of people on the Discord group looking to purchase one.

 

 

[mexos]

I’ve been playing Assetto Corsa Competizione with shadow ghost and my T300 wheel set up. It’s glorious. 

[tronied]

Not sure if anyone else has experienced any improvement yet, but they've updated all the apps and added a new lower 5mb streaming option. Went into a coffee shop this morning and connected on a crappy 7mb / 1mb up on my iPad. Using my new PC game pass, I downloaded Metro Exodus and booted it up. There were a few judders here and there but for the most part it was perfectly playable! It was surreal and crazy using Wifi on such a shoddy connection to be able to play a high-end PC game on my iPad. Unfortunately they still haven't added an on-screen controller option yet and so all I was able to do was look around and then quit.

 

Still, got into work and found it now works connecting from my MacBook Pro at work too.! Won't be playing too much of it though as I'm sure I'll get a few raised eyebrows if I start doing that on my lunch break 

[Talk Show Host]

I can't see any of these services surviving now that xCloud is going to be deployed. Not mentioning Stadia or whatever Sony does. 

[tronied]

I agree especially if Microsoft go with an aggressive pricing strategy and link it in with one of their game passes. At the moment I'm paying £30 / month for this, but if I could get GamePass and streaming for £10-15 / month with rotating games on the platform then it will be worth a look. The only thing I would say is that Shadow offers the feature of not being tied to a specific platform i.e. Windows Store / Google Store. I can install whatever platform (Origin, Steam, GOG, Battle.net etc) on my shadow instance with my existing games and no restrictions. The is a massive bonus especially if you've a large backlog of games which you actively play. Still, I guess I'll wait to see what Microsoft come up with as Google Stadia didn't win me over with having to buy all my games again on their platform.

[mexos]

I can get games for peanuts off CD keys to play on Shadow. Microsoft's £54.99 MSRP can gtfo.

 

Example: F1 2019 for £25 in stead of £45. 

 

 

 

 

[Dudley]

6 hours ago, Talk Show Host said:

I can't see any of these services surviving now that xCloud is going to be deployed. Not mentioning Stadia or whatever Sony does. 

 

xCloud maybe but the problem with Stadia here is that anything you buy on Stadia will die with Stadia when Google get bored.

 

Shadow you can use anything you have on Steam.

 

Or GoG.

 

Or Epic.

 

Or that you wrote yourself in Visual Studio.

 

Or that you wrote yourself in Visual Studio USING Shadow.

[mexos]

The cost is using Windows. I hate Windows. Last time it wanted updates it took almost 2 hours. I didn't get to play Assetto Corsa. Get to fuck.

[tronied]

They've just updated their hardware config options. The current setup will (from February) set you back £14.99 for a GTX 1080 equivalent. There are two new options which are £29.99 for RTX 2080 or £49.99 for an RTX Titan. Bit miffed as at the moment I'm paying £2.50 extra for a terabyte each month, but they are now looking to charge that per 256gb. As such, for an extra terabyte they are set to charge over £10/mo! Still, I guess it means it will force me to choose my game selection more wisely using the included storage.

 

I've gone for the RTX 2080 with 512gb for £29.99 as that's pretty much what I'm paying now. Seems a bit much to pay £20 extra per month for 15-20% extra performance at most. Plus, since it maces out at 4k @ 60fps with their streaming, it's unlikely you can really get the benefit from it in all but the most punishing games.

[mexos]

Hilariously I cancelled this the day before the announcement. I just wasn't using it anymore.

[Parappa]

So is it currently £14.99 for a 1080 or equivalent?   My 4K tv will only output 1080p from PC for some bizarre reason so maybe that would do for me. My PC is getting a little long in the tooth now (not to mention the space it takes up) and I have an 'average' laptop I could use instead to stream this.

[tronied]

Yeah, the £14.99 is for the 1080 equivalent. Those prices are on a monthly basis. They get cheaper if you go annual but that ties you in for a long time. I've gone for monthly as I like the option of cancelling and at some stage I might get around to buying my own gaming PC. Possibly when the next generation of graphics cards is released possibly Q2 next year(?).

 

I've been using it though steadily for my gaming PC for quite a while now. Connection is good as I'm on ethernet but I have tried it on my MacBook Pro via wireless and got fairly decent performance. It's obviously not as good as sitting right there on a high end gaming PC as usually the bottleneck is the number of frames which can be transferred from them to your PC. Even with my 400mb connection running @ 1440p, sometimes there are dips from the 60 down to 45-50 but it doesn't affect my enjoyment and it isn't related to what's happening on the screen strangely.

 

Overall, fairly happy with my experience. It's good that they're upgrading the hardware to RTX 2080 for the same price but it's a bummer about the extra price for storage.

[Parappa]

28 minutes ago, tronied said:

Yeah, the £14.99 is for the 1080 equivalent. Those prices are on a monthly basis. They get cheaper if you go annual but that ties you in for a long time. I've gone for monthly as I like the option of cancelling and at some stage I might get around to buying my own gaming PC. Possibly when the next generation of graphics cards is released possibly Q2 next year(?).

 

I've been using it though steadily for my gaming PC for quite a while now. Connection is good as I'm on ethernet but I have tried it on my MacBook Pro via wireless and got fairly decent performance. It's obviously not as good as sitting right there on a high end gaming PC as usually the bottleneck is the number of frames which can be transferred from them to your PC. Even with my 400mb connection running @ 1440p, sometimes there are dips from the 60 down to 45-50 but it doesn't affect my enjoyment and it isn't related to what's happening on the screen strangely.

 

Overall, fairly happy with my experience. It's good that they're upgrading the hardware to RTX 2080 for the same price but it's a bummer about the extra price for storage.

Yeah I tried it a while back and it was OK (playing Forza Horizon 4 I think) but I still had a few issues here and there.  Seems you now cannot sign up for any plan until these new ones become available in February which is a shame.  As you say though storage is far to expensive which is a shame! 

[Herbalizer]

Ive gone for the Ultra tier.  I can also recommend the Shadow Ghost. I know another formite reported problems with his but mine has been flawless.

[tronied]

Not sure if anyone else has noticed an improvement yet, but the streaming on Shadow for me has got noticeably better. I always set it to 50mb as I'm guessing the 70mb option is for 4k only and I notice no quality improvement when upping it. That should really only come into play next February when we're all on RTX 2080's (and titans). Anyway, getting back to the streaming... it's incredibly smooth now when playing a game like Battlefield V. It used to be dropping frames left and right, but now it's like playing locally. It's actually maintaining a solid 60fps (max refresh for my monitor) and it doesn't seem to drop any frames at all. I notice my game has got a lot better too as it allows me to actually take my time with shots (sniper) vs a panicked shot whilst moving as I'm missing the crucial frame.

 

I think there is no better streaming service than this currently. Some people may say there's lag or whatever, but playing on my ethernet connection is just like having a gaming PC right here. Sure, it could be a bit cheaper and they shouldn't try to gouge their customers on space moving forward (which they are), but for the foreseeable future it really seems like the best option.

[mexos]

I will probably dip my toe back in come the new year if the new cards deliver the goods.

[tronied]

Ok, just had a surreal moment. Shadow have released their new apps with a virtual pad. I tried it at home earlier and seemed to work well. I am currently heading down the M23 to Brighton with my wife driving in the front. I thought I'd give it a go and set the quality at 5mbs. Had a quick go on division 2 and it only bloody works and is playable! Sure, you need a proper Bluetooth pad to play decently but it's crazy to think I'm playing a game on my phone whilst travelling at 70mph.

 

Crazy stuff 

[tronied]

So I've got my mobile gaming sorted out now. I bought a cheap(ish) Samung Galaxy Tab A 10.1" and an Xbox One wireless controller. Hooked this up to my unlimited 4G Three connection and I'm good to go in most places. I was concerned about the data usage on my mobile hotspot, but after talking with Three they literally said "we don't care, use as much as you want as we have no fair use policy in the UK". Depending on the location (coffee shop or office) I can comfortably stream at 3-10mbps with no impact on gameplay.

 

 

At the moment I'm playing Gears 5 which is great for the controller. It works really well and the screen is large enough to play comfortably. That said other games aren't as good especially with the controller. I tried to play Starwars Battlefront 2 and got butchered (0 kills, 15 deaths) as trying to play against people with mouse / keyboards didn't go well  For single player use though this is excellent. It's really easy on battery life and I've worked out that I can game for a theoretically game for up to 12 hours using the tablet so that's a long time between tablet charges (not including mobile).

 

Looking forward to the spec boost at the end of this month though I imagine it will only really affect things when running games at 4k on a monitor. I'm still tempted to buy a gaming PC at some point, but I think I'd really miss my lunchtime / coffee shop gaming sessions.

[Parappa]

Can you actually sign up for any packages at the moment or is it wait until April?

[tronied]

It's just pre-order at the moment by the looks of it - guess I'm quite fortunate to have had an active account anyway. It seems like they've reached capacity for the RTX 2080 and RTX Titan options. They've still got the current setup which is what I'm currently using and more than good enough for most games. I'm not entirely sure on whether this "upgrade" will make any difference but I guess I'll see in a month (or so).

[mexos]

I went back on their site to see about re subscribing for a bit and... come back in 2021 lol.

 

Anyone want to buy a barely used Ghost?

[tronied]

I realise I'm literally the only one who uses this service but for once I seem to have got lucky. I received their e-mail about a month ago basically explaining that we're not going to be activated in February (as promised). They said a very small percentage will be activated in March but the rest will be later (summer, winter) I'm guessing due to budget constraints with purchasing the new cards. Expecting the worst I had my e-mail yesterday and was told that mine will be activated next month so that's good. They basically ask permission to wipe your instance of all data during the transfer. It's going to come as a bit of a shock going from my current 1.25tb to 500gb, but that should still give me at least 256gb to play with. I end up just installing a whole bunch of crap that I'm not playing anyway so it will probably be good to just keep what I'm using.

 

Although this obviously doesn't affect my play on the tablet, it will be interesting to see with the new hardware a game running on my 4k monitor. I tried 4k on the current build in Gears of War 4 about a year ago and whilst the connection wasn't a problem, the instance struggled to run the game above 10-12fps. When it's activated, I'm going to try RDR2 as that struggles to run at a decent res on the current build  

[Herbalizer]

I got my upgrade scheduled for March too. Looking forward to it 

[Herbalizer]

My new config got activated today. Just need to set everything up later. 

[tronied]

Nice @Herbalizer - How are you finding it? Do you notice much has changed from the existing GTX 1080? Mine will be activated in the next 48 hours so first thing I'll do is try a bit of 4k gaming and see how it copes. I imagine that even that config will struggle to run RDR2 in 4k, so will keep my expectations in check.

[Herbalizer]

Only really played Tarkov. It looks noticeably better and the framerate has inproved a lot. 

[Hamus]

Is anyone using this still? Seems that a lot of people were/are.

 

https://www.pcgamer.com/one-of-the-best-pc-streaming-services-is-filing-for-bankruptcy/