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With the release of Microsoft xCloud I felt like it would be nice to have one place for people to get information on the various streaming services. I just want to start this off by saying game streaming isn't for everyone and it certainly (IMO) isn't ready to be your only option for gaming. What it is though is a nice compliment for when you are away from your device but still want to get some game time in or if you have a lower end PC that you want to play some modern games in. Nearly all of these services work best for screens that are 1080p or lower because once you start going above that you can absolutely see how kinda crappy things look. I use these services on an 800p screen and they quite frankly look great but if I go to my 1440p screen it looks like a smeary mess. I want to start with the ugly first... data use. If you are out of the house and trying to use any of these services you need to be aware how much data you are actually using. quote:Playing on a 720p screen will use around 4.5GB per hour, while a 1080p screen will use 9.0GB per hour. So 30 hours of 720p gaming will use 135GB of data, while 1080p will use 270GB. So yeah. I also wouldn't expect most of these services to work great over hotel / coffee shop wifi. You might have good luck but my experience with hotel wifi has been pretty poo poo even in the best hotels. On to the Services! I'm going to break them up into two parts. Part 1 are dedicated services that you do not need to use your own PC and Part 2 are applications you load on your gaming PC to stream over your internet to whatever device you want. Neither one is better vs the other IMO it just depends on your setup / need. Dedicated Remote Streaming Services GeForce Now Cost: Free tier or $4.99 for pro. This is the service that I have the most experience with and the one I like the most right now. I'm just going to do a quick pro's and cons list. Pros Uses your existing steam / epic games library so you don't need to buy anything extra Cheap Uses higher end Nvidia hardware so you can push the graphics in games Is getting Cyberpunk 2077 Supports 200+ games The free tier is more of a trial. You are limited to an hour of game play and might have to wait for a server to open up but it does let you try the service with no out of pocket. Cons Needs a dedicated PC app installed to stream games You need to log in to steam / epic for every game but if you do it once its not an issue (well it shouldn't be but sometimes you have to relog in and its annoying). It can take a while to load a game. For example it took 45 seconds to load Destiny 2 from pressing the launch button till you got to the title screen. Some games can be a lot longer though. Publishers can and will remove games because they feel like it. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforc...srch-goog_en-us Stadia Cost: Free (lol) / 9.99 a month I still have a Stadia sub and I've used it a bit as well. Pros: No installs - launch everything from the Chrome browser so the service works on a lot of platforms. Games launch fast - Destiny 2 loaded in just under 20 seconds Like Xbox Gold they give out free games every month if you are a paid member. 4k support Cons: Don't expect any steam sales here and the games on the service are expensive. 4k isn't really 4k... I mean it is but it looks like crap and uses a ton of data. It's a Google service so expect them to kill it off in 7 months with no warning and lol at the games you bought for full price. Multiplayer games use their own Stadia lobby. Destiny 2 players on Staida have like an average of 1k users a day (or less) so don't expect a good multiplayer experience. PUBG is even worse. Input latency. I put this in the cons category for Stadia because they like to make some pretty outlandish claims about the input latency but its all BS and they aren't any better vs the other services no matter what their claims. There is no such thing as negative latency. https://stadia.google.com/home PSNow Cost: $9.99 a month I haven't used this one at all but I guess it's ok? Pros: Download / Stream PS2 / PS3 / PS4 games to your PC / android device Cons: 720p only limited Library https://www.playstation.com/en-us/e...f8aAo17EALw_wcB Project xCloud Cost: $14.99 but this is the cost of Gamepass ultimate which includes other stuff so the price isn't really accurate for just streaming. I also haven't used this much and it doesn't officially release till the 15th of September. It is starting out as an Android only application but expected to come to the PC in the near future. Shadow Cost : $14.99 a month I have no experience with this one but it seems to be flying under the radar a bit. Here is the excerpt from an article on it. quote:One of the most technically ambitious game streaming services we’ve seen thus far, Shadow is designed to give your device of choice the power of a high-end gaming PC — whether it’s another PC, a Mac, television, phone, or tablet. As with Nvidia GeForce Now, Shadow doesn’t require you to buy new games to play. Instead, you can import your current games from stores like Steam, Origin, Epic Games Store, or Battle.net and play the ones you already own. I think I'm going to have to subscribe to try it out since it seems to give you the most flexibility vs the other services. I also expect someone to like Blizzard to eventually bring the hammer down on them since it probably violates every ELUA. https://shadow.tech/usen Using your own PC to stream The biggest downside to these seem to be that you need to leave your PC on and you need to give them full access to the PC. It also relies on you having a good upload speed if you are trying to use it out of the house. They are free though so no monthly fees here. I'm just going to cut and paste their highlights since I haven't used any of these. Moonlight Stream at up to 4K resolution If you can see it on your PC, you can stream it using Moonlight, including your full Windows desktop at 4K 120 FPS with a capable client. Support for 120 FPS streaming Stream at up to 120 FPS using the new Moonlight PC client with the option to disable V-Sync for the lowest possible latency. Run your own cloud gaming server You can host your own gaming server on many residential ISPs by just installing the Moonlight Internet Hosting Tool on your gaming PC. Multiple client platforms If you have an Android device, iOS device, Apple TV, PC or Mac, Chromebook, PS Vita, or even a Raspberry Pi, you can use Moonlight to stream games to it. Open source The code for our Moonlight clients is hosted on GitHub under the GPLv3 license. We welcome contributions and would be happy to help with ports to new platforms. Completely free Moonlight is a project run by the community, not a company. We have no interest in pushing ads, bundled services, paid versions with extra features, or subscriptions. https://moonlight-stream.org/ Parsec Parsec is a high performance, low latency 60 FPS remote access product connecting you to your computer from anywhere. With the Parsec platform you can play any multiplayer game with anyone in the world with extremely low lag. Play any game online without worrying about subscribing to online services and which platform and hardware you and your friends use. Parsec works simply as a screen-sharing technology. You either share your screen with yourself (remotely), with your friends (for co-op), or with gamers around the world (to play your favorite games). We are very proud of Parsec capabilities and features. We have worked very hard to get ultra-low latency stream at 60 FPS, virtual controller management for any number of players, and a highly dynamic bandwidth algorithm. We've done everything to make local co-op games feel native, even when you're hundreds of miles away from your friends. https://parsecgaming.com/ Rainway At the core of Rainway is the incredibly fast Pulsar Engine. It can capture game play in real-time and quickly encode Full-HD 60 FPS to a video stream in just a few milliseconds. It has been meticulously crafted to enable ultra-low-delay game streaming and leverages modern APIs such as DirectX 12 for incredible performance, unmatched power efficiency, and cutting-edge features. All of these are pretty similar so I don't need to list out the features but Rainway is unique in that it has a Webportal similar to Stadia. Steam As most of us know Steam has its own built-in streaming service that works ok? I've tried it a few times but didn't have the best luck with it. Most of the services above have an Android / iOS application which is something that can't be said for the dedicated services. Hopefully we can use this thread as a resource for people to decide which service / application would work best for them and their needs. It would also be nice for people to post their experiences with the various streaming services.
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Sep 14, 2020 22:20
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Reserved for media and stuff I guess.
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Sep 14, 2020 22:20
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OK well I guess Shadow isn't actually out yet? That wasn't made very clear on their website before going to the sub page.
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Sep 14, 2020 23:00
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I think Shadow only lets people in as they upgrade their infrastructure. I'm bummed that NVIDIA's service got hit hard by publisher lawyers. I was using their free tier to host Steam remote play together games since it worked pretty well with NVIDIA's internet connection. Now it seems like every game has to be manually approved so most couch co-op games won't work. So instead, I've been spinning up VMs on various cloud services like Azure or AWS. They're pretty annoying to manage and the pricing isn't straightforward since it's meant for enterprise applications (costs based off storage used, compute power, even bandwidth). Paperspace is looking like a good choice for a VM based solution. It's basically a $5 flat storage fee per month, and about $0.40 - $0.70 per hour based on what computer you spin up. No bandwidth fees so that's a big saving over Azure/AWS. They've got a template that runs parsec so you can just click a few buttons and have it going. I haven't tried it yet since I haven't found another couch co-op game I want to play, but I'm hoping they fly under the radar from lawyers since they don't market themselves as a cloud gaming service but as primarily cloud rental for machine learning applications. Fake edit: One thing worth mentioning about Moonlight is that the host must have an NVIDIA card. It basically piggybacks off NVIDIA's tech that makes streaming to the Shield work. I used it a long time ago when it first came out and it was really fiddly cause of how it's kludged together with NVIDIA's stuff. Maybe it's improved since then but I've moved on to using Parsec or Steam instead. yergacheffe fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Sep 15, 2020 |
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Sep 15, 2020 00:44
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yergacheffe posted:I think Shadow only lets people in as they upgrade their infrastructure. PaperSpace looks interesting I’ll keep an eye on it! I mentioned Moonlight because I’ve seen quite a few people recommended it over steam streaming. I’d be interested to know if anyone used rainway though. Curious how the web interface works.
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Sep 15, 2020 13:19
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Hey look, a new challenger. https://www.amazon.com/luna/landing-page quote:How much internet data should I expect to use with cloud gaming?
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Sep 24, 2020 19:39
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doingitwrong posted:Hey look, a new challenger. Hey I just came to post this! A few key things to note. First they want you to pay $5.99 a month to beta test it (would be a sweet deal if it were rolled into prime). Second and the big one, it should work on iOS with no app. Amazon has said that they've worked with the Safari devs and that this service will work directly through Safari. This would be a pretty awesome if true. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/amazon-introduces-cloud-gaming-service-luna/1100-6482558/ quote:Amazon Luna Platforms Should be interesting to see how well it does on iOS though. As for Shadow yeah... I got my access and I'm not sold on the service. Yeah its a remote PC that you can access and install stuff onto but the basic sub level only comes with 200gigs of space (something which I didn't see mentioned before I signed up) and they really upcharge you for better hardware / more space. It works ok I guess I had a lot of audio issues trying to play GTA5 and it took fuckin forever to install too. I'm gonna give it a bit more before I pull the plug but I can't see the service being worth it over GFN.
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Sep 25, 2020 07:19
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I think the whole channels thing of Amazon’s offering is the most interesting for a business perspective and least appealing from a user perspective of the whole thing. I wonder how cheap the channels will be once they get out of early access.
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Sep 26, 2020 00:14
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doingitwrong posted:I think the whole channels thing of Amazon’s offering is the most interesting for a business perspective and least appealing from a user perspective of the whole thing. I wonder how cheap the channels will be once they get out of early access. Yeah that could be interesting. I do think they should roll some of this into prime as another value add though. It's going to be interesting to see how well it actually does but they are already making claims that don't stand up.
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Sep 26, 2020 00:52
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rip https://twitter.com/patrickklepek/status/1311451189431668737?s=21
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Oct 1, 2020 00:49
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Wow I am shocked that google did this! Who could have seen something like this coming?
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Oct 1, 2020 03:25
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No see this is positive for Stadia and proof that they are and will continue to be competitive in the game streaming segment because
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Oct 2, 2020 00:59
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PS Now is good streaming in my opinion but it would be better if the library was a bit better for the price. If you own a PS4, PS Now also lets you download a lot of the games on it. When XCloud comes out on PC, that's going to be real interesting. I was on Game Pass for PC until they upped the cost, so if I want to play those games, getting Ultimate for both PC and XCloud is pretty tempting. I had a Shadow for a while before my GPU upgrade. It works very well but there's a limited amount of storage which is annoying. Shadow is more like renting a gaming PC than like any of these other solutions. If you compare their monthly cost to the cost of getting a big upgrade, it starts to seem more worth it. Still, the latency can be noticeable. If you're into games that require twitch reflexes and precise timing then it can get frustrating. Still, you can play your eSports games locally and your GPU intensive games on Shadow. GeForce Now is the best I've tried so far. What I really like about it is being able to troll through my Steam and EGS libraries and try games I haven't played in a long time or ever without waiting for them to download and clog up my local storage. Shadow and GeForce Now are the services that let you play the games you already own, and that seems to be the way forward. I really wish everyone would just allow their games on it. I don't see the downside. EDIT: Oh, the other thing about these is the idea of having them so you can play Windows games while daily driving another operating system. GeForce Now doesn't have a Linux client yet, and XCloud probably won't ever, so Shadow is still the best for this purpose.
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Oct 2, 2020 01:16
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Because the existing lists are a complete shitshow I made a detailed spreadsheet of games on PS Now and Xbox Game Pass categorized according to what they are. Also includes the PS+ Collection on PS5 for good measure. I put extra notes on certain titles when I knew about special situations for the title in question. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nYHNyfPl2t_FPg-7J5FCuB3x5hghFgwHIX3jIUnoNzU/edit?usp=sharing
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Oct 2, 2020 14:57
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To add to the OP: xCloud is currently 720p but will be upgraded to 1080p Soon™. A con to both xCloud and PSN is that they only work with a controller. A lot of PC/android gamers don't own controllers. PSN is Windows/Playstation only, no android, iOS, or Mac support. GFN has an awful interface. Everything about browsing for games and adding them to your library is bad and those responsible for it should feel bad. GFN works on Windows, Mac, & Android, but no iOS support (and the latter is unlikely to change) Stadia's multiplayer matchingmaking is a developer choice. For example, PUBG on Stadia has crossplay with Xbox/Playstation if you use a controller. At launch they allowed you to play with a KB+M on Stadia, but you could only play against other Stadia KB+M mouse players, so you mostly played against bots. They completely disabled KB+M after launch because it was such a lovely experience. Google should have insisted on crossplay as a condition of adding games to the service. doingitwrong posted:I think the whole channels thing of Amazon’s offering is the most interesting for a business perspective and least appealing from a user perspective of the whole thing. I wonder how cheap the channels will be once they get out of early access.
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Oct 3, 2020 01:49
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https://twitter.com/mcclure111/status/1319338707460251649
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Oct 22, 2020 19:26
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lol that guy has quite a resume if you go downthread
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Oct 22, 2020 19:34
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He could have coasted his whole life on doomed projects as an unknown, and then he had to be today's main character on Twitter.
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Oct 22, 2020 19:57
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oop https://twitter.com/GenePark/status/1319355701861515265?s=20
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Oct 22, 2020 20:21
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Hahaha I remember that dumbass. Lol
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Oct 22, 2020 20:38
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There's a fatality in the original thread https://twitter.com/dantdm/status/1319359430585126913?s=19
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Oct 22, 2020 21:16
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lol funny thing is that hes not actually a director at stadia, just a developer that got bought by google. But he doesn't make it clear.
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Oct 22, 2020 21:23
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The REAL Goobusters posted:lol funny thing is that hes not actually a director at stadia, just a developer that got bought by google. But he doesn't make it clear. https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1319367395723649024 lmao it keeps getting better
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Oct 22, 2020 21:23
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I got an email from Boosteroid that they had UK servers now, has anyone tried it? I tried Boosteroid months ago and it had massive lag, playing Black Mesa was effectively impossible once the soldiers turned up. I remember that the unsubscribe form had a required field that meant you had to state your gender as well, what the hell was that about?
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Oct 27, 2020 23:09
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I guess this is tangibly related to this thread but Control Streaming edition dropped for the switch today. I haven’t tried it myself but I guess it works ok. They also announced Hitman and someone data mined the RE titles as streaming only. That’s one way for the switch to play AAA graphically demanding games. It’s too bad the switch wifi is pretty weak from what I’ve had to deal with. Edit photo for content 
MarcusSA fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Oct 29, 2020 |
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Oct 29, 2020 02:35
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I don’t know why people are so up in arms about the dingus at Google. He has no authority to enforce or change anything about game streaming. He is just giving his terrible hot take and got seriously dunked on, but people outside of this forum are pearl clutching over it and afraid the face of game streaming is about to change.
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Oct 29, 2020 02:40
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If for some reason you want to try Stadia Pro and have youtube premium you can get a month of Stadia with a chromecast/controller for free here https://stadia.google.com/SdFGljSduV5z
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Nov 10, 2020 22:37
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The Stadia Pro November games are Sniper Elite 4, The Gardens Between, Hello Neighbor: Hide & See, Risk of Rain 2, Republique, and Sundered: Eldritch Edition. Another round of Luna invites went out.  quote:Do I need a Luna+ subscription to sign up to the Ubisoft+ channel beta on Luna? Luna is compatible with all major controllers but they sell their own custom controller that is just an x-box controller with an Alexa button with the same wifi voodoo as the Google Stadia controller.  The Luna games list is mediocre. quote:Abzu The Ubisoft+ (formerly uPlay+) library is just all available on Luna and GeForce Now for the same price as running it locally on your computer. It will be available on Stadia Soon (TM).
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Nov 13, 2020 20:35
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Gobbeldygook posted:The Stadia Pro November games are Sniper Elite 4, The Gardens Between, Hello Neighbor: Hide & See, Risk of Rain 2, Republique, and Sundered: Eldritch Edition. Yeah that's a pretty weak game list. Which of the streaming services can I play Fallout on? Is it just Shadow?
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Nov 17, 2020 02:12
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skyelevator posted:Yeah that's a pretty weak game list. Which of the streaming services can I play Fallout on? Is it just Shadow? --- GFN, Luna, Stadia, & xCloud are all coming to iOS because they found a loophole quote:With Luna, Amazon has discovered another way to circumvent Apple’s App Store fees. Luna is a progressive web application (PWA), which means it’s actually a browser-based program masquerading as a native iOS app. You’ll download the PWA from the Luna website, and the resulting icon on your iPhone’s home screen will function like a shortcut to Amazon’s cloud gaming portal on the web. quote:Hey everyone, quote:Destiny 2 for all
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Nov 19, 2020 21:47
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I got the Luna invite but I am struggling to understand why I’d want to accept it. The Luna+ options are pretty bad and already Gamepass games for the most part. I’d have thought that they’d want to ship their Amazon exclusive MMO or whatever on there.
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Nov 20, 2020 11:32
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Stadia so desperate that if you live in the continental US and pre-order Cyberpunk they'll send you the CC Ultimate and controller bundle for free.
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Nov 20, 2020 15:30
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Gobbeldygook posted:Sadly, this will end our ability to mock Stadia's tiny Destiny 2 player base. I predict that it will not
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Nov 20, 2020 18:13
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AdmiralViscen posted:I predict that it will not Yeah. I agree with this. Number will go up but lol not by enough to matter.
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Nov 20, 2020 21:49
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doingitwrong posted:I got the Luna invite but I am struggling to understand why I’d want to accept it. The Luna+ options are pretty bad and already Gamepass games for the most part. I’d have thought that they’d want to ship their Amazon exclusive MMO or whatever on there. MarcusSA posted:Yeah. I agree with this.
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Nov 21, 2020 18:16
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Cyberpunk 2077 is live on Geforce Now with the GOG version. Unlike the other storefronts, the GOG login details appear to stick so this is a massive game changer for the service. Here are the configuration settings for it (I pay for Founders so Ray Tracing is enabled).     No clue what's up with the 45fps cap. That seems in line with how the game is running, though.
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Dec 10, 2020 02:46
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univbee posted:Cyberpunk 2077 is live on Geforce Now with the GOG version. Unlike the other storefronts, the GOG login details appear to stick so this is a massive game changer for the service. How does it play over all though? Any service issues?
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Dec 10, 2020 03:11
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MarcusSA posted:How does it play over all though? Any service issues? Apparently the service was getting hammered (understandable since a lot of people would be in a situation where GFN was their best way to play the game) and took the game down for maintenance (e.g. there were queues of a few minutes for Founder's Members, when one of their perks was meant to be "no queues ever"). Played totally fine, though. It's not a lag-sensitive game really so it works well for that. There's probably a YouTube that goes into deeper technical detail.
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Dec 12, 2020 05:10
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Here is a pretty good comparison of the 3 major streaming services and CP2077 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKaRAGYYoIg
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Dec 13, 2020 20:28
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Been using Geforce Now for a few days and just discovered this thread. It's pretty great for being able to keep playing your games while you travel - which I am for the next 6-8 weeks. Using your existing games and supporting cloud saves is a killer feature for me. CP 2077 is running well with most everything maxed out, and RT in particular turned all the way up - including Lighting at Psycho to enable RT Global Illumination. Plays well other than some skips when zooming around on the bike where maybe their encoder isn't keeping up or something. Settings I'm using for CP 2077: https://imgur.com/gallery/x0ETpUE These are far higher than I expected to be able to set. How bad is the bandwidth usage gonna be? Need to ask the folks I'm going to be staying with what their bandwidth plans are.
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Dec 20, 2020 20:01
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