Shadow Tech = PC Gaming on anything, GAME CHANGER

[MUSTKILL]

So I've tested all the previous streaming services like OnLive, Nvidia Gamestream, Moonlite, etc, so I was hesitant to try out Shadow Tech.
All the previous services had gamebreaking issues where it won't realistically be usable. (severe input lag, crappy video quality, connectivity, etc.)
Shadow Tech has changed the game with their streaming platform. Each user has a PC built for them and housed in their data center with a 1000mbps connection. Also supports up to 4k @ 60hz or 1080p @ 144hz

I signed up for their trail just to test, and I'm completely blown away.
You can remote into the Shadow Tech PC from any device (laptop, cell phone, tablet).
All it needs is a fast internet connection (Shadow recommends 15mbps+ but I have my doubts on that) and you're ready to go.
Here's a video of my tablet (Galaxy Tab S4) loading Elder Scrolls Online from wake:


ESO takes a beast of a machine to run smoothy, so this is beyond impressive. You can even see how responsive the controls are when I move around.

I've tested PUBG, Overwatch, ESO, CS:GO, Rust, Diablo, and Starcraft 2.
All the games ran amazingly well, a bit of fine tuning for optimal performance, but nothing difficult.
At $30 a month, this is an actual viable solution for those who don't want to drop 1k+ on a PC gaming rig.
Here's Linus' video to explain how the tech works:


Can't say enough of how impressed I am by the performance and video quality.

 

[Madmick]

I guess you missed my analysis of this in December 2018. I recommend following this post link because the quote of it below won't show the quote boxes that were in the post itself:
https://forums.sherdog.com/posts/147368905/

Today is a study in clickbait. In the more distant future, this could be devastating to all the hardware vendors that don't specialize in low-cost, low-power products like the major ARM players: Qualcomm (Snapdragon), Broadcomm (BCM), Apple (A-series), Samsung (Exynos), NXP Semiconductor (various), Huawei (Mediatek), and HiSilicon (Kirin).

They've been promising this forever, and the biggest hiccup for gaming has always been ping. Linus gets right into this starting at 4:23 of the video. The testing module they lent him show that Shadow is adding only 5ms of latency to his machine running the game though he acknowledges his office is physically very near to the server center. This may not be ideal for hardcore competitive gaming, especially considering that this is an additional server center that becomes a middleman between the game servers and the gamer, but it's more than ample for any single player experience and any multiplayer that isn't acutely time-intensive. Impressive.

But...apart from intolerable latency to competitive multiplayer the biggest drawback is still nerfed graphics. Those internet users fortunate enough to have the best internet connections see a ceiling compression package delivery via Shadow of 50Mbps-70Mbps (Megabits), he says. This takes your PC-caliber graphics to Twitch-caliber streaming. After all, for 1080p@144Hz, your PC requires a transfer of 2389Mbps to express every single pixel. Not even Gigabit internet is sufficient.

Furthermore, despite that this streamed data is a coded compression, designed to be decoded and unpacked in real-time via hardware acceleration by the "Shadow Ghost" box on your end, there isn't a chance in hell that you're closing that gap, and besides, decoding itself operates on an imprecise dynamic strategy in order to look as close to the uncompressed source as possible (like mp4 and ac3 rips online for video/music). This is also merely 1080p at 144fps.

The other remaining question is how much will the subscription fee be to use their service? After all, all of those servers aren't cheap to build, power, and maintain. It was conspicuous to me that Linus didn't mention this, so I ran a quick Google:

And there's the rub. At the end of the day you can't cheat that you need the hardware somewhere in order to run these games. Shadow just diminishes the cost upfront with the cheaper box:
Shadow Ghost game streaming box set to launch in Q4, 2018 for $140
But at a minimum cost of $420/yr just to subscribe there is little incentive for rational consumers to participate. Three years comes out to a total of $1400. A $1400 gaming PC should last you three years. If you're that parched for cash it would make more sense to just buy your PC on a layaway plan instead (btw, please don't do this, you shouldn't need financing for anything less than a car).

This does seem to be the future nature of a lot of consumer electronics, especially with NVIDIA building up their cloud power so aggressively, including their biggest acquisition ever, just two days ago, for that precise reason, but even NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang recently discussed the limited nature of this technology with regard to online gaming due to the limitations of...physics. Light only travels so fast:

Transcript here

First of all, if your question is, "How long before streaming can be as good as a PC?" the answer is never. The reason for that is because there's one problem we haven't figured out how to solve, and that's the speed of light. When you're playing esports, you need the response in a few milliseconds, not a few hundred milliseconds. It's a fundamental problem. It's just the laws of physics. However, we believe in it so much that we’ve been working on this for a decade. Our strategy is this: we believe PC gaming is here to stay. We believe everyone will at least need a PC, because apparently knowledge is still important. You can't do everything on TV. You can't live with TV online. But you could live with a PC alone. PCs are used by young people all over the world. It’s their first computing device, or maybe second after a mobile device. Between those two devices, those are the essential computing platforms for society. We believe that's here to stay.

 

[MUSTKILL]

I guess you missed my analysis of this in December 2018. I recommend following this post link because the quote of it below won't show the quote boxes that were in the post itself:
https://forums.sherdog.com/posts/147368905/

This does seem to be the future nature of a lot of consumer electronics, especially with NVIDIA building up their cloud power so aggressively, including their biggest acquisition ever, just two days ago, for that precise reason, but even NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang recently discussed the limited nature of this technology with regard to online gaming due to the limitations of...physics. Light only travels so fast:

Transcript here

I understand the limitations, but this isn't going to replace my i7 8700k gtx 1080 ti with 1440p 144hz Gsync ips rig.
This will allow me to causaly game on the go and the input lag is far better than any versions of the past. I'm also no esports guy, so that really doesn't matter to me. I've physically ran and tested all the games I listed and it's awesome, but not perfect.
Just to see a demanding PC game run at 100fps on my 10 inch hdr tablet is simply mind blowing.

 

[Madmick]

I understand the limitations, but this isn't going to replace my i7 8700k gtx 1080 ti with 1440p 144hz Gsync ips rig.
This will allow me to causaly game on the go and the input lag is far better than any versions of the past. I'm also no esports guy, so that really doesn't matter to me. I've physically ran and tested all the games I listed and it's awesome, but not perfect.
Just to see a demanding PC game run at 100fps on my 10 inch hdr tablet is simply mind blowing.

Certainly I am deeply impressed by the technology. I think it's the future. Eventually the subscription rates will come down once all the R&D and other startup costs are absorbed, and they're into profit mode. I think it's pretty obvious this is one of those startups with the ultimate goal of getting the attention of one of the giants, like the FAANG companies, and getting bought out at a huge profit to their founders/investors. Then it will be deployed to the mainstream. For any gaming (or intensive software) that isn't micro-lag sensitive it makes so much sense.

Nevertheless, the cynical part of me notices that at least non-phone gaming has shifted towards this exact model. MOBAs, Battle Royale, and FPS multiplayer dominate the world. All of these simply cannot work with this model. The speed of light isn't changing. The most successful AAA gaming that isn't microlag intensive the past several years has been on the Nintendo Switch. Their model doesn't work outside of a walled garden. They make their games for their hardware, and their hardware alone. Linux is poison.