So, I just got invited to the GeForce NOW beta which is a cloud game streaming service that supports 120fps
It links to your own steam account so games you own are installed in seconds (apparently you just need to prove you own it) and it can video-stream games to devices like low powered mac’s, pc’s etc.
Does cloud streaming have a future for VR? If it can sustain 120fps with acceptable latency then it could be an answer for many on a budget.
Cloud streaming gives you powerfull GPU rendering, but you still have movement to photon speeds to consider. And bandwidth. I have a fiber line at home so high res video should not be a problem.
Game through cloud streaming is not new by the way but never really took off because of input lag issues. VR is even worse in that respect because you could feel sick if it’s off
No, latency would be horrible unless you lived within a few miles of the datacentre. People who use this and say it is “fine” are the same people playing consoles on TV’s with 50-100ms+ input lag and find that acceptable.
It is fine if what you want is cheap gaming and access to PC titles without the cost of an actual gaming PC but are prepared to put up with massive lag.
I have been told that even the 5G wireless standard should have a really good latency. The networks are such that you will not notice if you are a few miles or 2,000 miles away from the data center, surely with cabled connections.
But I am slightly sceptical too, because you always seem to have some kind of short disruptions in online activities once in a while, and with VR I would expect that to be even more annoying than it is with flat gaming. The kind of super-fast & super-reliable combination would be great to have but I need to really experience it here to believe it will make its way to my home.
Even if this technique is not good or ready for everyone under all circumstances at this stage, it does not have to be completely discarded. In any case an interesting concept to keep an eye on.
Back in the day, I could get 11ms round trip to Quake 2 servers on bonded ISDN. These days the average round trip is 30ms, even on fiber so we have slowly accepted the slower response times (Grrr). Now that is not taking into account motion to photon as mentioned but imagine if there was some kind of VR within VR. So you put the HMD on, load a really basic VR environment from your PC which runs flat out. No latency and then the VR streaming service wraps around your view too. Any nausea in the VR streaming could be reduced with visible parts of your client side environment blending through which is rock steady. Just a thought
Anyway, this carrier is trying it on a 1000 Mbit network. Still might not be enough but without testing what magic they use to overcome the obvious, who knows.
Ok, just tested it out on Fortnight (Epic games launcher). I literally could not tell it was streaming from the cloud. Now I need to test Black Ops 3 (my go to de-stress) and see if there is a difference in streaming vs native on my pc. My KD should plummet…
even assuming perfect transmission, 2000 miles would be roughly 12ms of added latency purely because of the distance, regardless of technology used unless we manage to work out faster than light transmission
Idk about you, but I don’t think many people will live nearly that far away from one of these hubs. My country isn’t even 200km across
But yeah, surely you’ll miss out on some, even several aspects of VR gaming. For example, I don’t think they’ll allow mods or other tweaks.
There are cloud services that work with basically a full remote desktop that you can do with what you please (within reason).
They claim very good latency; but still, there will always be some. Add to that a few more ms of latency if you want to do wireless vr… it all adds up.
They do. on setup mine connected to an EU West 2 server.
Ok, just tried Black Ops 3 MP. Game had a ping of 27ms (to their server no doubt). However the game ran really well, KD of 1.25 and my recent KD is around 1.65, it had remapped my keys though so I kept pressing the wrong mouse buttons. Installed the game (60 GB) in like 0.2 seconds so that would be a benefit to a lot of people. Game quality looked like it was on medium/high settings. I still prefer my 1080Ti but this would be brilliant for any users on older gear. You forget you are streaming.
As for VR use. I have higher hopes than I did an hour ago. I expected it to be average, clearly streaming, glitchy etc but it isn’t any of that in the short session I just had. And this is a beta too.
It opens your own steam library in the cloud, you can install what MOD you want I assume, use steam like normal. All your games show up uninstalled of course but it installs anything you have in your library instantly as long as it is part of their supported games list.
In fairness to Geoff, he was just pointing out that my remark that it would not make any difference if the data center was near or 2,000 miles away was not actually correct - with my extreme value it does make a difference.
But in practical terms you are right, the usual data center for such kind of activity should only be a up to 200-300 hundred miles away and then the latency would become bearable, if other latencies are low. And as they will be working on all involved technologies around the VR eco system which cause latencies, we might see this perform well one day. Just not exactly next year.
Would be even better if extreme graphics and effects can all be streamed to mobiles, so your 4K phone in a cardboard becomes an actual visual epic feast in VR
Hmm okay yeah steam workshop would work but I’m talking like nexus mods for things like bethesda games etc… Cannot play those titles without at least 200 mods
