GeForce Now: GPU-as-a-service?

[spacein_vader]

So maybe the reason for Nvidia to hike the prices of forthcoming GPUs is similar for Microsoft hiking the price of its on premises software: They want to push you towards a subscription service. Scarily I think it might work for a lot of people, which will then reduce the amount of GPUs sold, thus reducing economy of scale and therefore... higher prices still!

I hope I'm just too cynical.

Official Nvidia page, still in beta for now and no mention of pricing.

[shaithis]

I'm in the beta and the end user experience is nowhere near as good as on-prem.

If they want GaaS, they have a way to go yet and we need lower internet latencies for it to be viable for anything competitive.

[Spud1]

shaithis did you ever try something like "onlive" when that was available?

Im curious how it compares as Onlive actually worked surprisingly well - as you say the latency would have been an issue for anything competitive/online, but for single player experiences I found it worked really well aside from compression issues interfering with the image quality. I'm kind of hoping that this service is similar (i.e. great for singe player, no use for online) but with better image quality.

[Ttaskmaster]

How is this supposed to work?
You have an über-über-über-GPU in your home PC and stream the game, so long as you have über-über-über-fast internet as well?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would rather buy a console than being pushed into a GPU subscription and so be in continual debt to these companies.

[Dashers]

Given that gamers are caught up on 1ms response time monitors, I can't see them accepting 20ms plus network latency.

Games that aren't latency sensitive tend not to be framerate sensitive either, meaning you wouldn't need a high end card locally either.

I see this being more useful for compute stuff.

[ik9000]

this sounds bizarre. Try doing that on a virgin hub3 with its laggy drop-outs. Graphics as a service? No thank you!

[shaithis]

shaithis did you ever try something like "onlive" when that was available?

I did and I don't think it's fair to compare them as internet speeds have changed a lot in the interim. Onlive was hideous (IMO), GN isn't too bad at all for the single player stuff but there are times where it becomes very noticeable and the library of titles is a tad odd in places (i.e. not a single Total War title, yet they have Hearthstone which runs on anything that can run the Geforce Now client.....)

How is this supposed to work?

You need almost any nVidia card or Shield. It then runs the game remotely and streams it to your system.

[Ttaskmaster]

You need almost any nVidia card or Shield. It then runs the game remotely and streams it to your system.

I assume by 'system' you mean a mobile device, or something?
I still don't get it, though - A lesser device wouldn't have the power to display the game on Ultra settings, and any device that could will already have the hardware capable with no need to stream?

If you were gaming remote, there are already facilities to stream from your home system too, I'm sure...

I might just give up. It sounds silly and remarks made thus far suggest it's not worth my time to find out what it is anyway....

[ik9000]

I assume by 'system' you mean a mobile device, or something?
I still don't get it, though - A lesser device wouldn't have the power to display the game on Ultra settings, and any device that could will already have the hardware capable with no need to stream?

If you were gaming remote, there are already facilities to stream from your home system too, I'm sure...

I might just give up. It sounds silly and remarks made thus far suggest it's not worth my time to find out what it is anyway....

Would it be a bit like a VPN? You're essentially running the game on another machine entirely, and it is feeding the graphics data to your monitor. SFAIK when I'm remoted into work it is my work GPU that is displaying the image on my home PC. It's laggy at times, particularly with CAD/FE and my home GPU would be more than adequate to not have such issues. I always attributed it to being still the work GPU.

[Ttaskmaster]

You're essentially running the game on another machine entirely, and it is feeding the graphics data to your monitor. SFAIK when I'm remoted into work it is my work GPU that is displaying the image on my home PC.

Yeah, but if I have a Titan XP running a game in 1440p at work and I stream that to my Nvidia Mini-Netbook (for example) with only a 720p screen, then I'm not going to get amazing grahics am I... which is why it sounds like a bit of a waste.
Heck, I'd barely get that on my phone and I doubt it could process the game at 1080p!