The gaming PC days are NUMBERED! (Sponsored)

[Arika]

ah clickbait. did the sponsor make you call the video this terrible title? 

 

 

[Nowak]

Ah, another "cloud gaming" service that'll shut down in a few years because nobody but rich city slickers can use it.

[corrado33]

Guys..... linus doesn't actually believe what he said in the video.

 

It's a sponsored video.

 

He's just being their shill for a video.

 

Of course networked solutions will never replace hardware gaming. Latency is a PHYSICAL limitation that cannot be overcome. Even IF they limited servers to a single country this would still suck.

[corrado33]

49 minutes ago, Arika S said:

ah clickbait. did the sponsor make you call the video this terrible title? 

 

 

You know, they keep saying that all these sponsored videos will enable more "creative" content..... I've.... yet to see any of that. 

[LinusTech]

5 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Guys..... linus doesn't actually believe what he said in the video.

 

It's a sponsored video.

 

He's just being their shill for a video.

 

Of course networked solutions will never replace hardware gaming. Latency is a PHYSICAL limitation that cannot be overcome. Even IF they limited servers to a single country this would still suck.

Most people can't tell their old TV has 60ms of input lag. 

 

Why would they be able to detect it here? 

 

I made this a while ago, so I don't remember exactly what I said, but I'm pretty sure I acknowledged that for some people this will never take off. 

 

But for others, either by choice or because they'll be forced by some new type of content that relies on it, the days of gaming PCs as we know them are numbered. 

[corrado33]

2 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

Most people can't tell their old TV has 60ms of input lag. 

 

Why would they be able to detect it here? 

 

I made this a while ago, so I don't remember exactly what I said, but I'm pretty sure I acknowledged that for some people this will never take off. 

 

But for others, either by choice or because they'll be forced by some new type of content that relies on it, the days of gaming PCs as we know them are numbered. 

We're talking about members of the PC master race here who argue over 1ms vs 4ms response time on monitors. 

 

Besides, the question is... why? This service costs at least $420 a year (If you ignore their holiday sale and what I'm assuming is their "startup" price), so in two years you could have saved enough to buy yourself really... really nice upgraded hardware. (Because you already have a PC, so you don't need a power supply or case or anything.) Hardware that'll be able to play AAA games at ultra for at least 3-4 years, if not more.

 

Plus, this depends on your network connection. When's the last time YOUR network connection was slow for now reason? For me? In a major city? About 20 minutes ago. 

 

What if you're someone who only plays single player games? Are you going to like being tethered to your network all the time? This is equivalent to "always on DRM", which we all know went down VERY well for the last few companies that tried it. 

 

This solution is "Penny wise and pound foolish." 

 

For people who aren't gamers, sure, this could work... but then they're already not gamers so.... they won't be... gaming.

[LinusTech]

11 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

We're talking about members of the PC master race here who argue over 1ms vs 4ms response time on monitors. 

 

Besides, the question is... why? This service costs at least $420 a year (If you ignore their holiday sale and what I'm assuming is their "startup" price), so in two years you could have saved enough to buy yourself really... really nice upgraded hardware. (Because you already have a PC, so you don't need a power supply or case or anything.) Hardware that'll be able to play AAA games at ultra for at least 3-4 years, if not more.

 

Plus, this depends on your network connection. When's the last time YOUR network connection was slow for now reason? For me? In a major city? About 20 minutes ago. 

 

What if you're someone who only plays single player games? Are you going to like being tethered to your network all the time? This is equivalent to "always on DRM", which we all know went down VERY well for the last few companies that tried it. 

 

This solution is "Penny wise and pound foolish." 

 

For people who aren't gamers, sure, this could work... but then they're already not gamers so.... they won't be... gaming.

No, we aren't talking about members of the "PC Master Race". 

 

We're just talking about people. 

 

And *most* people (many of whom watch our channel) will sacrifice performance for "it just works" 

 

So, this isn't right for you. That's fine. We covered that in the video. 

 

Either way, it's still a very cool implementation of some very cool tech

[corrado33]

19 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

No, we aren't talking about members of the "PC Master Race". 

 

We're just talking about people. 

 

And *most* people (many of whom watch our channel) will sacrifice performance for "it just works" 

 

So, this isn't right for you. That's fine. We covered that in the video. 

 

Either way, it's still a very cool implementation of some very cool tech

Fine then, just normal people. People who don't need high end hardware to play the games they want. 

 

I'm failing to see the target audience here. 

 

The question is: Who is going to pay $420 a year to have a box that lets them play games on a faster computer? It's a catch 22. The people who WANT to have ultra performance aren't going to like the extra lag associated with the service (and we both know it'd be a lot more than 10 ms for all but those closest to the server) and therefore are going to have their own, powerful PC. The people who can't afford to build their own PC surely can't afford $420 a year to play games on someone else's PC, and likely don't have an internet connection to support it. Hell, for 420 canadian pesos and some luck on kijiji you could build yourself a 4770k system with a 980, plenty to play almost any modern game at high or ultra. 

 

So who is this... for? People who don't feel like building their own PC? People who don't know how to build their own PC? Are those the type of people who often want to play PC games? Perhaps it's for console players who want to play some PC exclusives. They're used to having to pay for online gaming. 

 

As for "it just works"... what? Adding a layer of obscurity means "it just works"? I would have thought owning your own computer and not having to worry about network outages, program updates, etc would be much closer to "it just works." 

 

Plus.... very large question.... many places in the world DON'T often have unlimited internet. The US is one of the main exceptions of course. Most of the places I've been to have download limits on internet connections. So to use something like this, you may have to upgrade your internet to something with a larger data package. That's even more money you'd be spending to enjoy the games you could have enjoyed for cheaper before. 

 

I'm not trying to argue with you, it's just that, in my mind, this "solution" doesn't really make sense for anybody. If you can't afford a decent PC, you can't afford this service, if you CAN afford a decent PC, then you don't need this service. 

 

The absolute only use case I can think of for this is an ultra rich person who is too busy to update their computer once every 5 years, or has multiple houses they often visit. And even then, if they're too busy for that, then they're too busy to game. And if they're ultra rich... they could just have multiple computers...

[Edsonicus]

This whole thing reminded me of what some people call the cost of being poor.

 

If you're poor you might not be able to buy food in bulk (a high end gaming PC), but buy stuff individually (this monthly service). It ends up costing way more and, in this case, you're also getting worse performance.

 

As many others stated, I fail to see a clear target audience for this service. If you want something that "just works" get a console I guess.

[corrado33]

4 minutes ago, Edsonicus said:

This whole thing reminded me of what some people call the cost of being poor.

 

If you're poor you might not be able to buy food in bulk (a high end gaming PC), but buy stuff individually (this monthly service). It ends up costing way more and, in this case, you're also getting worse performance.

 

As many others stated, I fail to see a clear target audience for this service. If you want something that "just works" get a console I guess.

Yes, except that food is a necessity where as gaming is not.  Hell of a first post by the way.

[corrado33]

Also, I'm confused...the client GPU still has render the frames of the game at 60 FPS right.... so you'll still need a decent GPU in the home computer? So confused. 

[Edsonicus]

18 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

Also, I'm confused...the client GPU still has render the frames of the game at 60 FPS right.... so you'll still need a decent GPU in the home computer? So confused. 

From what I understood you only receive the compressed image, so it'd be like watching a Twitch stream. If your phone can do that surely even an integrated graphics card could. What you really need is a good enough internet connection to get this 1080p 60fps streaming smoothly.

[corrado33]

1 minute ago, Edsonicus said:

From what I understood you only receive the compressed image, so it'd be like playing a YouTube video. If your phone can do that surely even an integrated graphics card could.

Yeah I googled after I posted. Apparently even intel iGPUs can play 4k 60fps youtube videos. However, this company highly recommends a non-integrated GPU. Specifically an NVIDIA GPU. They are surprisingly.... vague on the actual PC requirements. 

 

[Kroon]

2 hours ago, corrado33 said:

We're talking about members of the PC master race here who argue over 1ms vs 4ms response time on monitors.

 

Problem is that good response time are quite useless unless you have a low input lag.  I haven't seen a single monitor come even close to 1ms input lag yet, top monitor right now have about 4ms input lag.

[Egg-Roll]

21 minutes ago, Edsonicus said:

From what I understood you only receive the compressed image, so it'd be like watching a Twitch stream. If your phone can do that surely even an integrated graphics card could. What you really need is a good enough internet connection to get this 1080p 60fps streaming smoothly.

I wonder, could a new twitch streamer be able to use this setup instead of paying equal amounts of money in internet costs and other stuff that would go into it?

 

I know for a fact I couldn't upload a twitch stream worth a damn  However with a 100mbps up link I sure could. Tho in my case assuming it was even accessible for Canadians it would likely be still cheaper to just up the speeds and invest in new equipment...

 

Like I said in my first post, wrong target market they should be shooting for creators and such...

[Edsonicus]

@LinusTech could you give some information about how many concurrent users can their servers take at the moment and what'd happen if this number is surpassed?

 

They offer a dedicated PC for everyone when you're using the service, so they should have enough hardware. I assume they've done some statistic calculation to prevent this from happening without the necessity to have a 1-to-1 ratio of PCs per user, but that doesn't mean it's entirely impossible that at some point there's a greater number of people trying to access than the computers available. Not to be that guy, but if I were working full time and I got ready for my little gaming session to relax over the weekend I wouldn't want risking it being limited by this factor.

 

I'd would have liked to see some actual gaming in something like CSGO, TF2, Rocket league, PUBG... You know, games in steam's top 10 most played games that would seem to be greatly affected by some high latency.

[corrado33]

7 minutes ago, Edsonicus said:

@LinusTech could you give some information about how many concurrent users can their servers take at the moment and what'd happen if this number is surpassed?

 

They offer a dedicated PC for everyone when you're using the service, so they should have enough hardware. I assume they've done some statistic calculation to prevent this from happening without the necessity to have a 1-to-1 ratio of PCs per user, but that doesn't mean it's entirely impossible that at some point there's a greater number of people trying to access than the computers available. Not to be that guy, but if I were working full time and I got ready for my little gaming session to relax over the weekend I wouldn't want risking it being limited by this factor.

 

I'd would have liked to see some actual gaming in something like CSGO, TF2, Rocket league, PUBG... You know, games in steam's top 10 most played games that would seem to be greatly affected by some high latency.

In Linus's defense, it would have been hard to do actual "user benchmarks" because this service isn't available in canada and only specific parts of the US and some countries over in Europe. 

[Edsonicus]

1 minute ago, corrado33 said:

In Linus's defense, it would have been hard to do actual "user benchmarks" because this service isn't available in canada and only specific parts of the US and some countries over in Europe. 

I mean in the HQ where they were doing the demo. No need to even show what an actual user would experience, but what'd be possible in the best conditions.

[Edsonicus]

20 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

I wonder, could a new twitch streamer be able to use this setup instead of paying equal amounts of money in internet costs and other stuff that would go into it?

 

I know for a fact I couldn't upload a twitch stream worth a damn  However with a 100mbps up link I sure could. Tho in my case assuming it was even accessible for Canadians it would likely be still cheaper to just up the speeds and invest in new equipment...

 

Like I said in my first post, wrong target market they should be shooting for creators and such...

Of course you could use it for said purpose and that's something I can see some people being interested in. Starting, wannabe streamers that don't have a good enough setup and/or upload internet speed. However, if your upload speed isn't good enough for streaming, would your download speed and latency be adequate to make your games playable?

 

That's the only flaw I see besides what you pointed out. And before anyone comes at me with this, yes, I understand most people not using fiber have a better download than upload speeds, I've been there

[geo3]

1ms of additional lag for ever 93mi away from the datacenter you are. This is assuming the absolute ideal network setup between you and them. 

[Elochai]

This actually seems like a good solution for me and my current situation (if it works).

 

I been wanting to build a new gaming rig since 2010 when my rig from 2006 stopped being upgradable. But everyday life becomes priority over luxuries such as $3000 gaming rigs. So the best I have managed to do in the past 3 years was get my hands on a HP Z420 with a 6 core 12 thread Xeon clocked 3.20 GHz workstation, put in a GTX 960 4GB with only one 6pin power connector as that’s all the PSU has in the HP Z420 and had to buy ECC Ram so went with 32 GB. In total this cost me around $600 (CAD). Which wasn’t to bad for gaming as it allows me to still play all the latest games but of course some have to be tone down in settings.

 

So for someone who can’t seem to get ahead like me due to not being able to save the large amount of cash needed for a full out gaming rig (life happens and it been happening a lot with me lately where more important things need the use of your money) this is a very good solution as long as it can deliver what it says it can do. 

 

I look at it as leasing a car. Some cars make sense to buy, others you’d be better if leasing based on your needs. I own a Jeep Wrangler and I would never lease this vecheal as they don’t really change much over the years, they tend to last longer then the terms when took care of, and I always like to personalize it to my liking. However a Dodge Challenger I would flat out lease (if I could afford the extra payment) just because it not something that can be majorly personalized like a Jeep can, they do tend to have problems in a shorter life span, and they do change and add a lot of features every few years. So it makes more sense to “lease” at a lower rate and never own with the intention of always getting a newer one at the end of the lease (and yes I know if you owned it you could sell it and put towards a new one, but that’s a risk as you pay more to own then to lease and at that point the car may not be worth it).

 

So $35 /mo to lease / rent a gaming system and always get upgrades and fixes to hardware is a better deal then me having to come up with $3000 for the rig I want and dishing out money for upgrades and repairs throughout the life of it.

 

just wish they had servers in Canada so I could test it. I got good internet and get speeds of 500 - 600 Mbps download and 15 - 20 Mbps upload to most areas in Canada.

 

sorry for the long post lol

[corrado33]

1 hour ago, geo3 said:

1ms of additional lag for ever 93mi away from the datacenter you are. This is assuming the absolute ideal network setup between you and them. 

No, that's assuming the fucking signal is traveling at half the speed of light and has line of sight. Which.... it isn't and it doesn't.

[corrado33]

12 minutes ago, Elochai said:

This actually seems like a good solution for me and my current situation (if it works).

 

-snip-

 

sorry for the long post lol

This makes.... no sense. If you don't have money to save every month, how on earth are you going to afford the extra $35 a month for a gaming PC? Wouldn't you just have to divert funds from somewhere else since "life keeps getting in the way?" It sounds like you want to spend money you don't have.

 

Your analogy to cars makes no sense.

 

A gaming computer, once built, can be left untouched for YEARS without having to do maintenance or put any more money into it. Gaming components are generally very long lasting, unless you are an idiot and break them/overheat them. A car, on the other hand, requires expensive maintenance at regular intervals, and is a hell of a lot more expensive, and more likely to break/get wrecked.

 

I think what you really need to do is learn that you don't need an ULTRA MEGA FAST RGB $3000 GAMING MACHINE SUPREME. You can build a very capable gaming computer for less than $1000. If you go used you can build a very capable gaming computer for half that. If you sold your current rig for $300 you would only have to save up for 6 months before this service starts costing you more than you'd save if you just build a computer used. 

 

Penny wise, pound stupid. 

 

If you are living paycheck to paycheck enough not to be able to save up any money, then you sure as hell shouldn't be paying $35 a month for access to a gaming computer, and at least $50 a month for an internet connection to support it. In canada that'd be even more....

[geo3]

16 minutes ago, corrado33 said:

No, that's assuming the fucking signal is traveling at half the speed of light and has line of sight. Which.... it isn't and it doesn't.

No, the full speed. Latency is measured round trip, do it has to go there and back. 

[corrado33]

6 minutes ago, geo3 said:

No, the full speed. Latency is measured round trip, do it has to go there and back. 

Ah so they're assuming the signal IS travelling at the speed of light with no interruptions. 

 

Man I don't know how they're going to stay in business having to install all these direct link fiber optic cables to all of the subscriber's houses.... with no interruptions or switches or anything. 

 

EDIT: I'm sorry, I forgot that the speed of light in fiber optic cables is ~30% slower. 

 

So what they're REALLY assuming is that they have a laser pointed directly at your house and a transceiver on both ends.