Why build a gaming PC when something like GeForce Now exists?

[Hi P]

Please move my thread if it doesn't fit here, I didn't know where to create it.

 

I work remotely and whenever I have to move its such a headache moving my desktop pc.

 

Well a couple days ago I came across "GeForce Now" and I've been testing it, so far so good. I find it incredible being able to play anywhere on any device, at high / ultra settings.

 

I plan to test this service for a couple months and if everything turns out fine, I might just give my pc to my parents

 

 

PS: I didn't buy a gaming laptop due to component upgrade constraints.

[Shimejii]

When you become dependent on a program like that, you are at the direct whim of Nvidia. Having your own is ALWAYS gonna be better, especially if you dont have a connection. You dont have internet? You arent going to able to play games offlline (albiet a lot of singleplayer games now require a internet connection). They want to increase costs? You have to pay up. There are always trade offs

[BondiBlue]

Remote computing is very useful for all sorts of things, gaming included, but it's not something I would want to rely on. The experience can be impacted by your internet connection, the host internet connection, the host hardware, the distance between the client and host, etc. I don't want Nvidia (or any other company, for that matter) to be in control of my gaming experience. If I want to game on the go without bringing a powerful computer with me I'll use something like Parsec to have my own remote gaming setup, but there are still the issues of internet connectivity and latency. 

 

If you're in an area where you basically always have a high speed, low latency internet connection then perhaps something like GeForce Now would work for you, but for someone like me without that kind of internet access it's not something I'd even consider depending on for a long time. I'd rather deal with my own hardware and not have to worry about how to access it. 

[Hi P]

15 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

When you become dependent on a program like that, you are at the direct whim of Nvidia.

That is a fair point

 

15 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

Having your own is ALWAYS gonna be better, especially if you dont have a connection. You dont have internet? You arent going to able to play games offlline (albiet a lot of singleplayer games now require a internet connection). They want to increase costs? You have to pay up. There are always trade offs

I understand what you mean, but perhaps is not always better, for example people in my situation or similar could benefit

I mean $240 USD (+ tax) per year to play on 4k 120hz seems fair when compared against the costs of building a decent pc nowadays.

 

11 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

If I want to game on the go without bringing a powerful computer with me I'll use something like Parsec to have my own remote gaming setup, but there are still the issues of internet connectivity and latency. 

 

If you're in an area where you basically always have a high speed, low latency internet connection then perhaps something like GeForce Now would work for you.

Never heard about Parsec, looks really interesting!

And I agree, in my case I barely ever have internet issues so that might not be a problem, I'll just have to wait and see if it really is worth it after a few months

[igormp]

I guess modding games, piracy and needing the desktop for other uses that also demand some powerful hardware are some of the reasons.

 

Other than that, I believe stuff like geforce now is way better and provides a better experience as long as you have a good internet connection. For the price of a single GPU you could pay for years of the service, not to say about the upgrades which are seamless on the service while you'd need to pay for yet another GPU.

 

Other than streaming, I also find consoles to be a better platform for games, but I'm not a hardcore gamer, so I do have a biased view.

Even though I do have powerful hardware, it's mostly meant for my studies/work, the only game that I play once in a while is Dota.

[Dukesilver27-]

As others have mentioned. Anything cloud based is heavily reliant on the service provider and the internet connection, so it is not always reliable because you can't control them. At least you could control your own PC.

Same goes for games that always have to be online, when the servers or internet is down, you can't game.

High speed internet is still limited to 1st world countries, in my country no one has 100mbps real internet speed (not advertised speed), no one, at least not retail consumers. I researched on this when I was looking for a new ISP.

While download/upload speed is not the same as ping, it usually is directly correlated, the faster the speed the better the ping.

So, unless Geforce Now or whatever else has servers in every province capital cities in the world, it won't be viable for everyone.

[Arika]

Latency

Knowing that at some point nvidia could take down the service and you lose everything

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Hi P said:

Please move my thread if it doesn't fit here, I didn't know where to create it.

I'm glad you gave the moderators permission to moderate your thread.

1 hour ago, Hi P said:

I work remotely and whenever I have to move its such a headache moving my desktop pc.

It is a hassle.

1 hour ago, Hi P said:

Well a couple days ago I came across "GeForce Now" and I've been testing it, so far so good. I find it incredible being able to play anywhere on any device, at high / ultra settings.

 

I plan to test this service for a couple months and if everything turns out fine, I might just give my pc to my parents

Sounds like a plan!

1 hour ago, Hi P said:

 

PS: I didn't buy a gaming laptop due to component upgrade constraints.

Yeah, I can get that. New upgrades are expensive.

 

 

I have a gaming pc cuz I like to have all the things I can do, & I like to make games.
Plus I am used to having bad internet, so I don't rely on internet services. I also have a bad taste from netflix removing a bunch of good shows in the past, so I don't believe in anything being available on something you don't physically have possession of.

[C0stanza]

There's a lot to really like about cloud gaming services. I'm not familiar with GeForce Now specifically but I've heard good things.

 

That being said, there are more than a few things about it that aren't ideal. Often you can't download your save data (not positive if this is the case with GeForce Now), which is especially annoying given the fact that these services can be discontinued at any time (see Luna and Stadia). I'd be pretty sad if I wanted to go back to an old game after a few years only to find my save file had died with the streaming service. You're also reliant on a constant internet connection to game which can be really annoying for some use cases (gaming away from home in particular). Another potential issue is latency which can be brutal in some genres (fighting games for sure) or something you barely notice after a minute or so in others.

 

Now, even given all these issues I still think cloud gaming services can provide killer value for the right user. In a world where a 60 series graphics card alone is $400+ I can definitely see the value in just paying $10 a month and dealing with a gaming experience that isn't 100% perfect.

[igormp]

18 minutes ago, C0stanza said:

not positive if this is the case with GeForce Now

You can stream your steam games, so you can rely on steam cloud for that.

[PlayerLorenzo]

High latency (bad for competitive FPS games), the fact you're at the whims of whatever company hosts these games, and lack of fast and reliable internet connection in many places of the world, plus mobile data caps.

 

 

[rikitikitavi]

3 hours ago, Hi P said:

I plan to test this service for a couple months and if everything turns out fine, I might just give my pc to my parents

I had a dream... of playing all AAA on my old-ish MacBookPro... and this dream was somewhat real when the connection was good and the latency was tolerable... but pretty much every second time I would experience terrible lags that would leave me frustrated with GeForce Now... but you can say that your connection is better, and Nvidia servers are in the building next to you... and then I say - good for you, but can you play the title you want (or anything competitive)? I gave up and bought a desktop.

 

$120-240/y for a 1080p@60-4k@120 gaming rig sounds good, and given an option of playing anything you want, anywhere you want, with quality you are satisfied - I believe it is a good deal.

 

3 hours ago, Hi P said:

I didn't buy a gaming laptop due to component upgrade constraints.

What components do you need to upgrade? Buy what you need from the get go and sell or repurpose when it doesn't fit your needs anymore.

 

Unless you are an 'extreme enthusiast' who wants the shiniest toy running at the highest hz - you rarely need any part upgrade. By the time your CPU is lacking - you'll most probably be better off changing the whole CPU-MOBO-RAM combo. Storage? - you can always have your external NAS for all the TBs of data.

[Hi P]

2 hours ago, Arika S said:

Latency

1 hour ago, PlayerLorenzo said:

High latency (bad for competitive FPS games)

I think it depends on the internet connection, because there are reviews that mention the incredible low latency of GeForce Now. Even personally speaking, I can't really tell that I'm playing from the Cloud

 

Edit: But still, if it doesn't work as expected in the short term then I can just keep upgrading my desktop

 

33 minutes ago, rikitikitavi said:

What components do you need to upgrade? Buy what you need from the get go and sell or repurpose when it doesn't fit your needs anymore.

I was mostly referring about the flexibility that a desktop provides in terms of upgrades versus a laptop, for the long term.

 

Like my rig from 2019, I have thrown small upgrades at it over time. If I wanted to upgrade the GPU I could do so, but not in a laptop

[rikitikitavi]

49 minutes ago, Hi P said:

I was mostly referring about the flexibility that a desktop provides in terms of upgrades versus a laptop, for the long term.

 

Like my rig from 2019, I have thrown small upgrades at it over time. If I wanted to upgrade the GPU I could do so, but not in a laptop

True. However, does it actually create convenience for you or you do it because you can/want? It might seem silly, but an 'upgrade bug' is a real thing and a terrible cash drain 'hobby'. After all, you are looking into convenient way of playing games without being bothered by the hardware needs.

 

Do you mind asking what were your upgrades and are you satisfied?

[Mark Kaine]

Because of the limited game selection,  limited availability and reliability and the main reason of having a gaming pc becomes instantly nullified,  no modding whatsoever. 

Also what others have said about latency, being at the whims of a big corporation etc. Its far from ideal,  but if all you do is play mainstream garbo and don't really care about latency,  input lag, etc, then it might work well for you.

 

9 hours ago, igormp said:

Other than streaming, I also find consoles to be a better platform for games, but I'm not a hardcore gamer, so I do have a biased view.

Even though I do have powerful hardware, it's mostly meant for my studies/work, the only game that I play once in a while is Dota.

i mean consoles *are* better for online stuff,  there's usually just a bigger player pool, on pc online seems very fractioned, people mostly just play the really popular stuff, but other than that consoles aren't really great, have to pay for online and performance is often a serious letdown,  maybe current consoles are better,  but especially ps4 was a huge pain performance wise, ps3 too, but not as bad, once you're used to high resolution/ stable 60fps minimum its just very hard to go back imo (seriously consoles are so blurry, and you usually cant even turn it off)

 

[Stahlmann]

Modding.

 

It's the most powerful resource exclusive to PC gamers. Why do you think so many people still play Skyrim and why Bethesda has re-released it 4 times since 2011. WIthout modding the game would've died 1 or 2 years after it's release like every other non live-service game.

[Fendrick]

I will never use a streaming service ever for gaming.

[Hi P]

10 hours ago, rikitikitavi said:

Does it actually create convenience for you or you do it because you can/want?

Do you mind asking what were your upgrades and are you satisfied?

Yea I only upgrade when it actually helps me, not as a hobby

Most stuff has been external (chair, speakers, monitor, etc) so that I can do my job more comfy, but internally probably only the RAM, Storage and CPU

 

I was looking at the 4070 Ti but then I came across that service, and began to think it through (hence the thread)

 

15 minutes ago, Fendrick said:

I will never use a streaming service ever for gaming.

Honestly it isn't as bad as it seems with a good connection (using ethernet cable too)

[Guest]

17 hours ago, Caroline said:

Come to my house and use a 700-ish kbps connection.

You got the taran internet service plan? 

 

[Poinkachu]

On 1/24/2023 at 7:50 AM, Hi P said:

Please move my thread if it doesn't fit here, I didn't know where to create it.

 

I work remotely and whenever I have to move its such a headache moving my desktop pc.

 

Well a couple days ago I came across "GeForce Now" and I've been testing it, so far so good. I find it incredible being able to play anywhere on any device, at high / ultra settings.

 

I plan to test this service for a couple months and if everything turns out fine, I might just give my pc to my parents

 

 

PS: I didn't buy a gaming laptop due to component upgrade constraints.

Eh well, while it has it's uses. I prefer to just use the money to build a PC. If I pay the service long enough pretty sure I will be able to afford even a high end monster laptop.

Why? because doing so I'd own the parts I bought, and not to mention I don't need to rely on internet to play a game.

 

In my country internet connection is either kinda expensive but slow speed, or ridiculously expensive but mid high speed.

But yeah, even if truly high speed but cheap internet is available, I'd still opt to just build a PC or buy a laptop.

[ewitte]

Even under perfect conditions it is not the same experience.  The video is compressed, latency is much higher, possibility of going down, adding to data cap usage (Xfinity is 1.2TB/mo), etc.  What isn't all that bad is using Nvidia Gamestream to use the same computer anywhere in the house over a good, wired network.

[igormp]

6 hours ago, Poinkachu said:

If I pay the service long enough pretty sure I will be able to afford even a high end monster laptop.

I mean, you'd need to use it for over 8 years before such a monster laptop paid off, and by then it'd be already way outdated whereas such cloud service gets regularly upgraded.

4 hours ago, ewitte said:

adding to data cap usage (Xfinity is 1.2TB/mo)

It still baffles me how the US have this stupid data cap thing for home connection.

[ewitte]

6 minutes ago, igormp said:

It still baffles me how the US have this stupid data cap thing for home connection.

Well, if I don't want a cap, they do offer to remove it now for an extra $50/mo.

[igormp]

5 minutes ago, ewitte said:

Well, if I don't want a cap, they do offer to remove it now for an extra $50/mo.

Ouch, that's alone is almost how much I pay for BOTH my internet links (500mb+300mb).

[ewitte]

8 minutes ago, igormp said:

Ouch, that's alone is almost how much I pay for BOTH my internet links (500mb+300mb).

If you don't pay to remove the cap the overage fee in advance, I believe is $10 per 100GB.  So, if you go over 2TB that month will cost you an extra $200.   I have to be careful when I rebuild machines.  Steam is fine but I had to re-install everything on MS, EPIC, etc last time and I had to be extremely careful and still went over 200GB.