Let's make a gaming PC - The Bear and Badger

GurtTractor

Also what the actual fuck on the VR thing, streamed VR gameplay must be one of the dumbest things imaginable. Like how could anyone think that was a good idea. Just think of the instant motion sickness from the lag.

Skerret

Never been in this thread and the thread count at 2222/2222 is some kind of Richie Benaud wet dream and now I've ruined it, apologies all.

Also agree with the above, stupid.

bad_hair_day

Shadow's R&D working 'hard' to support VR so one to keep an eye on.

It seems an option if you can't spend £2-3k on a gaming PC. It gives the user access to a super fast computer potentially anywhere in the world (with a sufficient internet connection) and ability to play the latest games (with insignificant lag) for about the same as a phone contract. Worth a go for £15 shirley?

Dark Soldier

So Stadia, then.

yourfavouriteuncle

Dark Soldier wrote:

So Stadia, then.

Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. How’s this any different?

b0r1s

Latency and lag in VR is gonna be far worse than in 2/3D.

bad_hair_day

Techradar were complimentary about the service when compared to Stadia.

Dec 2019 Article here:

https://www.techradar.com/news/google-stadia-vs-nvidia-geforce-now-which-is-the-best-cloud-gaming-service

"Online shooters like Battlefield and PUBG have minimal input lag, and while you’ll certainly notice that the sharpness isn’t the same as it would be natively, the balance between playability and picture quality is very good."

yourfavouriteuncle wrote:

Dark Soldier wrote:

So Stadia, then.

Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. How’s this any different?

'Crucially, Shadow already offers hands-down the best streaming performance of the lot even now, and gives you a whole virtual Windows PC so you can play any game you want.'

Or video editing, or if you're an Apple person and want Windows anywhere, not just on your Macbook. Possibilities.

Might make a Shadow thread but more than happy for someone else to start one.

LivDiv

yourfavouriteuncle wrote:

Dark Soldier wrote:

So Stadia, then.

Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. How’s this any different?

A big difference is that it is a virtual PC.
You use it like any other PC. Steam, Epic, desktop and non gaming software is all available.

In terms of gaming. Even if it is shit you at least can access your content from a physical PC later.

It is like a fancy TeamViewer.

yourfavouriteuncle

Fair enough.

acemuzzy

Do you have to download and install the steam client each time you log on? Or does your "hard disk" persist?

LivDiv

As far as I am aware it persists.
The concept is that it is everything a PC is but at a distance (with the obvious elephant that is latency)

GurtTractor

bad_hair_day wrote:

Shadow's R&D working 'hard' to support VR so one to keep an eye on. It seems an option if you can't spend £2-3k on a gaming PC. It gives the user access to a super fast computer potentially anywhere in the world (with a sufficient internet connection) and ability to play the latest games (with insignificant lag) for about the same as a phone contract. Worth a go for £15 shirley?

It doesn't matter how they work on VR, it's an incredibly bad idea that will literally make people sick. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/01/how-fast-does-virtual-reality-have-to-be-to-look-like-actual-reality/

That 'insignificant lag' bit.... It's just marketwank to gloss over one of the fundamental issues that this tech has, Google did it in the run up to Stadia, and it was quickly found that the lag was rather significant in actual real life use cases and not just a tech expo showroom with a dedicated connection managed by google.

bad_hair_day wrote:

Techradar were complimentary about the service when compared to Stadia. Dec 2019 Article here: https://www.techradar.com/news/google-stadia-vs-nvidia-geforce-now-which-is-the-best-cloud-gaming-service "Online shooters like Battlefield and PUBG have minimal input lag, and while you’ll certainly notice that the sharpness isn’t the same as it would be natively, the balance between playability and picture quality is very good."

yourfavouriteuncle wrote:

Dark Soldier wrote:

So Stadia, then.

Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. How’s this any different?

'Crucially, Shadow already offers hands-down the best streaming performance of the lot even now, and gives you a whole virtual Windows PC so you can play any game you want.' Or video editing, or if you're an Apple person and want Windows anywhere, not just on your Macbook. Possibilities. Might make a Shadow thread but more than happy for someone else to start one.

That Techradar article has very little info on how they tested anything, and no numbers on latency or specific resolution info. It's pretty worthless.

Keep in mind that most of the vids and articles out there are either sponsored, or have little 'get 10% off' affiliate links that give them a little kickback from Shadow, so kind of the same thing. Pretty shady. Until I see a proper tech outlet like Gamers Nexus or maybe Digital Foundry do a deep dive I wouldn't trust owt about it.

I could see the service perhaps being useful for some rendering tasks, like if you were doing 3D stuff and you wanted to get stuff going away from home. But even then I think there are ways to remotely access your PC to do stuff like that, and you would likely already have a good machine if you are into that.

GurtTractor

Also I'm not convinced 2080 Ti level hardware is really necessary for this use, you'll lose a lot of that clarity when you compress the video. And I'm pretty sure you'll be limited to 60FPS too..

I think a lot of people are getting suckered into this sort of thing because of the super high end expensive hardware that would be otherwise unattainable, but as above I don't think you really need a 2080 Ti at all for a good experience. Even a £200ish new GPU now will give you more oomph than a Xbox One X. If you want to play anything remotely action and reflex based and have some gaming skill a PC even at the low end will give you a far more satisfactory playing experience, and I highly doubt that you will notice all that much visual difference between streaming and a low or midrange local PC.

Just do not preorder, be very wary of putting down any significant amount of money for these things until you've been able to test them yourself, and seen some actual quality testing articles or videos.

regmcfly

Once my "rig" arrives, what's going to be the cheapest place to get vr so I can play that half life.

b0r1s

Cheapest are the mixed reality headsets from Microsoft but the controllers aren’t great.

I’d honestly suggest the Quest with a link cable. It’s the best compromise at the moment. Definitely not as good as an Index with Knuckles controllers, but it is £600 cheaper and allows you to play wireless when not playing PC VR.

Good video from the Tested guys here trying 8 headsets with Alyx: https://youtu.be/T54aGkkXfuc

Subbax

I still have two Stadia passes, FYI.

b0r1s

I’d be interested to give it a go Sub if that’s ok? Assume it works on a PC with Xbox controller?

Subbax

b0r1s wrote:

I’d be interested to give it a go Sub if that’s ok? Assume it works on a PC with Xbox controller?

Yeah, currently that's the only way you can play it unless you've paid up. Existing Chromecast Ultras will eventually be patched to allow access.

I'll send you through the details.

regmcfly

Chillblast now doing 5% off d'oh.

b0r1s

Subbax wrote:

b0r1s wrote:

I’d be interested to give it a go Sub if that’s ok? Assume it works on a PC with Xbox controller?

Yeah, currently that's the only way you can play it unless you've paid up. Existing Chromecast Ultras will eventually be patched to allow access.

I'll send you through the details.

Cheers. Had a quick go on tomb raider. So it all loads very quickly = result. Plugged in the laptop to the TV and the in game menus had me worried as the image had lots of artefacts. There’s also no way to change the resolution of the game, so I was worried that it would be a blocky mess.

Have to say I’m pleasantly surprised. Once you actually start playing, the only negative I have so far are some frame stuttering on panning shots (not sure if that is present in other versions of the game).

I haven’t yet got into any demanding areas so will report back on that once I do.

Two main negatives are £8.99 a month you kind of expect some games (like GamePass) to be included.

The second is it only supporting Pixel phones. I get it’s a beta, but it would have made sense to test on iPhones at this stage.

Anyway the tech is definitely more impressive than the OnLive days, as it should be, but the offering, so far, is what let’s the service down.

Subbax

You should get an option to choose between resolution and performance. Pretty sure it was an option on both original and Shadow TR games that I have. Could be wrong though.

9 quid a month is a fair bit and whilst they've been offering 2 games a month, they're soon to run out of games on the platform so they've surely got something up their sleeve. The load time is really unbelieveable, especially on Destiny.

b0r1s

Yeah I recall that option on PS4 Pro just couldn’t see it here. Will check again. It kind of feels inevitable though. Monthly service, Netflix style appeals the masses.

Subbax

Was it Rise of Tomb Raider and Thumper that you got?

b0r1s

Oh didn’t realise you could claim two games. Will pick another. Looking at the list will probably give Thumper a go.

Subbax

It's just those two for January.

bad_hair_day

Sup Subs, if you've one still going I'd like to try Stadia out to see how smooth it is on my network ahead of any Shadow commitment?

Subbax

Sure thing. I'll send it now.

Tempy

b0r1s wrote:

Oh didn’t realise you could claim two games. Will pick another. Looking at the list will probably give Thumper a go.

Will be interesting to see how Thumper works given it was near unplayable with same house Steam Link latency

b0r1s

So just had a go on Thumper and another go on Tomb Raider on my MacBook Pro and am impressed with the visuals. However the main issue I keep facing is lag when something new loads. I get stuttering and that’s when it affects the game. Less of an issue on Tomb Raider, but definitely game breaking on Thumper.

My WiFi isn’t the best. Router seems hit and miss sometimes so getting mesh network installed (something I’ve been thinking about anyway) could alleviate all of these problems. At present, I couldn’t see how I’d play anything reaction based on it. Would be interesting to see how people are getting on with Destiny.

Speedhaak

Any advice on monitors? Looking to upgrade form my 24" -- Was considering the below:

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https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07BBRLTRH/ref=crt_ewc_title_srh_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

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https://www.dell.com/en-ie/shop/dell-27-gaming-monitor-s2719dgf/apd/210-aqvp/monitors-monitor-accessories

I'm not really worried about competitive play I just want to try and somewhat future proof the purchase and get a decent 27"+ monitor. 4K would be nice, but I heard QHD is also acceptable. It would be more for PC play than Consoles.

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