Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I guarantee this service will suck!
OnLive attempted this years ago and the games were unplayable due to latency/lag.
You think it's annoying waiting for your 480p 3 minute long Youtube video to buffer, try playing a 1080p AAA video game from the cloud.
That's why OnLive no longer exists.
 
Cheaper to buy a 4x sli titan x pascal system with a 6950x than use this service for a year.

No it's not. Assume we both buy our games. Let's just say your system costs $1500 and you play 400 hours a year(8 hours every weekend). At 25$/20 hours you'd spend $500 a year. In three years a cloud gaming services may have been upgraded, free to the end user, at least once.
[doublepost=1483614879][/doublepost]
I guarantee this service will suck!

It was pretty sweet for me, but I probably had a better connection than you. Definitely something that needs to improve.
[doublepost=1483616235][/doublepost]
I guess really this service is great if you want to piss away buckets of money for an experience that is less optimal than if instead you either learned how to build your own computer (not time consuming, also not difficult to do) or if you paid someone to do it for you.

And by the time you (not specifically you, but more like anyone) figured it out or earned the money to build a gaming PC and downloaded the games etc. I just played, for example, 48-100 hours for under $125.

If a game costs $60 for both of us. and we both play 40 hours.

You: $1000 (PC) + $60 = $1060
Me: (40 hours / 20) * $25 + $60 = $110

$1060 / $110 = 9.6 games paid and played by the cloud user for your PC and one game.

Assuming most games are around 40 hours, let's imagine. With cloud game you pay some functional fraction of the cost of PC gaming.
 
So paying a lot of money for games that aren't even yours.

Honestly Nvidia should focus on making GPUs instead of all that cloud stuff.

Also what if people want to play offline? No option I guess.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pat500000
This is even better than I expected. I thought I'd have to buy new games.. but my existing Steam games will work with Nvidia Now!

Users of GeForce Now for PC won't load up a streaming app and pick through a list of games -- they'll load up Steam, Origin, UPlay or other PC game providers and purchase games directly from the distributor. Then they'll run that game on NVIDIA's GRID servers through GeForce Now for an hourly fee. The result is a setup that, in the stage demo, looks remarkably like running games on a local machine.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/04/nvidia-brings-geforce-now-cloud-gaming-to-mac-and-pc/
 
I built my gaming PC about 3.5 years ago. It cost, in total, with some proper timing around sales, ~$1500 with a 4gb gtx 770, a 4770k, and an SSD (only highlighting a few parts here) and also having a 27" 1440p monitor.

This service seems to be aimed at the casual gamer who occasionally plays games and doesn't want to have a second PC laying around and/or wants to use on a laptop to play when not at home. Building a PC, let alone a gaming rig, is not all that easy if you are not technically inclined. Yes, you can go to a store and buy all the parts but getting them to perform well takes some time and fiddling with the settings, ensuring drivers are the right ones, etc. In addition, you really need to do some research to understand what parts are the right ones if you want to build a gaming rig that will perform well. I'd bet that most of the target market for this service is people who have neither the time, inclination orknow how to build a good gaming rig; I think some people who build their own enjoy the building as much as the playing.

The gamer who builds his or her own machine would probably find flaws, real or imagined, in the service that would make them dislike it.

Personally, the cost isn't worth it to me but may be to others. The interesting potential is for this to bring gaming to tablets...
 
Last edited:
Yikes. Unlike PSNow, you have to buy the games in addition to the fee...yikes. So 1,000 hours would cost $1250, the cost of a good gaming rig to begin with. Throw in a Steam Link and you have the exact same thing: AAA streaming on your Mac with less latency.

This seems like it would be only good for extremely casual users who only want to rarely play the occasional AAA game.


I dont think this article is right.. Looking at their page https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/games/ it seems alot of games will be able to stream without the user actually owning thise games.... Which makes sense why they are pricing it at $25 per 20 hrs of play...
 
No it's not. Assume we both buy our games. Let's just say your system costs $1500 and you play 400 hours a year(8 hours every weekend). At 25$/20 hours you'd spend $500 a year. In three years a cloud gaming services may have been upgraded, free to the end user, at least once.
[doublepost=1483614879][/doublepost]

It was pretty sweet for me, but I probably had a better connection than you. Definitely something that needs to improve.
[doublepost=1483616235][/doublepost]

And by the time you (not specifically you, but more like anyone) figured it out or earned the money to build a gaming PC and downloaded the games etc. I just played, for example, 48-100 hours for under $125.

If a game costs $60 for both of us. and we both play 40 hours.

You: $1000 (PC) + $60 = $1060
Me: (40 hours / 20) * $25 + $60 = $110

$1060 / $110 = 9.6 games paid and played by the cloud user for your PC and one game.

Assuming most games are around 40 hours, let's imagine. With cloud game you pay some functional fraction of the cost of PC gaming.

Look, simple fact is it's $25 / 20 hours, for renting a service . If you game for 15- 20 hours a day , and yes it happens , or game 1 hour a day cost remains the same. It's still renting

Owning the hardware also means it's used for productivity ....very important

Go ahead and rent if it's your thing.


So let's ignore how much we use it, the point here is $25/20 , so the point here is actually value for money for that 24hour period, and its poor. Which is not justified even if you game for one hour...still poor value

and I'm a nvidia fanboy
 
Last edited:
$25 for 20 hours? And players have to buy the games themselves :D

they can simply BUY their own gaming PC with just 2 months of what they are asking for renting out this service over cloud.

That's just foolish.
 
Look, simple fact is it's $25 / 20 hours, for renting a service . If you game for 15- 20 hours a day , and yes it happens , or game 1 hour a day cost remains the same. It's still renting

Owning the hardware also means it's used for productivity ....very important

Go ahead and rent if it's your thing.


So let's ignore how much we use it, the point here is $25/20 , so the point here is actually value for money for that 24hour period, and its poor. Which is not justified even if you game for one hour...still poor value

and I'm a nvidia fanboy

Do we even know the terms of the $25/20? Sounds like you're saying you pay a ticket and you have 20 hours to play.. I think it's: every 20 hours you play you pay $25, which is how Amazon cloud services work. Not sure if we agree on this.

How much you play is very important. Because the cost of GeForce Now is a functional fraction of the cost of PC gaming, at some point their prices meet and cross. If you play Skyrim and WoW for 2000 hours on PC, it might actually cost more on GeForce Now ($2500) depending on your rig. But if GeForce Now continually upgrades their servers and provides top of the line hardware it might be cheaper. Cloud upgrades would have little impact on the cost for less intensive games though.
 
What's with this obsession with running our software on remote systems and using our computers as, basically, thin clients or terminals?

This model of computing became outdated in the 90s. Why are we going back to it?

I can't imagine games to be very playable on this setup due to latency, jitter, lost packets, and so on.

I don't think it is an obsession from users, as much as it is users wanting to have playability with games that tend to want same year pc performance.

From a Mac user's perspective, this is completely embarrassing. In order to play games, a user must resort to renting remote hardware to do it. Most PC users can opt for better hardware, while Mac users get stuck with sloppy-seconds hardware, all in the name of having the slimmest whatever.

Remember the G5 commercial, where the kid is blown out his house from the world's fastest desktop computer ever? Seriously, name me one Mac today that is worthy of a commercial like that? There is not one feature that comes on today's Macs that is a world first anymore. Apple should be ashamed.
 
Do we even know the terms of the $25/20? Sounds like you're saying you pay a ticket and you have 20 hours to play.. I think it's: every 20 hours you play you pay $25, which is how Amazon cloud services work. Not sure if we agree on this.

How much you play is very important. Because the cost of GeForce Now is a functional fraction of the cost of PC gaming, at some point their prices meet and cross. If you play Skyrim and WoW for 2000 hours on PC, it might actually cost more on GeForce Now ($2500) depending on your rig. But if GeForce Now continually upgrades their servers and provides top of the line hardware it might be cheaper. Cloud upgrades would have little impact on the cost for less intensive games though.
Do we even know the terms of the $25/20? Sounds like you're saying you pay a ticket and you have 20 hours to play.. I think it's: every 20 hours you play you pay $25, which is how Amazon cloud services work. Not sure if we agree on this.

How much you play is very important. Because the cost of GeForce Now is a functional fraction of the cost of PC gaming, at some point their prices meet and cross. If you play Skyrim and WoW for 2000 hours on PC, it might actually cost more on GeForce Now ($2500) depending on your rig. But if GeForce Now continually upgrades their servers and provides top of the line hardware it might be cheaper. Cloud upgrades would have little impact on the cost for less intensive games though.


Im not sure how it works, but I doubt they will give you 19 hours for free if you choose to stop.

Actually a better example is an egpu. Cause no matter what happens, you need a computer. So the question is, what performance will this get you, 1060-------titan X pascal. Lets see what this service is equivalent to.
 
Say you build a gaming computer. Costs $2500, lasts 3 years.

For the same amount of money, that buys you 2,000 hours of play. Over the 3 years, that's 1.8 hours per day, every day, or 12.8 hours per week. So it really depends on how much you actually play.

You can build a pretty sick gaming rig for less than $1,000
 
Say you build a gaming computer. Costs $2500, lasts 3 years.

For the same amount of money, that buys you 2,000 hours of play. Over the 3 years, that's 1.8 hours per day, every day, or 12.8 hours per week. So it really depends on how much you actually play.

A top tier gaming pc can be built for $1600. And every three years, you don't upgrade the whole computer. You upgrade the gpu or cpu.

That's not even mentioning how you own the computer. Forever. You can also do non-gaming things on a pc.
 
What's with this obsession with running our software on remote systems and using our computers as, basically, thin clients or terminals?

This model of computing became outdated in the 90s. Why are we going back to it?

Because the bandwidth is now becoming available and it's more energy efficient, if anyone has noticed energy isn't unlimited, we still have energy wars, and the climate isn't having an easy time.
 
I didn’t appreciate the difference before. But used to play a lot of games on my mac in Win 10. I had Tomb Raider and Splinter cell at low settings. I’ve now swapped the 5770 for an RX470 and the difference is night and day with regard to both clarity and smoothness.
I’ll take the GPU instead thanks.

geforce now is for someone that doesn't want to constantly upgrade gfx on their desktops/laptops/TV. obviously that's not for you. it's not for me either, but I can see who it is for.
 
Building a PC, let alone a gaming rig, is not all that easy if you are not technically inclined. Yes, you can go to a store and buy all the parts but getting them to perform well takes some time and fiddling with the settings, ensuring drivers are the right ones, etc.

It's not easy if you can't follow step - by - step instructions. I'm not skilled in mechanical work, but I'm about to change brakes for the first time on my gf's car because I researched how to do it and just learned. The videos instructing on how to do it are ~10 minutes long, and the repair manuals describe the process in about a page or two. Building a computer is an identical process. Screw this here, slot this here, push that in there, plug this in there. It's not like you have to discover the process for the first time ever, someone else has already planned it all out for you and given you the direct method of accomplishing it.

I'm not sure what time fiddling with settings, and ensuring the drivers are the "right ones" means. Put it together, turn it on, install the OS if it's not already done, press the "update" button. Every product in my computer comes from a manufacturer that provides an auto update feature and I don't need to confirm they're the right one, but the geek in me goes the extra step to double check despite it not being necessary. I don't know what you mean by "etc" other than just picking an open ended word to make it seem like this **** is harder than it really is.

Really, people actually make this out to be way more difficult than it has to be. The same way that Firestone made a brake job for two axles to be significantly (I mean maliciously) more expensive than it has to be. Sometimes it's just easier to convince someone it's harder to do just so you can make tons of money off of relatively simple work.
 
What's with this obsession with running our software on remote systems and using our computers as, basically, thin clients or terminals?

This model of computing became outdated in the 90s. Why are we going back to it?

I can't imagine games to be very playable on this setup due to latency, jitter, lost packets, and so on.

A proper gaming setup is expensive. And yes games play well over the cloud these days... Sony has one with PlayStation games that you can stream.

Nvidias offering is a bit too expensive tho.

I wonder if it supports VR?
 
You could build a cheap PC rig just for games. Or buy a PS4 pro.

$25 for 20h of gameplay? Maybe if you play no more than 8h/week and have access to the latest games included in price...

OnLive service was something like $10/monthly and went bankrupt. Can't see this one doing better.
 
It's not easy if you can't follow step - by - step instructions. I'm not skilled in mechanical work, but I'm about to change brakes for the first time on my gf's car because I researched how to do it and just learned. The videos instructing on how to do it are ~10 minutes long, and the repair manuals describe the process in about a page or two.

Your brake analogy is an interesting one. Yes, the basic brake job of a disk brake vehicle is relatively straightforward. Unless, of course, your car has an SBS system in which case if you don't know to disable it and someone opens a car door while you are pulling the caliper you will have a real mess on your hand. Do you turn or replace rotors after micing them? What do you do if a bleeder screw is frozen? Or a caliper? What is the right spec brake fluid? Torque specs for components? What pads do you want to use? Where to put anti-squeal? What order do you bleed the system? How do you reset the service indicator if the car has one? Properly adjust the parking brake?

Mechanically it is a simple job. It's the details that can kill you.

Building a computer is an identical process. Screw this here, slot this here, push that in there, plug this in there. It's not like you have to discover the process for the first time ever, someone else has already planned it all out for you and given you the direct method of accomplishing it.

It's true the mechanics are simple. It's getting all the pieces to function properly and at the best possible level of performance that can take time.

I'm not sure what time fiddling with settings, and ensuring the drivers are the "right ones" means. Put it together, turn it on, install the OS if it's not already done, press the "update" button. Every product in my computer comes from a manufacturer that provides an auto update feature and I don't need to confirm they're the right one, but the geek in me goes the extra step to double check despite it not being necessary.

I guess you never had a driver update break something in the system. Then again, you point out how like to double check everything; which is just my point. Not everyone knows how or what to double check.

I don't know what you mean by "etc" other than just picking an open ended word to make it seem like this **** is harder than it really is.

It's not hard if you know what you are doing and are comfortable with the technology. Otherwise it can be daunting; especially if yu has to troubleshoot a problem. As for the etc., there are quite a few things you could list that have to be considered that I chose not to; such as getting the right BIOS settings.

Really, people actually make this out to be way more difficult than it has to be. The same way that Firestone made a brake job for two axles to be significantly (I mean maliciously) more expensive than it has to be. Sometimes it's just easier to convince someone it's harder to do just so you can make tons of money off of relatively simple work.

I like how people always seem to think something is easy and anyone can do it, especially if they have never done it before. I've have both done a number of brake jobs and built my own computers. Neither is rocket science, but there are plenty of ways you can screw up and a number of things to consider that make it more than simply plug and play. As for building computers we're talking about building high end gaming systems where performance is important, where getting the maximum performance by having the right components all working at peak performance is important,not some beige box to run Office where you can slap together a bunch of off the shelf discount crap and still have it work fine. To use your car analogy, it's the difference between doing a brake job on a track ready GT3 RS and daily driver Toyota.

Yes, pros can be expensive. But as the story goes, after a customer complained that all the tech did was hit the valve and charge him lot of money when he could have hit the valve with a mallet himself, the tech said "You're not paying me to hit the valve, you're paying me to know where and how hard to hit it."
[doublepost=1483702700][/doublepost]
From a Mac user's perspective, this is completely embarrassing. In order to play games, a user must resort to renting remote hardware to do it. Most PC users can opt for better hardware, while Mac users get stuck with sloppy-seconds hardware, all in the name of having the slimmest whatever.

I'm guessing Apple sees the future sweet spot for gaming to be in gaming boxes instead of computers; in heir case the Apple TV. They're not interested in the hard core gamer but rather the casual one who also wants their TV set top box and home control system all in one device. That's where the money is so the hard core gamer is ignored.
 
Last edited:
I used to use OnLive. It was super playable. The only downside is that the video quality wasn't as crisp as playing it natively. It's like viewing a 1080p video on Youtube vs viewing that 1080p video before Youtube recompressed it.

I completely agree. But doesn't that eliminate some of the benefits? Sure, it's great to play a PC game that's not available at all on Mac, but I can play AAA games on my Mac laptop at reduced graphics quality - which is what you get with a remote video stream.
 
Your brake analogy is an interesting one.
I disagree, it's a terrible analogy, even though I service my brakes myself, too, but my car is from 1974, none of that fancy electronics BS. Why is it a bad analogy? Because frankly, if you fail to assemble your DYI PC, nobody is going to get hurt.
 
I completely agree. But doesn't that eliminate some of the benefits? Sure, it's great to play a PC game that's not available at all on Mac, but I can play AAA games on my Mac laptop at reduced graphics quality - which is what you get with a remote video stream.

not exactly. the quality difference between a Mac laptop and this Geforce Now is...well...different. Mac laptop gets you clean motion with no artifacts, but the textures are blurry and you might get aliasing due to low resolution. Geforce now gets you sharp textures and high resolution, but introduces h264 compression artifacts.

you have to see it in person to get the true comparison.

analogy would be:

video directly from an SD card taken from a $50 point and shoot camera
vs.
RAW video from a $2k DSLR camera put through youtube compression
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.