Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
it will start at 100 hours and they will slowly decrease it and charge more. and so it begins
 
  • Disagree
Reactions: holmesf
I don't think I will ever get close to 100hrs but the general direction they seem to be going is a little concerning.

I am huge fan of game streaming services. does anyone know how much it costs in energy to run a comparable gaming rig for 100hrs a month?
 
If 94% of subscribers will be unaffected by this limit, how does adding it provide such a profound positive impact on the QoS? 6% of users aren't going to contribute to that much resource usage. BS-detector beeping.
I can easily understand this impact. I worked for a mobile telecom company at a time when it provided 3G/UMTS/HSDPA access with around 4-8 Mbps download speed. I might be mistaken about the specific numbers, as it was a long time ago. Since 98%+ of users used this mobile internet fairly, we had around 1% of users who consumed terabytes per month (close to the maximum bandwidth cap, running 24x7x31).


We were not able to expand our network fast enough because of a restrictive monopoly and local traditions involving bribery. As a result, service was significantly degraded due to these users.


So I can easily believe that because of these 4% of Nvidia customers, the wait time is 30 minutes instead of the expected 5 minutes.

Just my 2¢, I am not advocating for Nvidia, but I can understand their reasoning.
 
  • Like
Reactions: foliovision
It sounds like a lot, and it is a decent chunk of time in one month to be fair. That said, if you consider 3 hours of gaming 30 days in a month, that's 90 hours. So almost 100. So it's not entirely out of the realm of reason. While I probably would rarely clock 100 hours in a month, I could easily clock half of that.

Signed, an adult who plays video games.
Aging out of teenage years, does not necessarily make one an adult. Don't know your specific case, but I see it all the time. That is people in their 20s, 30s and even 40s who never became an adult.
 
Have you tried it? I use it to play Cyberpunk in 4K with all graphic options at max on my Mac and it's buttery smooth. Unless you play competitive online shooters I doubt you will feel any input lag. I haven't.

In my opinion this is actually the future of gaming.
I play elite dangerous odyssey on my mac using GFN, hooked up to my OLED in glorious 4K 120 and full eye candy. Experience zero perceivable latency in space or ground combat. It's a great service.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: foliovision
I wish Apple and Steam would partner up to improve x86 gaming emulation on ARM so Mac users can finally play some good games without much hassle. I think that both companies could benefit, especially with rumors of the Steam deck going ARM.
The reality is they took away 32bit support and one of my games I liked very much (civ4) stopped working. And there is no guarantee that rosetta won't go away in near future. Apple doesn't understand what's needed to be a gaming platform.
 
I'm surprised they have the subscriber base to have been going for so long. Now they're going to nickel and dime their new customers? Game streaming will NEVER be as good as local. It just won't. Period. The concept of game streaming is great, but not the reality. I don't understand the people that can play any type of game that requires more precise movement, timing, or reactions. Very few games, IMO, are somewhat playable via streaming. I can't even wirelessly stream from my PC to my Quest 3 because I'm very sensitive to response times and input latency. And that's all on a LOCAL 6e network!
To my surprise, it is actually better than streaming via steam from a pc in the next room, on gigabit lan. I'd say it's no worse playing warzone on geforce now than playing it on my xbox with a 25hz tv.
 
  • Like
Reactions: foliovision
This is how ensh*ttifiaction works.
-Degrade the service.
-Claim that it only affects a small number of users.
-Then introduce a more expensive or cheaper tier to make current ones look like amazing value.
-Rinse and repeat until the product is a shadow of its former self.
They've actually improved the cheaper tier, went from 1080p to 1440p.
 
It sounds like a lot, and it is a decent chunk of time in one month to be fair. That said, if you consider 3 hours of gaming 30 days in a month, that's 90 hours. So almost 100. So it's not entirely out of the realm of reason. While I probably would rarely clock 100 hours in a month, I could easily clock half of that.

Signed, an adult who plays video games.

Yeah but at that point and for this price it would make more sense to just get a PC and stream from that. It's not saving that much more, especially if you could finance it at 0% interest for a year. After that you're saving money.

I don't see this change having any substantial effect aside from making sure the service stays profitable for them from the small percentage of people making heavy use of the service.
 
  • Like
Reactions: foliovision
That’s… I mean, yeah. 100 hours will accommodate the majority of users. But it’s the ones that play over 100 hours who are likely your most dedicated subscribers.
You are probably right, but a more dedicated player isn't a benefit for business. It's a cost. People who only play 1-2 hours every month still make them 9,99$/month (or whatever the price is). If you play 100 hours instead of 2, you cost them more.

This said, I can't believe they are unable to sustain the cost of the service without having caps.
 
do these cloud gaming work? I tried it like 10 years ago, it moved in slow motion
 
do these cloud gaming work? I tried it like 10 years ago, it moved in slow motion
They work much better now, especially if you live near one of the data centers (most heavily populated regions will be near one).

On GeForce now I get about 16ms latency. That’s about 1 frame of lag. You may notice that compared to playing the game on a high end PC locally but it may actually feel more responsive than a lower end PC which could be generating frames in 30ms or more anyway.

The image quality is fantastic as they use latest AV1 codec at high bitrates and Up to 120fps.

In my opinion: game streaming is the future. The big issue they need to improve is how clunky it is to link all these game services together and to resume gaming sessions.
 
I think GFN is really good. I like that I don't have to buy another machine just for casual PC gaming. It works really, really well too. But if it's not for you, don't subscribe. And if you're a GFN customer and feeling sandy over the change, unsubscribe. Or to put it another way: vote (with your wallet). Too soon?
 
If this only affects ~6% of users, how is this change meant to improve things for other subscribers? This makes no sense to me, what am I missing? How are 6% of users meaningfully degrading the quality of the service and why can't one of the most valuable companies on earth simply improve their infrastructure?
Those 6% of users are using a lot more than 6% of the resources
 
  • Like
Reactions: holmesf
I think GFN is really good. I like that I don't have to buy another machine just for casual PC gaming.
Agree with you, but it depends on the games. I mostly play FromSoftware games. Neither Elden Ring nor Dark Souls III is supported on GFN.

Additionally, DS3 doesn’t support Steam Cloud Saves. Boosteroid supports both games, but it’s impossible to download DS3 saves from their servers, so it’s a vendor lock. I also heard about a couple of cases where Boosteroid lost all local saves.

So for me, cloud gaming is a no-go, and I would rather purchase a Steam Deck in addition to my Windows-based gaming PC (I also periodically play on the Switch, 3DS XL, and PS5).


If I started playing games that are supported by GFN, I would genuinely consider switching to it almost full-time. Especially while traveling.
 
Last edited:
GFN is pretty good. During the pandemic, and ensuing chip shortage, my desktop was woefully underpowered. I caught Covid around the time cyberpunk came out, and since I was stuck isolating for 2 weeks anyways, I bought a month and had a great time.

Wouldn't buy today, though. In these later stages of capitalism, it's valuable to own your own compute, else you have to bend at the knee to some faceless corporation.
 
I wish Apple and Steam would partner up to improve x86 gaming emulation on ARM so Mac users can finally play some good games without much hassle. I think that both companies could benefit, especially with rumors of the Steam deck going ARM.
Valve only has about 336 employees, surely apple can hire their own people Todo that work.
 
If you’re that serious about gaming then build a gaming PC. I seriously hate dealing with subscriptions lately…
Now you can get gaming laptops and nice ones too like the Asus rog zephyrus g16 it has a nividia GTX 4060 or better graphics card and OLED screen and is thinner than a MBP , no need to build a PC.
 
  • Like
Reactions: holmesf and meetree
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.