Paperspace and other Cloud Gaming services

[rahullak]

Hi everyone. I was just recently thinking back to the days when I could play games without worrying about or being stopped by the ever increasing hardware requirements. Buying a gaming rig now would be too expensive for me, but I am frustrated that I cannot even play games like F1 2012 or Farcry 2 properly on my rather old 2010 Gateway laptop.

So it just hit me that several years ago, when the cloud gaming market was not yet mature, i had heard about OnLive. Now OnLive is defunct, but I did find this cool new cloud hosting service called Paperspace. Paperspace provides cloud machines for AI/ML, Gaming and other needs. The configurations they provide are par excellence.

The investment seems low enough, especially since they have a cheap Pay-As-You-Go option, but I thought I would get some opinions of the fine folks here about the service before I jump into it. I guess some of you would already be using this service. Would it work reasonably well for me to play these games without lag?

I live in the city of Chennai, South India. Paperspace servers are probably in Europe and US. I have a really fast fiber broadband connection of 75 Mbps, so that shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Well, while console manufacturers would like to think that this is the future of gaming, honestly, I think it has a long way to go. The number one problem is bandwidth. Not everyone has access to the type of connection that would make it mandatory. And that's not even taking account what's happening at the other end where the servers are located. Even if someone might have the fastest connection available, that's all moot if the infrastructure can't handle the demand. And if everyone is going to be pushed to stream their games like the big players are wanting, I expect there will be lots of network congestion.

I personally don't believe that's the way to go. It's all hype at this point. It certainly might sound like a great idea on paper, but if you look at some reviews for some of these services, the main issue they always state is latency, which is a downer for anything requiring quick reflexes.

 

[rahullak]

Thanks, @Owain Taggart !

I suppose the bandwidth problem can be mitigated by having servers across the world (like Azure and AWS). And in terms of the congestion at the server end, they are providing dedicated virtual machines. This is similar to the dedicated bandwidth that we have on fiber broadband, which isn't shared with anyone.

 

[SPCTRE]

The number one problem is bandwidth.

Exactly.

Streaming based services can work really well if you're playing games where latency is less critical (such as non-competitive games, turn-based games, etc).

I would definitely not like to play, for instance, a rhythm game on that kind of service anytime soon.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I suppose the bandwidth problem can be mitigated by having servers across the world (like Azure and AWS). And in terms of the congestion at the server end, they are providing dedicated virtual machines. This is similar to the dedicated bandwidth that we have on fiber broadband, which isn't shared with anyone.

That's true. But it's still an exponential problem; ie the more people you funnel through it, the more infrastructure you need and the costs needed to run the thing seem to be a lot for the little gained. And I think that's why these services haven't been too successful. In other words, I feel streaming's a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist, and I find it disappointing to see some of these big players herald it as the future.

 

[SPCTRE]

a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist

uhm, no, from the perspective of a major publisher, the only hard limit to, say, console sales is the fact that your potential audience is required to own specific hardware

streaming solutions do away with that limitation because they only require a user to own some sort of device with limited computing power, in most cases one they already own such as a smart phone, tablet, smart TV, streaming set top box/dongle, etc etc

I'm not a fan of the technology, but the ramifications of it are inescapable

 

[rahullak]

In other words, I feel streaming's a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist, and I find it disappointing to see some of these big players herald it as the future.

Whether it will be the way that most gamers will play in the future is debatable. But certainly there is a problem. As I stated in my OP, i don't have fast gaming hardware, and a 2010 laptop (without a GPU) can't play many famous/top-of-the line games released after 2012. Nor do i have the money to splurge every few years in upgrading to the latest gaming rig. My alternative is to just pay $5 (or a little more) per month for 50 GB (or a little more) for storage and 0.5 cents an hour to play whatever game i can purchase via Steam on Paperspace.

 

[Owain Taggart]

uhm, no, from the perspective of a major publisher, the only hard limit to, say, console sales is the fact that your potential audience is required to own specific hardware

And how is that a bad thing, exactly? Console makers have for decades been attracting consumers to their consoles via unique features and exclusives. With Streaming, these machines will end up being mere badges but would still likely have exclusives paired to a console's service. And I'm going to bet that they'll still make you require using specific hardware. Frankly, I really don't think the technology is there yet.

Whether it will be the way that most gamers will play in the future is debatable. But certainly there is a problem. As I stated in my OP, i don't have fast gaming hardware, and a 2010 laptop (without a GPU) can't play many famous/top-of-the line games released after 2012.

Well, in that case, the service might end up having an edge. Depending on the games you play with it, you might either end up with a better or worse experience due to latency. I'd be curious to see if the latency is equal to the kind you get if a videocard is not up to spec on certain games.

 

[rahullak]

I signed up on Paperspace and guess what. I have a dedicated P4000 system (hosted in Europe) when i need it:

30 GB RAM
8 GB GPU
50 GB storage
Xeon 8 core processor

I would have to sell an arm and a leg to buy that hardware (not counting the storage) to run at home.

Played CS:GO and Farcry 2. GO has some mouse lag, but i suspect it is because of my mouse settings. Farcry 2 has almost no lag and i can play it comfortably.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Ok, that does seem interesting. The specs do seem quite a bit higher than what the average user might have, though the weak point would be storage, but then again I don't think you'd be using much of that anyway.

Does this mean you can go with settings that you want in games or are they all preset for the service itself?

 

[rahullak]

You basically get a Windows Server 2016 with some gaming services pre-installed. What games you install and settings you choose are entirely up to you. I even installed Anaconda to try out some AI/ML code.