Shadow Cloud Gaming on MacOS... & GeForce Now.

[amgff84]

Just an update after running GeForce Now for a bit. My time with GeForce now has been pretty darn good, it's smooth, it's easy, and the graphics are great... I just miss shadow. I logged into shadow and ran Ghost recon Breakpoint, and I have to say that I missed it. Not Breakpoint, but the shadow experience. I even signed up for alerts for when the next Shadow Ghost is ready to order. Shadow offers much more than just a game, it offers a computer, and a decent one. No, it's not your buddy's 3 or 4 thousand dollar build, but it is well worth the money. It gives you solid and reliable performance, and a Windows 10 PC to play anything you want on, just as long as it's compatible with Windows 10.

 

[amgff84]

After facing some issues with the game freezing, I took down my ultra wide monitor and dusted off my old Samsung 2333HD monitor. This 1080p monitor with its 16:9 aspect ratio seems to have fixed all functional issues with Shadow on my Mac. Shadow needs a 16:9 monitor or you may run into issues. my 2560x1080 and 1440x900 both had issues occasionally while running Shadow.

 

[amgff84]

Just an update... After running Shadow with a standard 1080p monitor for 5 sessions, no issues. It's actually like it's my own PC running Windows 10 as if it were bootcamped, except I can just CTRL with an arrow to the left and right to switch back and forth from Windows to Mac... An obvious benefit over bootcamp, however, I'm not sure if you would ever need to do this, unless you needed to copy and paste text or a file... I will test these features and update this post soon. I will say though, I don't see why this wouldn't work. I'll also test the USB function of Shadow, which say's it should work. This way, if you ever need to load a USB dongle with accessible data, you can, assuming it works.

Updates soon.

Thanks!

 

[amgff84]

A quick update to Shadow vs Geforce Now;

Recently GeForce Now finally released an official version of their app, so anyone and join.

Quickly, they offer two tiers;

Free and Paid.

Free allows a player to use their service for one hour, and then after that hour they will get booted and have to sign on again, assuming they don't have to wait in a queue.

Paid allows 6 hours of playtime, with priority over free players for queue, and with an RTX card, which I believe is and RTX 2060, or equivalent. This allows for raytracing on the GPU.

GeForce now still has a limited selection of games, no Titanfall 1 or 2 or any of the battlefield games are a no go, but mostly anything from Steam and Play will work. Shadow is a Windows 10 OS so anything that a modern PC will run will work.

Both play Witcher 3 without contest of each other.

Personally, Shadow is better even though the graphics quality in game is average for the typical gamer.

GeForce Now, while having a better GPU, requires Bandwidth, which means my 250 Mpbs may cause issues at ultra settings/1080p. I would imagine a real bottleneck with 4k at Ultra.

Shadow just works, and it works well. I actually showed some friends my shadow loaded up in full screen in my MacBook over a poor internet connection. They had no idea it was streaming Windows 10 and thought it was native to my Mac... Silly, huh?

Below are benchmark result of Shadow and GeForce Now at 720p and 1080p. On my 60 Hz monitor, The gameplay is excellent at both 720p and 1080p at ultra settings for both systems. GeForce now clearly wins the FPS over Shadow, however, Shadow is a better overall experience.

 

[maflynn]

Recently GeForce Now finally released an official version of their app, so anyone and join.

I think the big guys like Nividia, Microsoft, and others (just not Google) will push out the small guys like Shadow Cloud. Geforce can be had for 5 bucks a month whereas shadow cloud gaming is 13 dollars a month (promotional) and non-promotional 25 dollars.

There's really no way a company that is charging over double what Nvidia is can remain

 

[amgff84]

I think the big guys like Nividia, Microsoft, and others (just not Google) will push out the small guys like Shadow Cloud. Geforce can be had for 5 bucks a month whereas shadow cloud gaming is 13 dollars a month (promotional) and non-promotional 25 dollars.

There's really no way a company that is charging over double what Nvidia is can remain

I think that is possible, Blade is a startup and in order to keep competitive they will have to lower pricing, which in turn will slow down machine upgrades and therefore will be unable to keep up with Nvidia. I think Nvidia releasing their GeForce Now finally, is disruptive to the cloud gaming arena. However, there is much more functionality behind Shadow, and they can advertise it as such.

I believe Shadow was basing their prices off similar cloud Windows environment in order to come in cheaper, I believe Parsec or Paperspace might be one of them, but I'm not certain. Shadow is right around the corner from releasing 2 more tiers of service, both upgraded environments, so I think this will start to get interesting pretty soon. I was playing on GeForce now, and I have to admit, it was quite good, but I did notice more delay than with Shadow and I know Shadow has been working diligently to iron that out.

As an experiment, I was thinking about running my GeForce Now inside of Shadow. ?

 

[maflynn]

I think that is possible,

For the gaming customer, would you want to pay 5 dollars a month or 13? For the gaming consumer there is brand recgnization with nvidia, Microsoft - even Google (though their streaming service is a disaster).

I believe Shadow was basing their prices off similar cloud Windows environment in order to come in cheaper,

Are they looking to be a cloud provider or a game streaming provider? That's the thing, the bar has been set fairly low regarding monthly pricing for gaming, its going to be hard sell for them to be part of the conversation. Given the amount of coverage gaming streaming has had lately and its w/o a mention of shadow cloud, they have an uphill battle.

 

[amgff84]

For the gaming customer, would you want to pay 5 dollars a month or 13? For the gaming consumer there is brand recgnization with nvidia, Microsoft - even Google (though their streaming service is a disaster).


Are they looking to be a cloud provider or a game streaming provider? That's the thing, the bar has been set fairly low regarding monthly pricing for gaming, its going to be hard sell for them to be part of the conversation. Given the amount of coverage gaming streaming has had lately and its w/o a mention of shadow cloud, they have an uphill battle.

I guess it really depends on how they market themselves, but it is known in the community of users that a majority of the Shadow users also use Shadow as a PC. There's a reddit conversation out there on it, but I think they will have to either market themselves differently or introduce something like GeForce Now where only the games are accessible and is dirt cheap. Plus, other streaming services like Vortex, similarly priced to Shadow's introductory price, which is garbage btw, but exists and kinda is the average price of streaming services. This makes me wonder if GeForce Now has the aim to take down the others by offering a product that is simply better at a lower cost, and in turn, raises the price when the others are no longer around, or is their product cheaper because they are the producers of the GPU's used, so they can obviously use the best of their lineup with little impact to their supply or bank account.

 

[maflynn]

ut it is known in the community of users that a majority of the Shadow users also use Shadow as a PC.

That's my point, what is the market that shadow copy is after, gaming, or cloud computing? If its the former, they will have some tough sledding thanks to the competition.

 

[amgff84]

That's my point, what is the market that shadow copy is after, gaming, or cloud computing? If its the former, they will have some tough sledding thanks to the competition.

Well, I understand your point, and it is gaming. I think it will have to evolve a bit, and I think it is happening as time goes on as many users, including myself, use it as another PC. For me, no Bootcamp and no Parallels. Minimal usage of my system resources, it's great. No need to buy a Windows license, or PC. If you have Ubuntu or Mac, you can have a Windows PC running inside of your existing OS and literally switch between Windows and the other OS in a second and go back and forth. Not that it's practical, but you could be doing your research and copy notes on Mac OS and CTRL + Arrow and paste your notes into notepad while writing in Word on Windows. Again, not practical, but it just proves it's usefulness outside of gaming.

 

[Varking]

Snagged GeForce Now. Will have time to mess around with it tonight. I will post my thoughts on it later. I have experience with Stadia from well before it went into public beta but I hope this is better. Plus I don't want to have to use Boot Camp anymore.

 

[maflynn]

Snagged GeForce Now. Will have time to mess around with it tonight.

Looks like a lot of games were pulled from GeForce Now for some reason. For instance Activision/Blizzard pulled there games. I'm not sure what's going on, though I'm not using the streaming service at the moment.

 

[Populus]

Looks like a lot of games were pulled from GeForce Now for some reason. For instance Activision/Blizzard pulled there games. I'm not sure what's going on, though I'm not using the streaming service at the moment.

Maybe Acti/Blizzard realized that they can make a streaming service on their own, with their own games?

Honestly if it starts happening like with the different stores after Steam (UbiPlay, EA’s Origin, Epic Store, etc) don’t count on me with this new model. I want a platform to play it all.

By the way, does Shadow allow to use mods in video games?

 

[Janichsan]

Looks like a lot of games were pulled from GeForce Now for some reason. For instance Activision/Blizzard pulled there games. I'm not sure what's going on, though I'm not using the streaming service at the moment.

The rumour goes that this is part of Activision's multi-million dollar deal with Google. Activision/Blizzard's leagues and competitions now stream on YouTube (instead of Twitch like before) and allegedly the games will only be available via Google Stadia.

But, as I said: the latter part is yet just a rumour and unconfirmed.

 

[Varking]

Looks like a lot of games were pulled from GeForce Now for some reason. For instance Activision/Blizzard pulled there games. I'm not sure what's going on, though I'm not using the streaming service at the moment.

I don't pay anything for 90 days so I am giving it a try. I only used Stadia while it was in Alpha and Beta so I didn't have to pay. So far no service has impressed me enough to want to keep it.

 

[Lyrca]

I have been playing Overwatch on Geforce Now but since it got pulled a few days ago I have been a little disappointed. Otherwise the quality was great and it was easy to forget I was not using a local machine.

I have put in a preorder for Shadow as it will allow me to play Overwatch again and give Red Dead Redemption 2 a try. I am expecting my Shadow machine to be delivered in April (I'm in France).

 

[Varking]

None of the games I had on my steam account are able to be played using GeForce NOW so that is a little upsetting. I don't have to pay for like another 88 days so I have time to see if they get added. Might be easier buying an external SSD and boot camping windows to it and having access to my full library of games. I have been looking at what is the best possible graphics card I can use for an EGPU and also what EGPU enclosure can hold it but its hard finding people really talking about this stuff.

 

[amgff84]

I don't pay anything for 90 days so I am giving it a try. I only used Stadia while it was in Alpha and Beta so I didn't have to pay. So far no service has impressed me enough to want to keep it.

Have you tried Shadow? I know it is more expensive, but there are no limits on games. If they are compatible with Windows 10, they work.

I have had no issue with my steam library on GeForce Now either, but it's good to mention all issues we run into to get it out there. I'm a fan of both, GeForce now for the more powerful platform, but Shadow still has the win for the better overall experience.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Very interested in this mostly just for Starcraft II. I have a 2017 MBP 13' and a Sonnet EGPU with an RX 580 GPU but ... lately Starcraft II has been crashing on it a lot. The same GPU in an XPS Gaming box performs almost 2x as well but I sold/gifted that to family.

I have a 4k monitor but play 1080p anyway.

I hate to sound daft but... I don't see a list of games that work/don't work. Starcraft II should work right? (36GB or so I think).

I think I will try the monthly rate just to see if it works. (Shadow Cloud).

Thanks for taking the time to write about this.

 

[amgff84]

Very interested in this mostly just for Starcraft II. I have a 2017 MBP 13' and a Sonnet EGPU with an RX 580 GPU but ... lately Starcraft II has been crashing on it a lot. The same GPU in an XPS Gaming box performs almost 2x as well but I sold/gifted that to family.

I have a 4k monitor but play 1080p anyway.

I hate to sound daft but... I don't see a list of games that work/don't work. Starcraft II should work right? (36GB or so I think).

I think I will try the monthly rate just to see if it works. (Shadow Cloud).

Thanks for taking the time to write about this.

You’re welcome. I know it wasn’t organized well, but it’s a work in progress. On Shadow, if Starcraft 2 will play on Windows 10 it will work with Shadow, and probably in 4K too, but that will consume a large amount of bandwidth.
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None of the games I had on my steam account are able to be played using GeForce NOW so that is a little upsetting. I don't have to pay for like another 88 days so I have time to see if they get added. Might be easier buying an external SSD and boot camping windows to it and having access to my full library of games. I have been looking at what is the best possible graphics card I can use for an EGPU and also what EGPU enclosure can hold it but its hard finding people really talking about this stuff.

You’re Steam library should work. I recommend Shadow if you have a good internet connection. Way easier.

 

[BigMcGuire]

You’re welcome. I know it wasn’t organized well, but it’s a work in progress. On Shadow, if Starcraft 2 will play on Windows 10 it will work with Shadow, and probably in 4K too, but that will consume a large amount of bandwidth.

Just got done playing 2 Starcraft II Games. I'm happy. I tried playing the first game in windowed mode but that makes moving (by moving your mouse to edge of screen) near impossible. Initially I was 4k but went down to 1080p for second game. Second game was in full screen and on high graphics settings.

Very impressed. Felt native - a few 1 second blurts where audio garbled and it was a tiny bit laggy but 100% acceptable for $155 a year. I think this may be more my wifi and wired will fix this but it wasn't annoying at all.

2017 MBP + Sonnet EGPU (RX 580) = laggy and crashes often especially with latest Starcraft II release. Shadow Cloud plays a lot better than my Mac + EGPU did.

I've been using Parallels to do some work app testing -- installed my Work app on the Shadow instance - worked perfectly and super fast.

Very happy customer here and absolutely shocked. I thought cloud based gaming was too good to be true and not feasible.

 

[Varking]

Have you tried Shadow? I know it is more expensive, but there are no limits on games. If they are compatible with Windows 10, they work.

I have had no issue with my steam library on GeForce Now either, but it's good to mention all issues we run into to get it out there. I'm a fan of both, GeForce now for the more powerful platform, but Shadow still has the win for the better overall experience.

I will take a look at Shadow shortly. Either tonight or first thing in the morning.

 

[amgff84]

Just got done playing 2 Starcraft II Games. I'm happy. I tried playing the first game in windowed mode but that makes moving (by moving your mouse to edge of screen) near impossible. Initially I was 4k but went down to 1080p for second game. Second game was in full screen and on high graphics settings.

Very impressed. Felt native - a few 1 second blurts where audio garbled and it was a tiny bit laggy but 100% acceptable for $155 a year. I think this may be more my wifi and wired will fix this but it wasn't annoying at all.

2017 MBP + Sonnet EGPU (RX 580) = laggy and crashes often especially with latest Starcraft II release. Shadow Cloud plays a lot better than my Mac + EGPU did.

I've been using Parallels to do some work app testing -- installed my Work app on the Shadow instance - worked perfectly and super fast.

Very happy customer here and absolutely shocked. I thought cloud based gaming was too good to be true and not feasible.

When playing in windowed mode, or even fullscreen sometimes, you have to CTRL OPTION M to lock the cursor to the Shadow desktop. This screwed me up a lot when I first started using it, almost unplayable... Then I tried that, and it fixed that issue.

For connection, I am using a wired connection and I set my bandwidth limit to 70 which is max, Ive also used it in 720p on 2.4ghz and 5 ghz seems to work just as well as my wired connection with the exception of a few hiccups.

I just upgraded my mouse to a corsair and I already had a mechanical keyboard, both wired USB to limit any other possible latency as I wouldn't want to accumulate too much latency through all the various connections.

I have considered an external GPU in the past, but I have the older Thunderbolt on my Mac so it would have been a poor experience, my favorite part of Shadow is the ability to use Windows 10.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Pretty happy with this! Played 3 Starcraft Games that I consider to be BETTER than my 2017 MBP + Sonnet EGPU (RX 580). I tried wired for the last game a few mins ago and ... yep, feels native and there are no 1-2 second slight audio blurb lags that I get on my 5Ghz Wifi.

Just amazes me every time I play how "native" it feels - especially with wired ethernet.

I didn't install the USB drivers so I have to unlock the mouse when in fullscreen mode but it seems fine to me.

To save $1300 for a gaming desktop or $1800 for a gaming laptop... this is a no brainer - especially for gamers like myself who do 1-2 Starcraft games every day or so with some AOE II. Based on how Starcraft II Fares, I bet WoW is very playable.

The discord channel for Shadow has some people complaining about lag, unable to get on their box - I've never had any problems the 3 full games I've played over the last day. Instant on, instant access. Win win.

And I get to keep using my MacBook as my primary computer. Biggest win.

 

[amgff84]

Pretty happy with this! Played 3 Starcraft Games that I consider to be BETTER than my 2017 MBP + Sonnet EGPU (RX 580). I tried wired for the last game a few mins ago and ... yep, feels native and there are no 1-2 second slight audio blurb lags that I get on my 5Ghz Wifi.

Just amazes me every time I play how "native" it feels - especially with wired ethernet.

I didn't install the USB drivers so I have to unlock the mouse when in fullscreen mode but it seems fine to me.

To save $1300 for a gaming desktop or $1800 for a gaming laptop... this is a no brainer - especially for gamers like myself who do 1-2 Starcraft games every day or so with some AOE II. Based on how Starcraft II Fares, I bet WoW is very playable.

The discord channel for Shadow has some people complaining about lag, unable to get on their box - I've never had any problems the 3 full games I've played over the last day. Instant on, instant access. Win win.

And I get to keep using my MacBook as my primary computer. Biggest win.

If you are on a Mac, you can CTRL Arrow left or right to switch desktops. I'll use this feature when I am waiting for other players to load or if I need to google how to do something. It does feel native, more so than GeForce now, but that may have something to do with the GPU GeForce has, which is using more bandwidth. I've used Shadow as my only way to go for the past 9 months and I only experienced problems that may have been solely my fault. After I learned how to use Shadows features better, no issues.