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

[amgff84]

Wow... it worked so well. I just signed another year agreement. I wonder if they'll let us out of that?!

Oh my gosh.... that is a surprise for me. I used this heavily last year. . Was nice running steam games that needed Windows. Worked so well.

There's paperspace too, which can be more expensive. While it's not designed for gaming, you can game on it depending on the setup you sign up for.

 

[amgff84]

There's paperspace too, which can be more expensive. While it's not designed for gaming, you can game on it depending on the setup you sign up for.

I take that back, they have a gaming platform now too.

 

[maflynn]

I am surprised that you find it unsurprising

Simply because I found that its business model unsustainable. I've been quite open about my negative opinion on this and it doesn't come as a surprise.

Sure the GPU shortages hurt them, but it hastened the inevitable.

I wonder if they'll let us out of that?!

You can try to cancel and get a prorated refund but its unlikely

 

[amgff84]

Simply because I found that its business model unsustainable. I've been quite open about my negative opinion on this and it doesn't come as a surprise.

Sure the GPU shortages hurt them, but it hastened the inevitable.


You can try to cancel and get a prorated refund but its unlikely

To be fair, I think that you’re a negative Nancy. I’ve seen you on this and many other threads voice your opinion, as we all do. This thread has been dead for quite a while now, and the second you hear about that news you’re so eager to come here and share?

 

[BigMcGuire]

Simply because I found that its business model unsustainable. I've been quite open about my negative opinion on this and it doesn't come as a surprise.

Sure the GPU shortages hurt them, but it hastened the inevitable.


You can try to cancel and get a prorated refund but its unlikely

I just hopped on their Discord and they're (their discord reps) claiming that Shadow is going to keep running and that they'll get bought out and there is no plan to shut down the active subscriptions. I'm still able to log into mine and no option to cancel, LOL. This is going to be interesting.

 

[maflynn]

This is going to be interesting.

Indeed, with MS strengthening their subscription service with the purchase of Bethesda, its going to be hard to justify spending money on a cloud service that you need to buy your own games for. With MS they have the game sub already in place and they're prepping a streaming service to be more robust.

We saw how difficult it can be with Google over promising and underdelivering

 

[BigMcGuire]

There's paperspace too, which can be more expensive. While it's not designed for gaming, you can game on it depending on the setup you sign up for.

Awesome, I'll check it out! I've used Shadow almost daily 2020. I played WoW, Steam games that only worked on Windows, even for work a little. I really liked firing it up and using it whenever I needed a quick Windows instance. $11.99 was a scream of a deal imo.

Simply because I found that its business model unsustainable. I've been quite open about my negative opinion on this and it doesn't come as a surprise.

Sure the GPU shortages hurt them, but it hastened the inevitable.


You can try to cancel and get a prorated refund but its unlikely

Yeah, Shadow ran better than my Mac with an RX 580 EGPU so I really liked it. Granted, an RX 5700 XT ran better but I don't have that anymore.

 

[Irishman]

There's paperspace too, which can be more expensive. While it's not designed for gaming, you can game on it depending on the setup you sign up for.

And boosteroid, but it hasn’t made it to the US yet, it seems to do the same thing that GFN did when it was still in beta, give you complete access to your Steam and Epic libraries.

We’ll see, I guess.

 

[amgff84]

I just hopped on their Discord and they're (their discord reps) claiming that Shadow is going to keep running and that they'll get bought out and there is no plan to shut down the active subscriptions. I'm still able to log into mine and no option to cancel, LOL. This is going to be interesting.

Can confirm that it's still running and seems to be working fine.

 

[SigEp265]

Doesn't look like Shadow is available in California, USA yet -- any alternatives ?

 

[amgff84]

Doesn't look like Shadow is available in California, USA yet -- any alternatives ?

Sure, if GeForce Now doesn't tickle your fancy, there's paperspace. It's a little more advanced to set up and might cost a bit more, but it seems promising as an alternative. Link below.

Paperspace Gaming

 

[TheGreatWumpus]

Sure, if GeForce Now doesn't tickle your fancy, there's paperspace. It's a little more advanced to set up and might cost a bit more, but it seems promising as an alternative. Link below.

Paperspace Gaming

Interesting - Paperspace seems to charge per hour? They make mention of a monthly plan in their FAQ, but I don't see the option anywhere.

 

[amgff84]

*BIG UPDATE*

Shadow will now only have a no contract $29.99/month plan. It's probably still going to be one of the best out there in implementation and quality, but at this cost... It's just not worth it anymore.

I'm closing out my last remaining Shadow account for my child and giving her access to a Paperspace machine. The big thing, and it's a bit clunky because of this, you have to go into settings and turn it off or you will continue to be charged. It's an okay service, and so far my experience has been hit or miss. One night it worked well, the next had a ton of input lag. It's possible that the issue was on my end and it's too soon to really know if it's a good option yet.

There is a great set up guide on the website, and this Paperspace machine is through Parsec, so you can choose the lowly GPU+ plan or the P5000 (What Shadow has) plan, which is basically the only two graphics cards you can pick. Again, it being clunky, you have to go into the Paperspace app and turn it on for it to appear in the Parsec app prior to turning everything on.

You'll know what I mean when you get there.

@TheGreatWumpus

 

[amgff84]

As a brief update, because I am still using the two cloud gaming platforms, Shadow is still working fine with GeForce now performing a little better. GeForce now actually has some EA titles including the game I play the most, which is BF5. I am currently using one of my kids subscriptions for Shadow as they don't use it anymore. I am enjoying Battlefield 2042 on Shadow.

 

[Populus]

I played the whole Control game on GeforceNow and, honestly, it was neat. Sometimes they assigned me the better graphic card (with some RayTracing features enabled by default) and the gameplay was smooth as silk (60fps with everything topped out). Other times the RT features were completely disabled and the framerste was ~40fps, that’s when you notice they assigned you a worse graphics card.

But, to be fair, for zero euros I cannot complain. It was an overall good experience (and Control is a great game).

 

[amgff84]

I'm not sure who, but someone asked if I think Shadow is still a good option for gaming given their tier card and the current GPU market and the cost of the Shadow service. They removed the question for whatever reason, but I will still answer it!

That answer is, it depends. If you need a Windows environment that you can log into from almost any other machine, but one you can still game on, then yes. However, it is not a good option for gaming. You could do a lot with the $30+ a month, such as put it toward a prebuilt PC.

Don't get me wrong, it has a use-case, and a lot of people who use a paper space machine might find this to new a good alternative.

 

[DarthVader!]

I'm not sure who, but someone asked if I think Shadow is still a good option

I was looking at this myself, thanks in part to this thread but i also did my own research.

This article sums up some of my concerns Before You Buy Shadow in 2022

They stated that they don’t have a definite plan for upgraded GPU tiers due to the pandemic and they were hoping to have a solution by summer of 2022 but there are no definite dates in place. They also said that they might be switching to AMD hardware for their next tiers as Maximum Settings just did. But please be advised that these are plans for NEW tiers and not for the current Shadow tier. They have no plans on upgrading the current Shadow tier at this time.

Now there has been a rumor that Jezby was planning to take the whole Shadow operation down. According to several articles on datacenterdynamics.com, Jezby has stated that their “combined business will maintain gaming operations, at least for a while, but also plans to extend into broader remote computer services”. It was also mentioned that “Gaming would appear to no longer be a focus of the relaunched company, although the service will be kept online for a while.”

That bolded part while a rumor does scare me. Granted, for M1 Mac users, who want to play AAA games, their options are limited to having a gaming PC, streaming service or this. A gaming PC unless its a laptop cannot go with you, I've had zero luck in playing the games I want with Geforce Now and so this is the only other alternative

 

[amgff84]

I was looking at this myself, thanks in part to this thread but i also did my own research.

This article sums up some of my concerns Before You Buy Shadow in 2022





That bolded part while a rumor does scare me. Granted, for M1 Mac users, who want to play AAA games, their options are limited to having a gaming PC, streaming service or this. A gaming PC unless its a laptop cannot go with you, I've had zero luck in playing the games I want with Geforce Now and so this is the only other alternative

This is all really good information. Thanks for contributing! BF2042 is almost unplayable on low setting using Shadow. It’s not a make it or break it deal to me, and that games is a really underperforming game to begin with.

I felt this was coming because they can’t compete with the bigger names like Google or NVIDIA. Hopefully they don’t start with comparable pricing plans to their future competition of Paperspace.

 

[SpitUK]

I have been looking for a good streaming platform for the Mac for a while, I tried a few out but they always have limitations on the games you can play. I came across Shadow PC https://shadow.tech/en-gb/ which basically gives you a full PC in the cloud so you can install anything you want on it. It is expensive but with the power upgrade you get an Nvidia 3070 equivalent gaming PC to use. I signed up so I could play the Diablo 4 beta over the weekend and I have been extremely impressed so far, I ran it at 4K max detail and it ran very smooth with no discernible lag. I have a direct fibre connection with 400Mbps down and 200Mbps up and connect my MBP via ethernet.

The Mac app is native Apple Silicon so runs smooth and efficiently.

Diablo 4…

 

[SpitUK]

It operates just like a normal PC, I have it set to mirror my Macs desktop resolution…

 

[SpitUK]

Playing Age of Empires 4 and Diablo 4 on my iPad…

Using Windows on the iPad…

 

[SpitUK]

Will keep playing and install more stuff but seriously impressed so far. The interface is very slick as well and is always easily accessible with realtime stats and options.

It all currently works on Windows 10 but Windows 11 is coming in April via an update.

 

[SpitUK]

It’s just updated to Windows 11

 

[mjohansen]

Looking to use Shadow PC for Diablo 4 open tomorrow. Wondering if anyone has experience with the base hardware specifications?

 

[SpitUK]

Runs perfect on the power subscription but I doubt it would run well on the base one.