Some notes on the current state of Cloud Gaming

    Some notes on the current state of Cloud Gaming


    After reading the article by Dell and DROVA: how to play demanding games even on a weak laptop , I remembered, including the article Review of the cloud services market of games on streaming games.

    In the comments to that, Parsec was mentioned briefly (though for some reason the author decided that Parsec was created by Amazon, possibly based on an article in the AWS Talking blog with Parsec, a Game-Changer of Gaming .



    So, Parsec's functionality is not limited to Amazon'om. This is a universal solution of streaming games (and not only>.
    Including from any other computers (there are some requirements, for example, the host must support hardware video encoding (NVENC (better), VCE, Intel QuickSync), the host must have Windows 8.1 / Windows 10 or corresponding versions of Windows Server. Windows 7 is not supported and will not be.)

    Client - Windows / macOS / Linux, Android (but you need a gamepad), rPI3, there is no iOS version.

    Joysticks, tablets and all that.


    If the game requires a steering wheel and pedals, or a good joystick, or we don’t need to play, we need to draw and we need to connect, for example, a Wacom graph glider - then there’s also a solution - the VirtualHere application. USB forwarding over the network (trial supports one device). It costs 49USD per server (in this case the server is the device where the USB device is plugged in)

    Parsec Cloud Marketplace and Paperspace


    Parsec has its own Cloud Marketplace, with the ability to rent a virtual machine (and dynamically enable / disable it), Amazon AWS and Paperspace are supported. Price as the original provider. Frodchek is much tougher (and it seems that he doesn’t understand that in some cases the State is not asked to ask, but it’s reasonable to ask the Country), on the technical support site it’s right to say that yes - they understand that there will be False Positives. But so much better than fraud.
    At the same time, the same Paperspace even has a ready-made virtual template for Parsec. More Gaming with Paperspace .
    Prices for a virtual machine from Paperspace with 30 Gb RAM and Quadro P4000 with 8 Gb RAM - 0.4 USD / hour (0.51 USD / hour since July 6, 2018) (there is a monthly payment) + fee for storage. No need to pay for traffic. But Public IP (2 US $ per month) will have to pay to use Parsec.
    If you do not play more than 20-30 hours a month anyway, it turns out to be quite profitable. By the way more profitable than the stated prices DROVA.
    Actually, Paperspace has another purpose - servers for machine learning, there are special frameworks for it, maybe I will tell it some other time.

    If you want a closer server


    As already mentioned, Parsec is not tied to the hosting.
    It is enough to find a server with a GPU at a price that suits you. They are, including in Moscow.

    And yet, you can still collect your typewriter and place it conveniently nearby.
    Of course, you can assemble your machine, put it where it is convenient and use it. But this is an investment in a typewriter.

    And how does all this work?


    It works fine for me.
    Ping to Paperspace I have about 90 ms and had to tweak the settings so that there were not even rare gaps in the sound. The quality of the picture occasionally falls on a split second. Traffic statistics Mikrotik'a ("Daily" Graph (5 Minute Average), the ability to more accurately measure was not, so maybe there were peaks) - 10-12 Mbit / s (although Parsec'u directly said that you can use 30 Mbit / s).

    Iron:
    • MacMini Late 2012, connected by cable to Mikrotik, and that - to the provider (the usual 100 Mbit / s anly wired tariff for 570 rubles per month) + Saitek X52 Pro - in Elite: Dangerous is quite normal to fly (I try to avoid fighting). FPS is almost constant - 60 (before, when E: D still ran on this MacMini - FPS when docked was 15-20).
      Input lag in my opinion - not noticeable.
      When installing VirtualHere, some problems arose (briefly, Apple’s paranoia with each version of macOS takes on an increasingly acute form. VirtualHere installs the driver and says directly that you need to allow it to be used in the macos settings. Now macOS will ignore pressing the corresponding button while it is running Google Chrome.
    • MacBook Air Late 2013, connected over 5 Ghz WiFi and then also to Mikrotik, the picture from Skyrim Special Edition and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West works fine.


    disadvantages


    • From the point of view of services that check user by geoip - Paperspace is the USA (even a data center in Amsterdam).
    • Mining on the server at least at Papeprspace is expressly prohibited. If we don’t need a server around the clock but had to take it without an hourly fee, it’s not always possible to pay back at least partially. Especially in Russia, with misunderstandings regarding the status of cryptocurrency.
    • Games still need to buy yourself. In this case, in the case of Paperspace, you need to specify a more optimal Steam CDN server, because by geoip, the Californian is chosen (!). but this is an advantage, because you can put absolutely any fashion.
    • Throwing files on the server at Paperspace via Google Drive, if you have it pumped -
      it will not work, there is a server version of Windows. I use Yandex.Disk (that’s where the free 42 Gb came in handy).
    • When paying for Internet access by gigabyte - it’s better not to use it.
    • If the Internet channel cannot provide at least 15 Mbps WITHOUT asterisks, the impressions will not be the best.


    Thus, now in Russia, it is possible to use cloud services to run resource-intensive games, the use of mods or additional equipment is not a problem. And the prices are quite competitive, if you use foreign services.

    Update 1


    Removed links to "ordinary" hosters with GPU prices.

    Update 2


    Added an explanation that “10-12” Mbit / s is a 5-minute average and not instant digits.

    Update 3


    Updated Paperspace prices and fixed my bug due to which Update N and the “links” section were not shown.

    References:


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