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Luna – Cloud gaming service

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Re: Luna – Cloud gaming service

#241

Post by kbenson »

freehunter wrote: post #188
CGamesPlay wrote: post #178

I'm not sure I would get back on one of these. I used OnLive back in the day, but now I can't play those games any more. It was a subscription with lock-in, and now that it's out of business I can't even choose to be locked in. Now, I have recently started playing on GeForce NOW, nVidia's offering. However there it's much closer to an EC2 model: I'm renting a machine, and I log into my Steam profile and play games th…

I have tons of PC games I "own" but can't play anymore. One of my favorite tycoon games was Sid Meier's Railroads, but it can't run stable on any machine with more than 4GB of RAM. Sure I could spin up a Windows XP VM but that's not a reasonable solution in any way. Same thing with Full Spectrum Warrior, just doesn't run on modern OSes. I can play Unreal Tournament 2003 or older Call of Duty games or... if I can find…

Have you tried gog.com? They support the games they sell, and often patch them so they can work on newer versions of windows (or if old enough, provide a custom dosbox launcher).

They do sell Sid Meier's Railroads ($9.99), and if you check the support forum it may be obvious if they've fixed this problem.

Having to buy it twice isn't optimal, but you get bug fixes and a DRM free installer you can download and keep and manuals in PDF form which beats trying to keep old floppies or CDs in good condition. I've bought quite a few old games I had from them for just that reason.

Re: Luna – Cloud gaming service

#243

Post by Sistrixirri »

I'm not a gamer but I find this interesting... So as far as I understand I could get access to unlimited amount of games without even having a gaming console or pc for few dollars a month? I guess that's the dream deal to any gamer..

Re: Luna – Cloud gaming service

#244

Post by nazgulnarsil »

boardwaalk wrote: post #46

The Venn diagram for target audience and situational use cases of these services has always seemed very small to me. At least the subscription model and game selection seems better than Stadia. edit: Also, it seems to me like the target audience is for the same sort (and I’m not trying to denigrate) that watch movies on their TV with internal speakers or can’t fathom why you’d pay more than 30 bucks for headphones or…

being able to game while also being cheap laptop only is something huge numbers of teens with disposable pocket money have. These services (fortnite, csgo, etc) want the billions all those pocket money slices add up to.

Re: Luna – Cloud gaming service

#245

Post by didibus »

binaryjay wrote: post #192
_23sd wrote: post #146

The price looks really good compared to Stadia, and being able to use a dirt cheap Fire Stick that many already have instead of a $100 hardware investment is a huge plus. To really drive adoption they could cut the price of the controller and make some games available for Prime members. That said, I think there's a tendency to pooh-pooh the "gamer" concerns about streaming far too much in the rush to declare that the…

>The price looks really good compared to Stadia, and being able to use a dirt cheap Fire Stick that many already have instead of a $100 hardware investment is a huge plus. I don't get this statement. Don't you need to purchase an Amazon Controller for $50 and if you want a good SoC and 4K capability you'll also need to purchase a Fire Stick 4K at about $50 which brings the total to $100. As for Stadia - there's no ne…

You can also use any bluetooth controller and Xbox One with Luna it says. And the Fire TV stick 4k is 25$ right now.

So it does seem there are lower entry options for TV use.

Re: Luna – Cloud gaming service

#246

Post by didibus »

ineedasername wrote: post #210
teen wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary issue is the games catalog, something neither Amazon or Google can crack a dent in

Yes. All I want is a latency-optimized EC2 (I'm no twitch gamer, This is where NVidia went wrong. They're basically providing that sort of thing, but wanted to present it as their own game service as though all the other storefronts were just backend plumbing. Not a bad consumer experience, but also not what publishers are licensing when they stick their game on Steam.

Under 25ms is less than current game consoles deliver. Most deliver around 100ms latencies.

Re: Luna – Cloud gaming service

#247

Post by gustavetd »

ehsankia wrote: post #205
kumarvvr wrote: post #180

Interesting to note that the controller connects to Amazon servers directly. Is that something new or has it been done before?

Yup Stadia did it first, it actually makes a significant difference because bluetooth is quite slow, which is also why you can't really use bluetooth headphones for gaming. It connects directly through wifi so you can quickly switch between PC, chromecast and android without connecting it to any individual device.

Well it's true that bluetooth actually induces latency but in the case of audio there is a lot of codec encoding / decoding shenanigans that produces a significant part of the perceived audio lag, which does not occur on controller / mouse / keyboard

Re: Luna – Cloud gaming service

#248

Post by chaostheory »

Mupuff wrote: post #165
chaostheory wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My connection degrades depending on peak demand, because cable, and because internet duopolies. It's great that yours doesn't, but that's not reality for everyone. Also for most people in the US, 4G has significant usage caps.

Also - not everyone lives in the US :)

That’s why I brought it up. Our internet services are worse than most industrialized countries. It’s both slower and more expensive. To my knowledge only Canada’s internet services are worse

Re: Luna – Cloud gaming service

#249

Post by mijoharas »

Since it hasn't been posted here, it looks like amazon have "productised" AppStream[0] and added a subscription based model a-la prime video.

Interesting that they positioned it as a new product and not a prime offering, as increasing prime subs was always one of amazon's main drives recently (keep spinning that flywheel).

They had a similar streaming integration with their games engine lumberyard[1] iirc, and used it for some of their first party titles[2] though as far as I remember, none of their first party games have taken off.

Interestingly, in googling I found there is a "prime gaming"[3] option that amazon has, so I'm surprised this offering wasn't folded into that. Maybe the low uptake of prime gaming means they need to position it as a separate service to get press for it, or maybe the increased cost to serve can't be justified without charging an additional subscription.

[0] https://aws.amazon.com/appstream2/?blog-posts-cards.sort-by=...

[1] https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/

[2] https://www.amazongames.com/en-gb/games

[3] https://gaming.amazon.com/

Re: Luna – Cloud gaming service

#250

Post by Moru »

bluescrn wrote: post #236
erhk wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25ms is a huge ask

Even locally, on a console, you’ll not get latency (input to visible response on screen) down to 25ms these days. Some LCD TVs alone can add 40-60ms of latency, and software can add another couple of frames. Often 30hz frames, too... Which kind of sucks if you grew up on CRTs and arcade games that often managed much lower latency. But I guess it means that game streaming really could offer a console-like experience i…

I believe that's the joke. I wish latency was getting better but every new thing that comes along moves the acceptance further away. Many don't even notice 500 ms delay from click to something actually happening. On my Atari I often had the feeling something started happening before the mouse button was all the way down.
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