Shadow Cloud Gaming PC

[MrMat]

Holy moly it's good! I was a little skeptical going in but so far, I'm very impressed.

 

https://shadow.tech/gben

 

You get 12GB RAM, GTX1080, either one of two CPU's (one is 2.6GHZ and a little ropey, the other is 3.2ghz and much better. It's pot luck which one you get and changed every time you logon), and 256GB SSD (additional 1TB for additional £2 per month). That's dedicated per user and not shared.

 

Plus 1 Gb internet connection which is shared but I was downloading from Steam at 90MB/sec which is lovely!

 

They build you the basic Windows 10 image and then it's free to do what you like with (within reason!). It's not live 24/7 so cannot be used as a server etc. It shuts down half hour after closing the app.

 

Latency is always the main concern for gaming but it's really impressive. Happy to post some vids if folks are curious. I'm on Virgin 200mb but it only really needs a 10/20mb line. Using mainly via 5GHZ Wifi which works fine but obvious benefits to ethernet.

 

Gaming for me was only half the reason for purchasing. I do alot of photo/video editing so this makes for a real nice solution. I use a Surface Pro (can edit but it's not the quickest) when i'm away from home, hop on the web and have access to a pretty powerful editing machine. When not gaming, a solid 4G or Hotel wifi is good enough for general PC use/editing etc.

 

Any questions, fire away

 

 

 

Edit: Referral code for £10 off first month for anyone interested (left out initially as didn't want to appear like a sales pitch!):

 

MRALEX

 

Sign up can take upto 1 week which is a little frustrating! Not charged for that time though at least and there's no contract etc etc.

Edited January 10, 2019 by ZeroHour

[ShellfishClive]

I'd always be weary of massive input lag on something like this, I'm assuming it's just essentially a remote desktop connection?

[MrMat]

I'd always be weary of massive input lag on something like this, I'm assuming it's just essentially a remote desktop connection?

 

Yeah it's pretty much just RDP to a VM but they do seem to be doing something clever as the input lag is pretty minimal. Edit: Just to say it's not via RDP or anything, you have to use their proprietary app to access.

 

Terrible vid but here's some Destiny 2 at almost 4k (SP has weird resolution) and Ultra:

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/syn5H2UYqbHMGyN46

Edited November 29, 2018 by MrMat

[LeMarchand]

 

Dumb hoomin!

 

Looks like an interesting idea, thanks for posting.

[MrMat]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]51232[/ATTACH]

 

Dumb hoomin!

 

Looks like an interesting idea, thanks for posting.

 

 

Haha I tried to but she wasn't very good so we kicked her out the Fireteam...

 

 

I've added a referral code to the post if anyone is interested. Gets £10 off the first month. Didn't want to be ramming it down peoples throats though.

[Arthur]

I'd always be weary of massive input lag on something like this, I'm assuming it's just essentially a remote desktop connection?

Here's another video showing what it's like...

 

 

It does look good.

[MrMat]

I like the Tech Chap. Seems like a nice Chap!

[dhicks]

Gaming for me was only half the reason for purchasing. I do alot of photo/video editing so this makes for a real nice solution. I use a Surface Pro (can edit but it's not the quickest) when i'm away from home, hop on the web and have access to a pretty powerful editing machine. When not gaming, a solid 4G or Hotel wifi is good enough for general PC use/editing etc.

 

Ooh, interesting - I saw a review a while ago and wondered at the time how suitible it might be for graphics editing. We have a couple of users who use Adobe Creative Cloud, so a couple of accounts might be useful.

 

Edit: Have you tried mounting Google Drive or similar?

Edited November 29, 2018 by dhicks

[bald_pig]

@DalekSec this may be of use to you!

[MrMat]

Ooh, interesting - I saw a review a while ago and wondered at the time how suitible it might be for graphics editing. We have a couple of users who use Adobe Creative Cloud, so a couple of accounts might be useful.

 

It does work well. The biggest let down is that slower CPU. They are in the process of upgrading them all apparently.

Just this second logged on got the lesser CPU. It's a Xeon CPU E5-2620 V4 @ 2.10ghz

 

The only other thing to bare in mind is that you have to get your resources to the VM so can take a little planning. I was editing a video, so had to upload all the clips from my camera to my PC and then upload to OneDrive. Obviously for a bunch of 4k clips, it took a while. But once complete, I was able to edit my video from my Shadow running on my Surface Pro when i was at the inlaws

 

Edit: I've set the location for all My Document, My Videos etc folders on my Shadow to be within my OneDrive folder. I've done the same thing on my home PC. So I move anything i might need to My Videos on my desktop, wait a while until it's uploaded and then i can access it from my Shadow. Job done.

Edited November 29, 2018 by MrMat

[MrMat]

Now communicating to you from my Shadow on Surface Pro connected to my Phone on 4G!

 

And ran a quick speed test while I was here

 

[TechMonkey]

Aren't Microsoft looking at something like this as well? Creating an XBox on a blade and setting up data centers with the hope they can get everyone on a subscription.

 

Yes, Project xCloud

[MrMat]

Aren't Microsoft looking at something like this as well? Creating an XBox on a blade and setting up data centers with the hope they can get everyone on a subscription.

 

Yes, Project xCloud

 

Yeah. I do think it's the way the industry will go now teh Interwebs is fast enough.

 

And actually, it's a pretty good deal for the average/casual consumer.

[DalekSec]

Just saw Linus's video on it:

 

Seeing as it's £10 off with his voucher so £17 for 1st month i thought i'd give it a go.

 

Thing that sold it for me most was using it on Mac not for gaming as such but heavier work loads, just gotta wait for activation to come through now!

 

Edit: just seen you had a referral code... my bad!

[MrMat]

Just saw Linus's video on it:

 

Seeing as it's £10 off with his voucher so £17 for 1st month i thought i'd give it a go.

 

Thing that sold it for me most was using it on Mac not for gaming as such but heavier work loads, just gotta wait for activation to come through now!

 

Edit: just seen you had a referral code... my bad!

 

How dare you not use my referral code? #triggered!

 

Yeaah they're struggling a bit with demand at the minute I think. I know just after Black Friday it was taking a good 5-10 working days for activation.

 

I'd imagine that the Linus video hasn't helped matters either. Hopefully they've improved the process though.

 

I'm the same. I use it equally for both gaming and work stuff.

 

Another benefit, my brother doesn't have a decent PC but we like playing games together (on PS4 usually). But now, I can go on my main PC, he can hop on the Shadow and we can play some multiplayer together

 

Oh and the Discord is worth joining if you get bored of waiting.

[DalekSec]

I got an email asking if i wanted to join their Discord, to which i have!

[MrMat]

Sweet! I'm MrAlex on there

[DalekSec]

Ninro

 

Edit: Unsure if you're aware @MrMat Edugeek also has a Discord server, bunch of us who play together regularly on there

Edited December 12, 2018 by DalekSec

[DJ-1701]

Sweet! I'm MrAlex on there

 

But... you're MrMat... have you been lying to us all this time?

[MrMat]

But... you're MrMat... have you been lying to us all this time?

 

My life... is a LIE!!!

 

 

Edit: Name is Alex, Mat is the first part of my surname

Edited December 12, 2018 by MrMat

[MrMat]

If anyone is interested...

It's currently on offer at £19.99 for first month plus you can use discount code (ALE26DA6) so first month is £9.99

 

Edit: Apparently activation is taking up to 2 weeks now due to demand. You get charged straight away but your 'subscription' doesn't actually begin until you're activated.

Edited December 14, 2018 by MrMat

[MrMat]

I decided it was worth making a (admittedly not massively exciting!) video on using Shadow for Video Editing with DaVinci Resolve:

 

 

*Yes I died a little inside creating the Clickbait thumbnail but, needs must!

[dhicks]

I decided it was worth making a (admittedly not massively exciting!) video on using Shadow for Video Editing with DaVinci Resolve

 

Ooh - very useful, many thanks. Any idea how well the Shadow virtual machine handles rendering 360-degree videos, i.e. can it use hardware acceleration from the graphics card to render 360 degree videos from dual-lens "raw" images as produced by most 360-degree cameras these days? My current laptop takes about a day to render a couple of hours worth of footage, and that's before you've really got to the editing stage.

[MrMat]

Ooh - very useful, many thanks. Any idea how well the Shadow virtual machine handles rendering 360-degree videos, i.e. can it use hardware acceleration from the graphics card to render 360 degree videos from dual-lens "raw" images as produced by most 360-degree cameras these days? My current laptop takes about a day to render a couple of hours worth of footage, and that's before you've really got to the editing stage.

 

I don't have any first experience of it but I assume it would do an okay job.

 

What do you use to render? Blender by any chance?

 

I've installed Blender on it as someone else asked a similar question. If you want me to run a test etc, just let me know. I could render one of the demo files (https://www.blender.org/download/demo-files/) for a comparison.

[Soulfish]

This looks really interesting, think I may need to give it a try over Christmas as my gaming rig is in major need of updates and this is much cheaper!