Item — HN Reader

This looks cool, however it's very similar to a service I've been using for the past month called Parsec[0].

I've successfully managed to play Fortnite (don't judge :)) on an AWS g2.2xlarge (via Parsec) with an acceptable level of latency. Apart from the occasional artefacting (most notably when starting), it's been an enjoyable experience and a real insight into the potential power that cloud gaming really could hold.

What's so great about Parsec is that they allow you (at a somewhat marked-up rate so far as I can tell) to rent an AWS server directly from the client and get started.

That being said, my Parsec credit is running a little low now so I might have a go with Rainway :)

I would like to know what the difference — if any — between Parsec and Rainway is? As far as I can tell, Parsec was first, so it'd be interesting to know if their tech is superior.

[0] - https://parsecgaming.com

3 comments

So I can only speak to the pros of Rainway and why we have so many people adopting it as their go-to-solution.

We put your games first. We don' t believe in the traditional remote desktop approach and want to remove all the friction from game streaming. (https://blog.rainway.io/our-core-mission-games-first-78671e4...)

We're clientless, this means you can open any web browser like Chrome and start playing on any number of devices -- both inside and outside your home.

We use common web traffic to prevent being blocked by most networks, this allows us to have a higher chance of connecting even on lock downed networks (schools, office).

We're really fast. You can play games like Destiny 2 on a Chromebook at 1080P 60 FPS.(https://twitter.com/Andrewmd5/status/1009758915305730051)

We are aiming to release on every major platform we can. Phones and game consoles alike.

We constantly give back, through open source releases or community fixes -- we really believe in the principle of supporting the community that supports us.

For the more technical questions, Rainway can run on Intel, AMD and NVIDIA systems and we're highly optimized for all three and test on all ranges of hardware from those providers. Our biggest weakness right now would be our lack of native mobile apps, but that isn't slowing us down. (https://twitter.com/Andrewmd5/status/1009852188724625408)

I'm the CEO of Rainway, so of course, I like our product and I'd encourage you to join our discord (https://rain.gg/discord) and ask users for their opinion.

Thanks for your feedback. I did find a verbatim copy of your response in a reddit thread[0] while I was waiting — but I guess it serves me wrong for not doing my research :)

As this is a canned response, it doesn't really do a great job, in my opinion, of comparing Parsec and Rainway directly. I can look into the tech myself and make a comparison that way.

For a more direct question: do you have any plans to sell customers cloud rack-space directly through Rainway?

[0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/cloudygamer/comments/8tntdt/parsec_...

Currently, we have no short-term plans to offer cloud services -- we see more than enough people installing Rainway on existing providers, so we are focusing on building a solid consumer offering. There is no telling how that changes down the line.

Thanks for the awesome software, I'll definitely be giving this a go. May I ask, what's the plan for monetisation?

If my gaming PC has an UWQHD display and I want to stream to a standard MacBook 15" display, do you have any advice to avoid extreme letterboxing/super-small UI?

What is the business model?

My experience is the same as yours.

Scenario 1 - You build a GPU+ gaming PC in the cloud, play for 35 minutes, have a 10 minute shut down policy, come back 5 days later, play for 45 minutes, and delete your cloud gaming PC.

    35 minutes of playing + 10 minutes of idle time - This will cost $0.30 because Paperspace charges per minute rather than per hour.
    5 days of storage for 500 GB - Storage is $10/month. For 5 days of storage, this will cost $1.67.
    45 minutes of playing - This will cost $0.30.
    Delete your cloud gaming PC.
    Total cost for 1.33 hours of gaming in the cloud will be $2.27.

Scenario 2 - You build a P5000 server, play 1 hour and 15 minutes 3 times a week for 2 months and then delete your cloud gaming computer.

    1 hour and 15 minutes of game play - This will cost $1.16. If you play 3 times a week for two months, this is about $30.16 (1.16 per day * 3 days * 4.33 weeks per month * 2 months).
    Storage will cost $20 for two months of saved data for a 500 GB hard drive.
    Total cost of two months of gaming for about 32 hours in the cloud will be $50.16.

Its a really fine number of people who can benefit from cloud gaming right now. Even Parsec advertises:

> We know, however, that cloud gaming is not right for everyone today. If you play more than 8-10 hours of games each week and you want the best experience possible, you should still build/buy your own gaming PC.

And that's the number I'd say; ~8 hours per week. Less than that and cloud gaming might make sense. But any more and you'll save money by just building a desktop. Because let's say you're charged $0.60/hr; that's roughly $20/mo @ 8hr/week. A typical gaming PC might last 3 years, especially nowadays with the tremendously powerful GTX 10-series cards and the lack of innovation across both the CPU and GPU spaces. That'll cost lets say $700 (targeting 1080p60, low-range i5, GTX 1050Ti, etc). That's $20/mo averaged out.

My hope is that Nvidia/AMD can continue to make 10x jumps in graphics card tech, because we've already hit 1080p60 and that's enough for most people for a while. So if the next generation GTX 11-series (or more accurately, the Tesla V-series) cards can fit more 1080p60 streams on each card, that should lower the price of cloud gaming. And on and on. But I think, as far as technologies today go, it doesn't make much sense.

An upside to cloud gaming (the same for any cloud use) is that you can take advantage of the providers upgrades for little extra cost. So if AWS upgrade to Tesla V-series you don't have to spend the money to buy that new card, just spend a relatively smaller amount extra each month for the cloud usage. So if I buy a GTX 10-series today and AWS (magically) used Tesla tomorrow, I haven't lost out. Obviously the amount of hours you spend gaming is still very much the leading factor in whether you cloud game or not, but for the "casual" 8 to 10 hours per week gamer, cloud is possibly still the best option.

Also as someone moving house, being able to just carry a light laptop instead of some big gaming tower is handy.