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competitive gaming May 6, 2022
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What is remote gaming culture? Is it really as good as it sounds?

Let’s break down the current remote gaming culture.

As cloud delivery services are rapidly taking over the world, gaming-as-a-service (GaaS) is becoming increasingly popular with various game development companies.

Along with this, remote desktop gaming is the latest inclusion on the list. In such a service, the game runs on separate remote hardware while you sit at your PC controlling and viewing the gameplay like a video stream.

No matter what games you wish to play, be it mobile slots or your FPS-based PC games, with GaaS and remote desktop gaming, you can now play any game you want without worrying about your PC or mobile requirements.

Isn’t that quite interesting? Let’s take a good look at what remote gaming is all about.

A guide to remote desktop gaming – All that you need to know

The most significant advantage of remote gaming is that you don’t have to buy any additional gaming hardware. And, like everything else, remote gaming also has its own share of drawbacks.

It is highly dependent on the internet latency and network bandwidth. This blog contains all you need to know about remote gaming.

How Remote Gaming Works?

Though you are controlling your character’s movements sitting at your machine, your PC is not directly involved with the game in any way. Here, you access a remote data center that runs the games you want to play and converts them into a video stream to your PC.

These data centers contain a vast number of servers that are fitted with very powerful gaming hardware and GPUs in particular. 

minecraft

As a player, your hardware will not have to undergo any intensive rendering or processing mainly involved with many high-end games.

Most of these operations are performed remotely, and your PC simply has to decode and render the stream, very similar to a Netflix or YouTube video. With remote gaming, you can easily play your favorite high-definition games across a wide range of devices, from tablets to laptops. 

It is also apparent that every company will not be able to stream flawlessly except the biggest tech giants like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and others. The streams of other smaller companies can be affected by lag, latency, noise, and other issues, which can hinder your gaming experience.

How to play games on a remote desktop?

To date, there are two types of remote gaming.

The first one includes Paperspace, Vortex, Parsec, and other similar services, which help you interact with a remote desktop and allow you to install any game you want, copy the files, perform backup saves, and other functionalities.

In this type, it takes a while for your games to load and install, and hence is a slower way to start.

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The second type is offered by game streaming platforms such as xCloud, Stadia, and PlayStation Now. These services only let you play the games of your choice without allowing you to perform other operations, unlike the above.

These platforms have several pre-installed games that you can open and start playing; hence they offer you a quicker loading time but have a limited number of titles to choose from. 

In both cases, you will require excellent and stable internet connectivity with almost 10 to 15 Mbps on most platforms which may only keep increasing in the future.

Along with this, your device also has to be HD-streaming capable and must contain the corresponding app to run. Moreover, when the games are on the cloud, you can’t download them, play them offline or copy your saved files. 

Presently several remote gaming companies are operating in the market; some of the most popular ones are:

  • GeForce Now – This is an Nvidia service that can be availed across all mobile devices, desktops, and WebOS-based Smart TVs. It offers a vast library of paid games, consisting of nearly 1000 titles. 
  • Google Stadia – This runs under Chromium on PCs and Macs but has a dedicated app for mobile devices and Smart TVs. It offers a small library of 250+ paid games.
  • Amazon Luna – Powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), it is mostly a cross-platform service, excluding Linux, and currently offers a free library of 50 games. 

What is the current state of remote gaming?

From data collected by Newzoo and VentureBeat, the market value of cloud gaming stood at $1.57 billion in 2021. The reason behind its explosive growth was the backing of the major tech companies, including Google, that put remote desktop gaming in a secure and promising place for the future.

Conclusion

With every passing day, remote gaming is steadily gaining momentum. Although there are several challenges, such as limited libraries and input delay, remote gaming will slowly become more mainstream and popular.