Google Stadia and Cloud Gaming

With Google Stadia’s release date quickly approaching on November 19, 2019 I wanted to give some of my thoughts on Cloud Gaming and the Google Stadia platform.

Cloud gaming is not a new concept prior to Google’s introduction into the market. There have been a few previous companies that have tried and failed like OnLive in the past. There are companies that offer this service today like Parsec, GeForce Now, and PlayStation Now.

Cloud Gaming

Let’s step back for a moment and talk about what “cloud gaming” really is. Most people are familiar with playing games directly their device of choice, and the game runs on that device’s hardware and thus may be limited by the user’s hardware.

Cloud gaming changes that by running the compute and GPU load of the games on a server hosted by the provider and then streaming the output to your device. This essentially turns your device into a monitor where all it’s doing is displaying what is running on a server somewhere else. Imagine it’s kind of like watching Netflix, only for video games.

For the consumer this means they no longer have to fork out hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars to get good performance and frame rates in games. You can get the same performance on what ever device you choose to stream the game because it’s not actually running on that hardware. Essentially it’s a thin-client / server model. The cloud provider is doing the majority of the processing power.

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Steam – “Pressure” Skin

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Just a quick post about a recent discovery I made about a awesome looking Steam UI theme called Pressure. I’ve never been a fan of the default Steam UI and have always been using the Metro skin as an alternative. Metro is a good improvement over the default skin, but still nothing crazy. Pressure, on the other hand, is a recreation of the Steam Client’s UI with a focus on clean look and function mixed with beauty.

I’ve started using Pressure and have fallen in love with it. By looking at these screenshots I think you can see why.

It is very easy to install. You must ensure that you are using the current BETA version of Steam. To install the skin simply extract the provided folder to your /Steam/skins directory, install the fonts in the fonts folder, then restart Steam. Select the skin from the Interface options of Steam and you’re finished!

What Steam skin would you recommend? Comment below!

Grand Theft Auto 5 on PC!

The much awaited and many delayed release of Grand Theft Auto on PC is FINALLY here! I must emphasize the frustration in the delays by Rockstar, but with that said they it appears they have had an extremely successful launch on the PC platform. It was well worth the wait.

gta5Playing GTA5 at 60 fps is really the way it was meant to be played. I have played GTA5 on PS3 and can honestly say it is terrible in comparison. The game play experience on PS3 is sluggish in performance, even laggy at times, and locked at 30 fps @ 720p. If you can even sustain 30 fps that is.

gta-5-graphics-comparison

The visual quality of the game at 60fps @ 1080p (an supports 4K) on PC is a miles ahead even on the new-gen consoles. You no longer need to cut back on the graphic quality settings of the game because of console hardware limitations and restrictions. You are free to enjoy all the game has to offer only limited on the hardware of your PC.

GTA5 for PC also supports custom music. Simply add music you want to hear in the game to your “%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Rockstar Games\GTA V\User Music\” folder. You could use a Windows shortcut it you prefer and it supports WAV, MP3, WMA, M4A formats.

Star Citizen – Arena Commander Alpha!

As you may have guessed I am a bit of a gamer in my spare time too. I’ve been a veteran backer of the upcoming space sim Star Citizen for quite some time now and very anxiously awaiting the release. Recently however we got our first taste of the game through the Arena Commander module.

This basically a very pre-alpha version of the game and it is clear that it is still very buggy – but that’s kind of to be expected. I set my standards low but for a pre-alpha release I think the team at Cloud Imperion games is doing an amazing job so far and they have my mouth watering for more playable content. I played this non-stop for a couple of hours trying to master my flying and dog fighting skills. I certainly found it easier using a 360 controller connected to my PC vs using the keyboard but that’s really up to you.

StarCitizenDev-2014-04-11-16-05-04-40

If you want to checkout the gameplay I would recommend taking a peek at some of the streams on Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Star%20Citizen 

Are you a gamer? Let me know what you like to play in the comments below!