Bill Borre wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 12:38:
It's also available on Stadia. I don't understand the hate generated here for this platform. I've got half a dozen games here and they've all been fine. The only glitch so far was the audio on Fallen Order got out of sync but I don't know if that's latency related. I picked up Rage 2 on sale and I've been enjoying it much more than the first one.

Let me tell you about Stadia. It was great when I beta tested it, worked smooth, the little I played around with it, they even gave me a free copy of AC Odyssey in UPlay for my troubles. Fine, end of story, I don't need it, my computer is fine.

Then last month they offer that normally $100 Chromecast 4k with controller for free to Youtube premium subscribers. Even though my Youtube premium was attached to a google apps account and they aren't Stadia compatible and the whole thing complained about it, they sent me one anyway.

Unless I am a bigger moron than I realize, this is the only game you can 'try' without paying a subscription. OK fine, I guess. I go to play it a second time and it informs me I already tried it and and need to start over. Sigh.

At least I got a 4k Chromecast and hopefully a controller I can use for other stuff though so far no luck with just a quick test.

Service will be dead in 12-24 months.

OmegaFoRCe wrote on Dec 4, 2020, 06:42:

jdreyer wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 17:55:
One thing I don't understand (and I said at the time of the NVidia story) is why someone doesn't offer virtual machines optimized for game streaming on which you could install your O/S, then Steam, then whatever game you wanted. This should be able to bypass any publisher complaints.

Ah but there is such a service! Shadow has been around for a couple of years and they're slowly but surely expanding their services. A lot of Quest VR folks have been using Shadow for their Virtual Desktop/Oculus Link experiences.

You could also use Shadow to mod Witcher 3 to the max if your home system can't handle it. Or any modding - it's just a high-end Windows environment streamed to your device.

jdreyer wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 17:55:
One thing I don't understand (and I said at the time of the NVidia story) is why someone doesn't offer virtual machines optimized for game streaming on which you could install your O/S, then Steam, then whatever game you wanted. This should be able to bypass any publisher complaints.

Ah but there is such a service! Shadow has been around for a couple of years and they're slowly but surely expanding their services. A lot of Quest VR folks have been using Shadow for their Virtual Desktop/Oculus Link experiences.

jdreyer wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 17:58:

Right, I think the cap was 5TB per month. That's actually quite a bit. After that they were going to charge $10 per 50 GB, which is horrific. And I think they said that 95% of their customers don't exceed 350GB, but yeah, then why have caps at all? I wonder if they have abusers where 100 people are sharing a single connection or something. You'd think they'd be able to detect that and do something about those specific users instead of using collective punishment.

We've had the cap here for I think 2 years. Started out at 1TB. During the early months of Covid, they dropped the cap. Now it's 1.2TB. And yes, it is $10 per 50GB. At the time, we had 6 people in the house, so we'd go over every month. I started looking at our overage fees vs. the unlimited addon, and ended up going with unlimited because it was cheaper then our overages. Ridiculous, but it's the only option we have here, unless we go satellite, which I will not do.

WaltC wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 16:38:
What I read was a tad different...the data cap only affects people in the Northeast--not the whole country--and it's way more than 1 tb...;) Comcast is always doing stuff like this--or else people who hate Comcast are routinely spinning fake news about Comcrastic data caps--but the last cap Comcast had for a temporary period in limited areas was 250GB a month. People didn't like it, so Comcast dropped it. If people complain as they are sure to do, Comcast will drop this one, too. That is pretty much guaranteed. It's a pity, but "news" today isn't what it used to be--it's corrupted by political agendas and personal wish lists or gripes. Anyway, I'm on Xfinity--no caps, 12MB/s up and down (depending on the server, of course.) Also, the rationale Comcast *reportedly* uses to justify this is that "Only 5% of our customers go over 250GBs a month"--which, if true, would mean there's no sense in establishing a cap at all, even at 250GBs, as 95% of Comcast's customers would never hit the cap! Look for this--if there's any truth to it--to fail as well, imo. But I'm talking about wired landline cable-modem service (I'm on wired EWAN off of fiber-direct)--but with mobile phones the rip off on Internet broadband is nationwide--all the carriers charge too much and many of those routinely use caps and always have. That's why I use my computers at home and I carry a dumb-phone (phone calls/txt mssg only)...;) Save a large sum every month.

Reading comprehension not being what it used to be is even more of a pity, if you ask me... The latest news is that caps are coming to a dozen northeastern states because everywhere else has already had them for years. As of the beginning of 2020, Comcast's ENTIRE service area (across 39 states in total) will be enforcing a cap of 1.2TB on ALL residential internet customers who don't pay extra for an unlimited plan. So you're either in a location that doesn't yet have a cap but soon will, or you're not on a standard residential plan (100Mbit upload is not standard in my area, but I don't know how other places differ on that). Or maybe you do have a cap and just aren't aware, which wouldn't surprise me.

WaltC wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 16:38:

Xero wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 15:43:
I'd like to add that it was in the news not too long ago that for people that have Comcast service, they announced they're going to be data capping all their customers to like 1tb a month. I can't see how streaming services can succeed with mandatory data caps implemented. I don't personally have Comcrap as it's known, but that would suck if someone used something like this only to find out, they've been shutdown (or heavily throttled) for the rest of the month due to exceeding limts...

What I read was a tad different...the data cap only affects people in the Northeast--not the whole country--and it's way more than 1 tb...;) Comcast is always doing stuff like this--or else people who hate Comcast are routinely spinning fake news about Comcrastic data caps--but the last cap Comcast had for a temporary period in limited areas was 250GB a month. People didn't like it, so Comcast dropped it. If people complain as they are sure to do, Comcast will drop this one, too. That is pretty much guaranteed. It's a pity, but "news" today isn't what it used to be--it's corrupted by political agendas and personal wish lists or gripes. Anyway, I'm on Xfinity--no caps, 12MB/s up and down (depending on the server, of course.) Also, the rationale Comcast *reportedly* uses to justify this is that "Only 5% of our customers go over 250GBs a month"--which, if true, would mean there's no sense in establishing a cap at all, even at 250GBs, as 95% of Comcast's customers would never hit the cap! Look for this--if there's any truth to it--to fail as well, imo. But I'm talking about wired landline cable-modem service (I'm on wired EWAN off of fiber-direct)--but with mobile phones the rip off on Internet broadband is nationwide--all the carriers charge too much and many of those routinely use caps and always have. That's why I use my computers at home and I carry a dumb-phone (phone calls/txt mssg only)...;) Save a large sum every month.

The cap is 1.2 TB, which isn't what I consider way more than 1 TB. It's called the "1.2 Terabyte Data Plan", and it applies to Xfinity. It's advertised right on the Xfinity page.

The 250GB data cap was introduced in 2008 and abolished in 2012. In 2015 they started introducing a 300GB data cap which eventually made its way into most of their service, and upgraded it to 1 TB in 2016, and bumped it up to 1.2 TB this July.

The recent announcement was about expanding the TB plan to 14 Northeast states + DC. Xfinity's FAQ lists a total 40 states plus DC that will be under a data cap.

I highly doubt Comcast is going to drop their cap. They might put it on hold a few more months if lawmakers give them flak, but this summer Charter asked the FCC to release them from their data cap restriction early, claiming that data caps are often popular.

Similarly, the DC/UBP Condition prevents Charter from developing innovative service
plans that are more tailored to consumers’ needs. Contrary to Stop The Cap’s assertion that
consumers “hate” data caps, the marketplace currently shows that broadband service plans
incorporating data caps or other usage-based pricing mechanisms are often popular when the limits
are sufficiently high to satisfy the vast majority of users.

The US is headed for more caps, not less, since as has been noted, broadband providers in the US are not significantly beholden to their customers. If enough people complain, Comcast will just laugh until its collective belly hurts.

WaltC wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 16:38:

Xero wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 15:43:
I'd like to add that it was in the news not too long ago that for people that have Comcast service, they announced they're going to be data capping all their customers to like 1tb a month. I can't see how streaming services can succeed with mandatory data caps implemented. I don't personally have Comcrap as it's known, but that would suck if someone used something like this only to find out, they've been shutdown (or heavily throttled) for the rest of the month due to exceeding limts...

What I read was a tad different...the data cap only affects people in the Northeast--not the whole country--and it's way more than 1 tb...;) Comcast is always doing stuff like this--or else people who hate Comcast are routinely spinning fake news about Comcrastic data caps--but the last cap Comcast had for a temporary period in limited areas was 250GB a month. People didn't like it, so Comcast dropped it. If people complain as they are sure to do, Comcast will drop this one, too. That is pretty much guaranteed. It's a pity, but "news" today isn't what it used to be--it's corrupted by political agendas and personal wish lists or gripes. Anyway, I'm on Xfinity--no caps, 12MB/s up and down (depending on the server, of course.) Also, the rationale Comcast *reportedly* uses to justify this is that "Only 5% of our customers go over 250GBs a month"--which, if true, would mean there's no sense in establishing a cap at all, even at 250GBs, as 95% of Comcast's customers would never hit the cap! Look for this--if there's any truth to it--to fail as well, imo. But I'm talking about wired landline cable-modem service (I'm on wired EWAN off of fiber-direct)--but with mobile phones the rip off on Internet broadband is nationwide--all the carriers charge too much and many of those routinely use caps and always have. That's why I use my computers at home and I carry a dumb-phone (phone calls/txt mssg only)...;) Save a large sum every month.

Right, I think the cap was 5TB per month. That's actually quite a bit. After that they were going to charge $10 per 50 GB, which is horrific. And I think they said that 95% of their customers don't exceed 350GB, but yeah, then why have caps at all? I wonder if they have abusers where 100 people are sharing a single connection or something. You'd think they'd be able to detect that and do something about those specific users instead of using collective punishment.

Verno wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 15:39:

Bill Borre wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 12:38:
It's also available on Stadia. I don't understand the hate generated here for this platform. I've got half a dozen games here and they've all been fine. The only glitch so far was the audio on Fallen Order got out of sync but I don't know if that's latency related. I picked up Rage 2 on sale and I've been enjoying it much more than the first one.

I don't know if hate is the right word but there are only a few upsides contrasted against the many downsides that JD mentioned. I would pretty much rather buy into any other platform at this point. Obviously do what's right for yourself but given Google's spotty track record, their general launch and the lack of any significant upside, I see no reason to bother.

The one streaming service I was ever a little bit interested in was NVidia's. When they first announced you could stream any game in your Steam library. They kind of forgot to tell the publishers they were doing that, so a bunch pulled out, so now it's a lot more limited.

One thing I don't understand (and I said at the time of the NVidia story) is why someone doesn't offer virtual machines optimized for game streaming on which you could install your O/S, then Steam, then whatever game you wanted. This should be able to bypass any publisher complaints.

Xero wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 15:43:
I'd like to add that it was in the news not too long ago that for people that have Comcast service, they announced they're going to be data capping all their customers to like 1tb a month. I can't see how streaming services can succeed with mandatory data caps implemented. I don't personally have Comcrap as it's known, but that would suck if someone used something like this only to find out, they've been shutdown (or heavily throttled) for the rest of the month due to exceeding limts...

What I read was a tad different...the data cap only affects people in the Northeast--not the whole country--and it's way more than 1 tb...;) Comcast is always doing stuff like this--or else people who hate Comcast are routinely spinning fake news about Comcrastic data caps--but the last cap Comcast had for a temporary period in limited areas was 250GB a month. People didn't like it, so Comcast dropped it. If people complain as they are sure to do, Comcast will drop this one, too. That is pretty much guaranteed. It's a pity, but "news" today isn't what it used to be--it's corrupted by political agendas and personal wish lists or gripes. Anyway, I'm on Xfinity--no caps, 12MB/s up and down (depending on the server, of course.) Also, the rationale Comcast *reportedly* uses to justify this is that "Only 5% of our customers go over 250GBs a month"--which, if true, would mean there's no sense in establishing a cap at all, even at 250GBs, as 95% of Comcast's customers would never hit the cap! Look for this--if there's any truth to it--to fail as well, imo. But I'm talking about wired landline cable-modem service (I'm on wired EWAN off of fiber-direct)--but with mobile phones the rip off on Internet broadband is nationwide--all the carriers charge too much and many of those routinely use caps and always have. That's why I use my computers at home and I carry a dumb-phone (phone calls/txt mssg only)...;) Save a large sum every month.

jdreyer wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 15:09:

Bill Borre wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 12:38:
It's also available on Stadia. I don't understand the hate generated here for this platform. I've got half a dozen games here and they've all been fine. The only glitch so far was the audio on Fallen Order got out of sync but I don't know if that's latency related. I picked up Rage 2 on sale and I've been enjoying it much more than the first one.

So let's see:
- No mod support
- Online only
- Geographically limited (where do you live Bill?) unless you can deal with latency
- Graphical artifacts due to streaming compression
- Requires a very fast, uncapped internet connection
- You don't own your games.
- Limited titles
- Google's history of shutting down services
- Does it have any community features yet?

I'd like to add that it was in the news not too long ago that for people that have Comcast service, they announced they're going to be data capping all their customers to like 1tb a month. I can't see how streaming services can succeed with mandatory data caps implemented. I don't personally have Comcrap as it's known, but that would suck if someone used something like this only to find out, they've been shutdown (or heavily throttled) for the rest of the month due to exceeding limts...

Bill Borre wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 12:38:
It's also available on Stadia. I don't understand the hate generated here for this platform. I've got half a dozen games here and they've all been fine. The only glitch so far was the audio on Fallen Order got out of sync but I don't know if that's latency related. I picked up Rage 2 on sale and I've been enjoying it much more than the first one.

I don't know if hate is the right word but there are only a few upsides contrasted against the many downsides that JD mentioned. I would pretty much rather buy into any other platform at this point. Obviously do what's right for yourself but given Google's spotty track record, their general launch and the lack of any significant upside, I see no reason to bother.

Bill Borre wrote on Dec 3, 2020, 12:38:
It's also available on Stadia. I don't understand the hate generated here for this platform. I've got half a dozen games here and they've all been fine. The only glitch so far was the audio on Fallen Order got out of sync but I don't know if that's latency related. I picked up Rage 2 on sale and I've been enjoying it much more than the first one.

So let's see:
- No mod support
- Online only
- Geographically limited (where do you live Bill?) unless you can deal with latency
- Graphical artifacts due to streaming compression
- Requires a very fast, uncapped internet connection
- You don't own your games.
- Limited titles
- Google's history of shutting down services
- Does it have any community features yet?

Well this game looks way better than I think anyone was expecting. I have an Ubisoft+ account so I thought I'd give it a try. I couldn't bring myself to finish Assassin's Creed Valhalla (was fun for a while but it got really repetitive and had a throwaway story), and I'm enjoying this game much more so far. Definitely has a BotW feel to it. I'm glad it doesn't take itself too seriously. I quite enjoy the humor in it. If the rest of the game is as good as what I've played so far, it will be one of the best games released this year I think.

It's also available on Stadia. I don't understand the hate generated here for this platform. I've got half a dozen games here and they've all been fine. The only glitch so far was the audio on Fallen Order got out of sync but I don't know if that's latency related. I picked up Rage 2 on sale and I've been enjoying it much more than the first one.