Shadow Cloud Gaming Question

[Mystic_ZA]

This question/post assumes you have an idea about the following website and it's provided service: Shadow Tech

I am interested to know if anyone has used this service from Shadow in South Africa.

The following pros and cons were considered in contemplating trying it for myself:
Shadow's servers are located in France.
They utilise a 10Gbit internet connection.
South African internet connection, especially to Europe.
High performance equipment at affordable price, with free hardware upgrades at time of writing.
Added latency and gaming with friends is difficult if they don't use the service as you will suffer additional latency to South Africa.

I tried pinging their website and was impressed when I received 30ms but then I realised it's being routed with Cloudfare, so the result means nothing.
If no suggestions are made for or against it, I will try it in a week or so and return with useful results with my personal limitations.

Thank you for your time.
TL;DR: Shadow cloud gaming PC in South Africa, good, bad, neutral?

 

[R4ziel]

I was interested in a service like this a while ago, can't remember the name, but the internet was the limitation. The lag kills any enjoyment you might have, but if we had local servers in SA that would definitely benefit so many people!!

I would definitely love something like this here, if it works like it says on the tin

 

[Koosie]

Yes please, if latency was not an issue I would sign up on day one.

 

[VooDooC]

If it was available locally, hell yes.

 

[StoneCold]

Looks awesome, wouldn't mind trying out myself!

 

[uelsimon]

Did you try it @Mystic_ZA? I'm also interested to know how well it worked. just as a PC. do let us know your findings

 

[Mystic_ZA]

Did you try it @Mystic_ZA? I'm also interested to know how well it worked. just as a PC. do let us know your findings

Hey uelsimon,

Unfortunately I have not yet.

A friend of mine tried to order a week or two ago and struggled to pay as there was some issues with either his payment choice or some unknown issue.

He is planning on trying it but is looking to pay another way but is not planning on doing it very soon. I got approval from the official support saying I should go for it and if it's not right for me, use their 14 day refund policy.

So I'll look Into it further and hopefully have useful news sometime soon!

 

[uelsimon]

ok good to know.

I hear the ping lag might make it unbearbly slow. but I kinda really want to try it. glad to hear about the refund policy.

what kind of performance are u expecting to get from it?

 

[Mystic_ZA]

ok good to know.

I hear the ping lag might make it unbearbly slow. but I kinda really want to try it. glad to hear about the refund policy.

what kind of performance are u expecting to get from it?

The latency will definitely be the biggest issue but that's something to confirm.

Performance wise I can't say for sure, visually with a decent connection I'd say it will look nice and if my internet handles it, 1080p or higher wound cause a problem.

FPS would be decent, considering the specs the system is very good.

Honestly I think the two biggest flaws will be latency and the price tag.

 

[uelsimon]

actually...im not considering it for gaming...but for other calculations and statistical analysis, that having a high speed computer would be beneficial for.

 

[Johnatan56]

The latency will definitely be the biggest issue but that's something to confirm.

Performance wise I can't say for sure, visually with a decent connection I'd say it will look nice and if my internet handles it, 1080p or higher wound cause a problem.

FPS would be decent, considering the specs the system is very good.

Honestly I think the two biggest flaws will be latency and the price tag.

I know it's late, but Linus did a video on this moderately recently,

But I would say definitely not in South Africa if you state that the servers are in France. Adding about 160ms of latency (if in Cape Town) would make most games unplayable. Johannesburg is about 190ms+ I would assume before factoring in hardware decode. This versus your local machines 15-50ms or so.

 

[uelsimon]

I guess at this point..we just need someone to try it and post how it went

 

[Barbarian Conan]

Not even if they had servers in Johannesburg.

Maybe as the technology matures, it could become worth it. Right now streaming is just not fast enough, even on LAN if you play with a mouse, with which you can more easily notice input lag. With a controller it is much harder to notice input lag, so for platformers and the like it should be fine.

 

[Mystic_ZA]

Hey everyone,

I've just taken the step to order from Shadow today.

I will definitely point out that I do not expect to use this for competitive gaming at all.
I am really trying to see if the service is useful (and usable) from South Africa for casual gaming, working and some more.

I will however attempt competitive gaming on: CSGO [Europe servers and SA for the sake of testing], PUBG [In Europe servers, which, will likely result in similar latency as we play with here BUT in better quality [Or just FPS]], GTAV online [SA and Europe by joining friends].

I do however have to wait a while for activation, I will video some results if I get the time.
Thanks for reading!

 

[uelsimon]

Awesome... thanks for taking this on.

Besides gaming...

let us know how well it works for normal daily tasks.
Office
Youtube
any other apps that could benefit for the speed that isn't a game... in which case the latency may not be too burdensome.

looking forward to the review.
let us know how long activation takes also.

 

[ponder]

I've just taken the step to order from Shadow today.

Sounds like waste of money.

 

[uelsimon]

Sounds like waste of money.

sounds like a waste of a post.

not quite sure if ur saying its a waste of money as a concept. ..or in ZA. could u be more specific? plus I believe they have a 15 day refund or something. soo... help us understand ur point.

 

[ponder]

sounds like a waste of a post.

not quite sure if ur saying its a waste of money as a concept. ..or in ZA. could u be more specific? plus I believe they have a 15 day refund or something. soo... help us understand ur point.

in ZA.

When you sign up for the service they ask you your location to determine if infrastructure is available in your area, if your area is not on the list you can't sign up. The service is not even available in all US states and this guy wants to use the eu servers from SA, the lag will kill ya.

 

[uelsimon]

ahh..yes good point.

Ya..I thought about it using via vpn. but ya there's lag added in there too.

well lets see how it goes.

it's still a nice holiday experiment.

 

[stefan9]

No, one of the mayor parts of pc gaming is the customization. This takes all of that away.

So for me no wouldn't use it even if latency wasn't an issue.