Cloud gamer in Australia
Why I sold my gaming PC to try cloud gaming#
Over the past few years, i haven’t played as many games online as I used to. Full disclosure, I grew up as a playstation kid, playing PS3 with friends over PC gaming (aside from Minecraft). The only attempts I’d previously had at ‘cloud’ gaming was using remote play with my PS4 over mobile data, which was choppy at best.
I was sceptical about trying out gaming over the internet, but seeing as I would only play one or two games casually, I figured I’d give it a go.
(Keep in mind that I still had a backup console at the time).
Guide#
The tests below were conducted with a fibre connection of 100Mb/s download and 40Mb/s upload with NBN. The ping to AWS’ server in Sydney was constantly below 20ms.
Step 1
Create your AWS account, and open a customer support request to have access to a G EC2 instance. The request will include a limit increase to access G instances. (the G instances are the ones with GPUs which makes this all possible)
Step 2
Once you’re approved, launch this AMI instance (AWS server template)
https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B07STLTHM8
Step 3
Download Parsec on your PC, and create an account.
To play games with low latency remotely, Microsoft RDP won’t do. With Parsec, it allows the GPU to transcode and send the video at a low latency that’s playable.
Step 4
Now log into the remote server. The easiest way to do this is to find the password associated with the server, and to download the ‘RDP’ file.
Once connected, you’ll be able to install Parsec here also.
Step 5
Connect to your new Parsec server, install your games and play!
It’s relatively easy to set everything up, however I do recommend keeping in mind that you’ll be charged for every minute the server is online, so remember to shutdown to avoid a big bill.
Conclusion#
Although cloud gaming is possible, playing any competitive shooters like Apex Legends with any form of lag is frustrating. Sometimes whilst plaing remotely with Parsec, some stuttering, freezing or frame drops occur naturally over the connection. I’d recommend trying this if someone doesn’t want to buy a console, and already has a library of PC games they want to play on demand.
I wouldn’t switch anyime soon, and the cost not only to run the server, but for storage adds up quickly. Especially with games that are 50+GB each, it could cost between $10-$100 a month.
Issues
Unfortunately Valorant by Riot doesn’t work due to the limitation of installing on a Virtual Machine.
Feel free to contact me on twitter @AdamXweb if you need help setting anything up.