Shadow Setup Guide + Feedback

[Shadow Reaper]

Looks like I have one less excuse to not play. Thanks!

 

[Wolfy]

Successfully made it to Loreville in my 600I, shadow works really well for SC.

 

[August]

Looks like I have one less excuse to not play. Thanks!

I do recommend wired over wireless!
View attachment Screen Shot 2019-03-06 at 11.49.05 am.jpg

 

[August]

View attachment Screen Shot 2019-03-06 at 12.15.04 pm.jpg
Star Citizen on a Mac in Australia using a Californian Shadow server

 

[Radegast74]

I will be extremely interested to hear if anyone installs the app on a Mac. I have been planning for ages to add a full gaming machine since I have an ancient iMac, but if this will run on a used, 11" MacBook Air with a large monitor added, it would be a LOT cheaper for me to pay every month than it would to buy a new computer.

Also something to keep in mind, if you want to recruit friends to the game who don't have an expensive gaming machine, this seems to me the perfect way. I have lots of friends who do not have gaming machines. This is huge. Honestly given the money I would save I could actually pay kids to play as employees of my character, and still not spend what I would buying a machine.

Hey, I previously posted a thread on this. I didn't play Star Citizen on my MacBook Air, but there wasn't any reason why I couldn't have. I use my MBA in bed, and I was playing some Steam games on it.

Your host rig doesn't really matter, you are just running a virtual machine (albeit, one that is on a server farm some distance away). What matters most is your internet connection. Make sure it is offered in your state before you sign up!

 

[Kiladyn]

How would a 300mbps run it? lol

 

[Printimus]

Is it worth $30/month though?

 

[August]

How much to upgrade a PC which can’t play SC? That’s really the value proposition

 

[SeungRyul]

How would a 300mbps run it? lol

I have found its less the bandwidth and more of the ping to the server farm that determines your experience. If you have wired ethernet + service in your country/state I've found ping times of around 30ms which is extremely playable.

But yes 300mbps is more than enough :P

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Is there a way to look up ping rates on various providers? When I move I'll likley not have a huge choice, as I expect to be in a cheap apartment for about a year, but if there is a way to look up the quality of the service at any given apartment complex, that would certainly enter into my choice of digs. So for example, I want a place wired with cable or optical rather than sat service?

 

[Radegast74]

Is there a way to look up ping rates on various providers? When I move I'll likley not have a huge choice, as I expect to be in a cheap apartment for about a year, but if there is a way to look up the quality of the service at any given apartment complex, that would certainly enter into my choice of digs. So for example, I want a place wired with cable or optical rather than sat service?

You don't really "look up" ping, you check it out for yourself. The way you do that is...step 1, go to google.com and enter in "How do I check my ping" and maybe add what your OS is :p

If you have a Mac, you can do this from your network control panel, or even just open up a terminal window, type "ping" followed by the website or IP address you want to ping.

Example:

 

[Sayora]

Ok, my report... I signed up and tried this trial for a few hours. I was honestly disappointed, setup was fairly easy and all and downloading and installing SC went fast. The good bits.

But once in SC I wasn't impressed with the performance. I have a GTX1060 and an i5-8400 6core CPU at home. Not the best by far, but not horrible either. I never drop below 34ish frames in SC. With Shadow while I did get 50ish frames a few times, I was mostly sitting in the mid 30's and dipping below 30 at Levski, and Olisar. And there was a slight but noticeable input lag. I have a 25mbs connection in NY so not amazing either so that might be part of that.

Overall for $40USD a month, so not worth it. For the cost of a year, I can get an RTX2060 and have change left over.

 

[Radegast74]

Ok, my report... I signed up and tried this trial for a few hours. I was honestly disappointed
<snip>
Overall for $40USD a month, so not worth it. For the cost of a year, I can get an RTX2060 and have change left over.

On the thread I started a couple months ago, I listed these as the "typical use cases off the top of my head" :

I see a couple use cases:

1. Somebody who doesn't have a PC at all and wants to try out a new PC game...instead of shelling out $1500+ on a new PC, you just pay $35/month.
2. Somebody who has an old potato PC that wants to wait a couple of months before upgrading...you can go month to month and wait for the next generation of CPU's or GPU's to come out, and see if you can get any deals...
3. Maybe you have a great desktop PC, but all of a sudden you are travelling, or taking a 2 week vacation and you can't bear to not play for that long...well, now you can just stream the game to your regular laptop.

If you have a 6 core i5 and a 1060, you have a decent enough computer. You really don't need this at all. I have to say, I they haven't upgraded their virtual machine specs in over a year...it still is 6 core Xeon equivalent / 12GB RAM / 1080 equivalent, maybe if they upgrade their specs it would be worth looking at it again.

For reference, here is the thread I started a while back, where we had some back and forth about "worth" and use cases, for people to check out before paying for anything:

Shadow.tech streaming PC vs. real Desktop

Ok, since I couldn't get any of you magnificent bastards to do this, I signed myself up to test out this Shadow.tech streaming PC thing, since I'm being told it is "the future." In case you don't know, https://shadow.tech runs a service where for about $35/month (*without discounts) you can get...

testsquadron.com

 

[Shadow Reaper]

You don't really "look up" ping, you check it out for yourself.

Is there a way to do this for an apartment building on Merritt Island, FL from here in NJ? It sounds like the process you're describing is after the fact--checking what a service I'm buying is providing. That's not going to help me choose an apartment.

 

[Sayora]

On the thread I started a couple months ago, I listed these as the "typical use cases off the top of my head" :


If you have a 6 core i5 and a 1060, you have a decent enough computer. You really don't need this at all. I have to say, I they haven't upgraded their virtual machine specs in over a year...it still is 6 core Xeon equivalent / 12GB RAM / 1080 equivalent, maybe if they upgrade their specs it would be worth looking at it again.

For reference, here is the thread I started a while back, where we had some back and forth about "worth" and use cases, for people to check out before paying for anything:

Shadow.tech streaming PC vs. real Desktop

Ok, since I couldn't get any of you magnificent bastards to do this, I signed myself up to test out this Shadow.tech streaming PC thing, since I'm being told it is "the future." In case you don't know, https://shadow.tech runs a service where for about $35/month (*without discounts) you can get...

testsquadron.com

I guess I was expecting more gtx1080 like performance art least. From Boardgamers promotions

 

[Radegast74]

Is there a way to do this for an apartment building on Merritt Island, FL from here in NJ? It sounds like the process you're describing is after the fact--checking what a service I'm buying is providing. That's not going to help me choose an apartment.

Dude! How could you possibly think of leaving Jersey?

 

[Radegast74]

I guess I was expecting more gtx1080 like performance art least. From Boardgamers promotions

From my other thread...I guess the tl;dr is a) the 1060 is still a great card (despite all the Nvidia marketing and bleeding edge hype) and b) your connection to the Shadow servers and our internet infrastructure is always going to be the weakest link. See below:

The Task Manager says it's a "Quadro P5000." When I go to the RSI Telemetry page, it tells me I'm running a Nvidia 1080, and has my performance pegged as that. I'll post that tomorrow, along with another update--> I finally figured out how to enable my joysticks and other USB peripherals! (lol, I enabled my Logitech webcam...and then it crashed...I guess FOIP is going to be too much for this!).

EDIT: Ok, here is the screenshot of the RSI Telemetry page for this...NOTE--> This is somewhat artifcial, as it really describes the interactions between the RSI Servers and the Shadow.tech servers...what gets passed on to me as a result of the streaming can be somewhat different, as my internet connection can vary, my ISP may throttle me, etc. This just shows that Shadow.tech is giving me what they say they are, i.e., the RSI servers see it as this and track the FPS this configuration gets.
View attachment 11281

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Dude! How could you possibly think of leaving Jersey?

We're opening a lab at Kennedy Space Center. It's all full of way kewl. . .trust me. And an hour from Disney, is perfect for the ladies.

**Note how cleverly I have throught through the reasons to move to swampland. I have been making fun of FL friends and family for many years and it is all going to come back and haunt me, now.

 

[Radegast74]

We're opening a lab at Kennedy Space Center. It's all full of way kewl. . .trust me. And an hour from Disney, is perfect for the ladies.

**Note how cleverly I have throught through the reasons to move to swampland. I have been making fun of FL friends and family for many years and it is all going to come back and haunt me, now.

Very cool. Pro tip, as a former Jersey boy who spent a year in Florida. Do. Not. Look. Up. At. The. Spiders. In. The. Power. Lines.

Yeah, for some reason my wife wanted to get a season's pass to Disney. They have some good rates for in-state residents...I'm not a big fan of the evil empire, but, it beats shooting rats at the town dump with the locals, lol.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Yeah, I am totally not excited about spiderville. I'm not much a beach guy but the dolphins will be cool. Now if they can train the dolphins to eat the spiders, that would be the best. Unfortunately, looks like some of the spiders eat dolphins.

And then there are the friggin' lizards the size of school busses. WTF! And sharks. And sharks with friggin' laser beams on their foreheads.