Into the clouds

The next step on my self-hosting journey is complete! I’ve successfully replicated my Jellyfin media server infrastructure in Vultr and have it running through a zero-trust Cloudflare tunnel for external internet access. This is a huge win for me. I had to force myself to really complete this. I’ve been so tired and worn out mentally lately that I’ve been slacking on my posts. I apologize for that, but this is a marathon, not a sprint, and I will accomplish something, even if it’s only this one task.

Now that I have a firm grasp of the infrastructure I’m trying to build with my Vultr account, and have an idea of what I want to do with the goals I’ve set for myself, I can now focus on my next project. This was a test, a simple exercise in learning a new cloud provider in Vultr, and a test of my Docker knowledge and Linux administration skills. I think I’ve passed. It’s time to move onto the next big goal. I’m leaning towards NextCloud, simply because it’s really simple to set up and already containerized in their AIO setup. It’s an easy task that can be accomplished quickly and will help me learn through repetition with Cloudflare tunnels, as I will need another tunnel for NextCloud.

Another topic I wanted to cover is similarly related, mostly on the topic of cloud compute, but it’s cloud gaming services! Recently, I’ve been using GeForce Now, XCloud, and Boosteroid. All have been exceptional and have provided a high-quality experience, with some caveats. I’ll go down the line:

  • GeForce Now

    • This service is the gold standard for PC cloud-based gaming. It has proven itself time and time again, even when it was Nvidia Grid. GeForce Now provides the highest quality game stream with the best ray tracing performance if you’re willing to pay the price of their Ultimate Tier, as I have been. Performance is pretty much unmatched; 1440p 120Hz streams with RTX 4080 rigs are just awesome, and the economics of the service are there as well, especially if you’re paying for a six-month or yearly plan. The price of an RTX 4080 at the time of this writing, depending on the model you purchase, can exceed $2,000. Even at $200 a year, you would have to pay for Ultimate every year for 10 years to equal the price of that 4080, and when you reach that 10-year mark, you’re more than likely on the next generation of RTX cards. The price of GPUs alone makes this a good service if you have the internet infrastructure to spare, as I do.

    • There are some caveats to this service, though, the biggest being their monthly cap on hours played. You get 100 hours per month, no matter what plan you purchase, even Ultimate. If you go over that 100 hours, then you will have to pay for more or be bumped down to a free tier plan. It’s not the greatest, but it’s also a very big cap for the average gamer. If I’m playing 100 hours a month, I’m simply lucky. However, I know there are people out there who will go over this limit and have to pay for more game time.

  • Boosteroid

    • The main competitor to GeForce Now, you can think of Boosteroid as an AMD-based GFN. Boosteroid is a Ukrainian-based company with an office in Texas. However, their main infrastructure rollout has been in Europe. They’ve recently had a deal where you can purchase a yearly plan for approximately $90, and so far it’s been hit or miss; lots of hits, lots of misses, and it shows that they are a smaller company. I would say, if you can get this deal, it’s worth the price. If you can’t get this deal, then it’s really not worth the yearly cost. I’ve looked at my yearly subscription as an investment in their service, because I want competition to GFN, and they certainly have their strengths. The biggest is no monthly game time caps. They’ve recently announced they will be rolling out 9070XT rigs and will be improving their hypervisor configuration for more performant sessions, so hopefully this gets a good boost in performance.

    • Some specific problems I’ve noticed are that they have an issue where their sessions on their virtual machines will default to 60Hz for the virtual machine display refresh rate, NOT the refresh rate of the stream, the actual display settings within Windows inside of the virtual machine. The only way to fix this is to drop that 120fps stream down to 60 and back up to 120 in order to force that display refresh rate to be 120Hz. It’s one of those small setbacks that Boosteroid has that most people won’t realize until they have something to compare, but it’s just a small example of many problems. They currently have RX 7900XT rigs with Ryzen server chips, so their CPU infrastructure is much better than GFN; however, their GPU infrastructure is not. But regardless, they make up for it with the unlimited monthly game time.

  • XCloud

    • Now THIS is the heavy hitter, in my opinion, Microsoft’s cloud streaming platform. This isn’t a standalone service; it comes bundled with Gamepass Ultimate, and it’s a great perk to have, with a price that’s equal to GFN. The biggest benefit of this service is the game library; it’s massive. Tons of Xbox games, third-party games, and Microsoft are rolling out the ability to play games that you’ve purchased on XCloud, even if they’re not a part of Gamepass. It’s a good step in the right direction, but it has one massive drawback: the bitrate. It’s absolutely horrendous. The bitrate is extremely poor; the streams are plagued with blocky artifacts, and overall the quality is just poor. The service also struggles with performance, as every game seems to be either the Series S version or the Xbox One X version, which is a generation old. XCloud, for the most part, is a good product. I think over time, Microsoft can really build this into a core aspect of their cloud strategy. But until they improve the bitrate and make every game the Series X version, or even better, just make the games PC versions, this service won’t go any farther than a perk of Gamepass Ultimate. It really was a genius move by Microsoft to roll out XCloud to every Windows PC, turning every laptop, every handheld, and essentially every PC into an Xbox overnight.

So, in conclusion, there are other services out there. I don’t have much experience with PlayStation game streaming or Amazon Luna. They both seemed to run fine, except for Luna, which was extremely underperforming due to the aging AWS hardware. I have a passion for this type of gaming platform, simply because of the convenience and the ability to pay a reasonable price, and in the case of Boosteroid, $90 a year for unlimited access to a 7900XT gaming PC. That’s nearly seven years of access to Boosteroid for the same price as a 7900XT, and it’s only getting better over time. If you have fiber internet, and you’re close enough to a datacenter for any of these services, please give them a shot, because these GPU prices are getting out of hand, and they’re a great alternative to the problems we’re facing in a toxic GPU market. Until next time, thanks for reading. This is your friendly man without a face, DeFaced!