A new way of Cloud Gaming with Cloud Pathway
With the widespread adoption of the cloud, internet users have found new and easier ways to share data and collaborate with others regardless of the physical distances between them. Services such as Google Drive, Photos, Telegram, and Microsoft Office offer numerous ways to get things done without having to be near a PC or laptop. Recently, we saw GeForce Now, by Nvidia and Google Stadia hit the spotlight to bring cloud gaming to the masses.
What exactly is cloud gaming?
Well, think of it as playing your favorite games anywhere you want, on any compatible device. So you don’t even have to lug around your PC or laptop. Because you’re streaming the game from a PC probably halfway across the world, you don’t need any additional equipment either. Just a screen, a run-of-the-mill PC and an internet connection is basically all you need. The most obvious benefit here is that you don’t need to invest in a high end gaming PC and you can run almost all games at their maximum settings. But how viable is cloud gaming to Sri Lanka? Well, that’s what Cloud Pathway aims to find out.
The brainchild of Sabreen Reffai, the goal of Cloud Pathway is “to simplify and demystify all things Cloud-related and to bring this amazing new technology directly to you”. Based in Sri Lanka, Cloud Pathway offers not only cloud gaming, but Virtual Workstation solutions as well.
“Cloud Pathway aims to bring high performance, scalable computing to your fingertips”, shares Sabreen. Whether it’s demanding professional work or just casual gaming, Cloud Pathway is able to remotely and virtually give users access to high end computing power to run everything from their favorite games to CPU and graphics intensive applications without the need for actual dedicated high end hardware.
Sabreen Reffai – The man behind Cloud Pathway
“I had been dabbling in cloud computing platforms for a while now and have always been intrigued by the prospect of distributed and cloud based computing” says Sabreen. The concept that all the heavy lifting of a computer can be done somewhere else, and the results of which can be accessible using any device over the internet was what captured his curiosity the most.
With advancements in both broadband internet and cloud service providers, along with the underlying hardware and software, Sabreen noted that no one in Sri Lanka was really utilizing this transformative technology on a grand scale. “My aim is to change all that with Cloud Pathway,” says Sabreen.
Because all of the processing is done on remote servers, a user does not need specialized equipment of any sort.
“All you need is a basic device that can access the internet,” says Sabreen. With clients for almost all operating systems such as Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, Linux and many more available, from the user’s end, all they need is to have hardware capable of streaming video/data over the internet. This essentially means even your grandma’s old PC or that old Android smartphone you no longer use can stream cloud content just fine. In terms of internet, broadband internet with speeds of 5Mbps or more is recommended. With the widespread adoption of FTTH (Fiber To The Home) and ADSL or 3G speeds, almost everyone has access to this nowadays.
With Cloud Pathway, there’s no need for high-end hardware to play your favorite games at max settings
As mentioned above, the physical resources of Cloud Pathway are located all over the world. “Cloud data centers are located in almost every major region across the world but we are currently building most of our services on data centers in Singapore, as ping and latency is currently the lowest in that region for Sri Lankan users” shares Sabreen. One of his end goals with Cloud Pathway is to build on Sri Lankan servers in the not too distant future as and when infrastructure permits.
One common question that is on people’s minds when it comes to cloud computing is obviously the latency of the system. Because you’re streaming from the cloud and not using the physical resources of your PC, people might expect lags or drops in frames when gaming. As such Cloud Pathway ensures its users that FPS drops are minimized as the hardware these games run on is data-center level hardware, meaning high-end in almost every way. But it’s not just the hardware.
The software too has been optimized for this purpose. “A lot of headway has been made by various software companies to optimize content delivery and they’re getting better every day” says Sabreen. At present, there are systems capable of delivering 10-bit color accuracy and scaling for up to 5K displays for professional work and Nvidia Geforce RTX2080Ti level graphics, if 4K gaming is what you’re after.
The cost of using the cloud
Another question on people’s minds when it comes to using services on the cloud is how much it will cost them. “That is all based on the requirements of the user”, explains Sabreen. As such, Cloud Pathway will incur a small one-time setup fee for the user’s dedicated cloud machine. From there, you will only be billed for the time you use. Sabreen added that hourly rates can start from as low as LKR 150. There are no other hidden charges and users can stop using the solution anytime they want.
One potential problem that exists, especially in Sri Lanka, is data usage. However, Sabreen has a different point of view. According to him, solutions such as Cloud Pathway are indeed a viable solution for Sri Lanka.
“The widespread coverage of broadband internet in this country makes it the perfect time to start adopting cloud services. I only hope that local ISP’s increase data caps on our connections soon, as they have been the same for over a decade now”. Indeed if ISPs (Internet Service Providers) did provide higher data caps, Sabreen is confident that cloud computing can take off and empower people to afford and do things that they never before thought possible.
However, till then, yes, there will be a bit of a cut into a users internet quota for the month. “Data usage for gaming varies between 1-2GB an hour depending on the resolution you game at but doesn’t go any higher, meaning the data rates are fixed and predictable”. Sabreen goes on to share that “With our country’s comparatively low data caps, you can chew through your cap in no time if you don’t keep it in check. But it’s really no different to video streaming, which uses similar amounts of data for HD video”.
While playing games on the cloud will cut into your internet usage, a workaround would be to plan out how much of gaming you would be doing per week.
But all hope is not lost. There are a number of ways that you can have your cake and eat it as well. For example, a simple recommendation from Sabreen is to plan the number of hours a day/week that you’d like to game for. Once you have that timetable locked, the next thing to do would be to apply for a suitable data package. With data packages in Sri Lanka being relatively cheap, you also have the flexibility to play as much or as little you like and from anywhere you want. If required, Cloud Pathway can also help users calculate your data usage and help you plan for it accordingly based on the internet package you are using. One point that should be highlighted is that data usage is high only for gaming. Because data usage scales according to the type of work being done, static or less dynamic content such as content creation, browsing/document work will use a lot less data than streaming a game.
The power of a workstation, in the palm of your hand
But gaming isn’t all that Cloud Pathway can be used for. “We have Nvidia Quadro-certified Virtual Workstations available, that can scale up to 128 cores powered by the latest Intel Xeon and AMD Epyc server processors, over 1TB of RAM, super fast NVMe SSD based storage and Nvidia Quadro RTX6000/Titan RTX level graphics cards” as well, says Sabreen. All these are available for prices for as low as LKR 150 per hour as mentioned above. The virtual workstations can be used by anyone, instantly, on their low-end laptop or desktop (or even tablet if they prefer). The use-cases can be anything from graphics design, to video editing, 3D modelling and rendering, to simulations and machine learning.
Need 128 virtual processors for some heavy duty computations? Cloud Pathway has you covered
A typical use case scenario for Cloud Pathway would be needing to render a large project that would take days on your own PC. With Cloud Pathway, you can simply setup cloud hardware for you to get it done in a few hours, or even minutes. Because Cloud Pathway is on the cloud, inter-OS scalability is also taken care of. Say you need to run a Windows-based CAD or 3D program on your Mac. You can get that done as you want, using Cloud Pathway. If you need an absolute beast of a PC to complete one demanding project, fret not, Cloud Pathway has got you covered. You only have to pay for the time you use it.
Is Cloud gaming the future of gaming?
“It is definitely the future of gaming, as well as the future of most demanding professional-grade work; there really is no way around that fact” emphasizes Sabreen. At present, the technology is just maturing in a number of ways considering it’s been around for over a decade now. Consumers have a plethora of cloud game streaming services launching from Microsoft, Nvidia and even Google this year just to name a few. This should give users an indication of how big the market is about to get. “Think Netflix for games and a lot of players want a piece of that pie”.
What about physical PCs?
According to Sabreen, at the moment, PC’s don’t have too much to worry about in that it’ll be at least another few years before you see cloud computing start eating into that market. This is mainly because there are still a lot of benefits to owning a physical PC and there is still something to be said about owning your own hardware. But considering the scalability and ease of use of Cloud Computing, we’re not too far from a time where the only device the majority of us will carry around will be our phones and we’ll simply use cloud services for all our other hardware-heavy activities such as gaming, editing and design.
While there is something to be said about owning your own hardware, the availability of cloud computing has a lot more to offer in terms of performance
Being able to game or do demanding work from anywhere, on any device, whenever you want without needing to own any actual high end professional or gaming grade hardware is an extremely attractive premise. This is why Sabreen feels that solutions such as Cloud Pathway are inevitably going to be a service that will become as commonplace as video streaming services are now in just a few years. With Sri Lanka undergoing strict curfew rules due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Cloud Pathway is ready to step up and offer cloud based solutions for both gamers and professionals who are looking to get heavy computational work such as 3D Rendering, animations and calculations done but don’t have access to high-end hardware.
Right now, there are a few barriers to mainstream use, in that hourly pricing and data usage are still not as low as they need to be to make this viable for everyone to switch over to it 100%. But as more and more progress is made in this field and as the quality and speed of our internet improves, Sabreen is confident that we will be able to do all of our work on the cloud sooner, rather than later, without even realizing it.
To learn more about Cloud Pathway, you can check them out on Facebook (http://www.sundaytimes.lk/200412/).