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Playstation Now: Your impressions

Rented both Ninja gaiden 3 and 2. At first it was 3 because I thought that was the only game until I saw someone mention 2 (huge mistake). Can't post my internet up/down speed at the moment, will edit that in when I can.

Anyway here's my impression
It works well, the frame rate is good and the controls are really responsive, if I can best describe it's like playing of a twitch stream on source quality, you'll definitely notice the compressed image while you're playing but it's not too jarring to take you out of the experience. Although it didn't fix the atrocious loading time Ninja gaiden 2 had.. I mean men.. everytime I open a chest or take a scroll it felt like an eternity.

But yeah, bottom line is that I am impressed with how well it worked and this just an open beta, so things are looking up. Also you can continue your ps4 game straight away without quitting it.
 
I'd love to try it but being in the UK it seems like they are filtering us Europeans out :p Got a decent internet connection too.

Anyone in UK/Europe been able to test the beta?
 
i tried some strangers wrath and pixel junk eden. worked just fine, quality was good and lag was unnoticeable. i think this could be a really interesting thing. definitely looking forward to trying it with some ps2 and ps3 games i've missed.
 
50/15

I've been in the beta since it began, have played 5 or 6 games.

At the beginning, the service was nigh unplayable. It was a stuttery mess, but somewhere along the line, someone fixed whatever was wrong on Sony's end and ever since, the service has been rock solid.

Most games I've tried haven't been very good, but the experience of pressing a button and playing a game that I don't own without downloading anything, is ridiculously cool.

Very similar experience to my first time with Netflix, thinking what sort of witchcraft is this?
 
The only games I've paid to rent have been the MGS4 and the MGS collection. They work well enough. I had slightly noticeable lag on MGS4 and it looked like an old 360p youtube video at some points. My problem was using the DS4, the pressure sensitive actions on the older MGS didn't work.
 
underwaterthing said:
I'd love to try it but being in the UK it seems like they are filtering us Europeans out :p Got a decent internet connection too.

Anyone in UK/Europe been able to test the beta?
Click to expand...

I believe they're filtering out based on latency, in which case it doesn't matter how quick your internet connection is, there are physical limits on how fast data can travel between you and a datacentre thousands of miles away.
 
Tried Mega Man 9:

Video seems to be perfect, but there is enough input lag to not quite be suitable for a precision platformer like the Mega Man series.

For RPGs and other turn-based games, Playstation Now will be amazing. I'll definitely use it to partake in Persona 5 if it becomes a Now title, since I unfortunately do not own a PS3.

For precision platformers and more action-oriented titles, however, I'm not sure I can deal with the slight lag.
 
I haven't played Now in a couple weeks, but I tried it a good bit during the closed beta. I came away with three major impressions:

1. The primary differentiator of how a game performs seems to be the game itself.
That is, some title were consistently better-looking and better-playing than others, even switching rapidly between them so that net conditions should've been about the same. Also, games seem to handle bad connections in different ways. Examples: DOA 5 would occasionally turn into Youtube-esque pixel soup, but no matter how bad the video got, I never felt any input lag. I played a bit in the training mode where the buttons you push are shown onscreen, and that display never felt unsynched. On the other hand, in Hunter Trophy America (or something) the video would stay good, but there'd be a big noticeable gap between button press and action. And Fuel would accept your input on time and react, but only drew a frame when it got a full one--so no bad compression, but a complete slideshow and unplayable at ~2fps sometimes.

2. For whatever reason, it seemed tough to maintain quality of connection.
That is, even the games that generally ran well would sometimes sputter and stagger. Was this due to local internet traffic? ISP problems? Distance to Sony's servers? The PS4's network card? No way to tell, but it definitely made me wary about committing too fully to a streaming future. That said, the third major impression was:

3. At its peak, streaming is excellent quality and has great potential.
A large chunk of DOA5 I played at 60fps with no impression of any video compression. (I'm not saying there wasn't any, just that perceptually it didn't stick out.) The version of Lumines on Now was apparently flawless the entire time. In these best-case scenarios, it really felt like playing off disc.

Wired 50/15.
 
Wired, 22 down, 2 up, SoCali....

I was in the closed beta so my impressions are on the free offerings. Basically, it works great and looks good.

The first game I played back then was Puppeteer. Because of PS Now, I fell in love with the charming platformer that I never played until then. I soon forgot I was playing a streamed game; it looked and responded extremely well.

The real game soon became free for PS+ members so I was able to compare the two experiences... the PS Now version held up VERY well across the board. I tried a few other titles (most of the offerings were bad games in any format), and never had a performance issue at all.

For example, the controls of Space Ace was surprisingly crisp considering its a QTE title. I was also challenging my offline Lumines high scores. No control complaints at all. If it makes any difference, fighting games are my favorite genre, so it's not as if I don't know what significant lag feels like.

If anyone would pay X dollars to rent a disc of a game that PS Now has available, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend that they rent the stream version of it. It is pretty much the same experience.

I rate PS Now (performance and visuals only) a 9/10.
 
Qassim said:
I believe they're filtering out based on latency, in which case it doesn't matter how quick your internet connection is, there are physical limits on how fast data can travel between you and a datacentre thousands of miles away.
Click to expand...
Ah thanks for that. Didn't think of that!
 
Overall I was happy with my experience. Latency was comparable to OnLive however visual quality and performance were noticably worse when compared to OnLive's CloudLift offering. Understandable though since CloudLift games are PC games running with max settings at 60 FPS. For reference my connection is 50/10 Mbps.
 
How is the online between systems? say like if someone was playing Dead Rising 2 Off The Record on the PS4 with PS Now and tried co-op with someone with DR2 OTR on the PS3?
 
I decided to give it a shot and rented Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce. I've played it a bit over an hour and its run flawlessly. I can feel a faint bit of input lag but it's very miniscule. The image quality seems very good, but some of the text is a bit pixelated? I'm not sure how to describe it. I had some massive frame drops a couple times that only lasted for a second or 2, but I'm not sure if that's just the game. Overall, I'm pretty impressed, and I'll probably rent future titles when they have a better selection.

My ISP is Cox, and it's 60/20.
 
For those that played Final Fantasy XIII, do you remember the framerate drops that happen at the beginning sections? If so, did you spot them again in PSNow?

They are very small drops, but noticeable. It'd be very interesting to know if they occur on this hardware as well.
 
How did they get the lag down this low? Reading all these positive impressions, i'd love to use this to rent games I missed during the other Playstation generations.

Impressive none the less.
 
Where can I find uncompressed pics taken with a capture device that records lossless in order to have an idea of what the service's compression looks like? Or are you not allowed to share pics of the service?
 
I played Shatter and Wipeout HD during the closed beta, I picked Wipeout specifically because it is a 60fp game that requires low latency and it felt good, I even compared it to the version I own. I did have some graphical issues with Wipeout specifically but that was resolved when I restarted the game.

Shatter is another game that requires low latency and that too felt fine, but unlike Wipeout, I don't own it so I had nothing to compare it to.

I have a 50/50 FIOS connection so I'm sure that helps,
 
Hoo-doo said:
How did they get the lag down this low? Reading all these positive impressions, i'd love to use this to rent games I missed during the other Playstation generations.

Impressive none the less.
Click to expand...

Wide dispersion of servers.

Onlive used 1 west coast server and 1 east coast server. On other hand, Gaikai was always for smaller nodes that are placed closer to the largest gaming territories. Here's their old setup with 12 server locations. All those servers are now not in use. Sony built brand new centers.
 
MeBecomingI said:
I had a few dollars sitting my wallet and a few hours of nothing yesterday so I decided to rent Enslaved. Enslaved isn't the smoothest game out there to begin with so it may not have been the best choice to pick, but it works. I noticed some lag, but it wasn't game breaking. Just took a little while for my brain to adjust and compensate. Visually there some compression, but not much. I wouldn't say it was perfect by any stretch but it absolutely works and there is a very satisfying feeling to be able to rent a game and stream it almost immediately after without moving, at all. Considering where I live in Canada, I wouldn't be surprised if I was fairly far away from any of the Now servers too. Internet wise, things are acceptable here and more than enough for Now.

I'll probably rent something I actually have been meaning to play for awhile now, but just never got around to it. Like Darksiders, I think. Maybe Ninja Gaiden 2.

Solid for now, but we'll see how Darksiders turns out.
Click to expand...

I posted that in one of the other threads a few days ago. I figured Darksiders would be a good choice, given that I actually really want to play it so I just rented it yesterday for 7 days. First thing I noticed was how immediately the controls were compared to Enslaved. The lag was so slight that my brain didn't worry about it all. Movement was fluid, attacks were responsive and I was pulling combos and dodging without issues. The image quality was great and the audio quality was good too. I didn't even have any strange visual hiccups either.

Compared to Enslaved, this was a much better go. I stopped playing after a few hours and came away very, very impressed. I legitimately kind of forgot that I was streaming it... kind of felt at that moment this could be for real. Hopefully everything else can play that smoothly. Enslaved gives me a bit of hesitation, but Darksiders gives me hope. Just price the subscription right and I could see myself using this quite often.

And to elaborate on the internet, I'm about 25 down and 2 up.
 
I've tried a few games, really impressed with the speed at which it gets going and flawless quality. It was just like playing the game locally, really.
 
software works dandy but the overall store feels like a mess to me

some okay prices... some absurd ones... some unorganized stuff

things they can adjust and fix
 
I played 2 games when they were free. Dead Island: Riptide and MX vs ATV Alive. I had a lot of latency issues with Dead Island but MX vs ATV worked pretty well.
 
I rented Alone in the Dark for 90 days for $5.99. That was the first instance where the time rented and price really was great, even if the game isn't critically acclaimed.

I have a pretty bad internet connection, but despite this, the game streamed very clear and with little compression. I also forgot I was streaming, because I was actually focused on the gameplay elements, and getting around the constantly shifting and changing environment of the game.

The service is actually great, if they keep improving latency and compression even more, this is a real winner. If they can also strike an even better balance between price and rental times, I'll continue using it in the future. Being able to play games instantly for a relatively low rental fee allows me to keep cycling through games I was hesitant to purchase at full price or order online and having to wait, plus shipping fees. Now seems like a winning formula for my needs, I welcome any further improvements and pricing adjustments before fully jumping on the service but so far it's been great.
 
If you have a saved game file for let's say FFXIII, and you go ahead and rent that game from the service, can you use that save file?
 
squall211 said:
If you have a saved game file for let's say FFXIII, and you go ahead and rent that game from the service, can you use that save file?
Click to expand...

Your saves should be retained even if your rental lapses (you rent, it expires, and you later rent it again). If you have PSN+ the cloud saves will work if you decide to buy the actual game on the PS3. I don't know how it works if you previously owned the game and rent it on PS Now.
 
squall211 said:
If you have a saved game file for let's say FFXIII, and you go ahead and rent that game from the service, can you use that save file?
Click to expand...

If you have Playstation Plus and the save in your cloud Playstation Plus save folder you can copy it over to your PSNow save folder manually and use it.
 
IceDoesntHelp said:
howd you get it? I was going to sign up, but it asked for a zipcode and wouldn't let me type in letters.
Click to expand...

Errr, it's open beta. You don't have to sign up for anything. Just check the store. It should be there.

squall211 said:
If you have a saved game file for let's say FFXIII, and you go ahead and rent that game from the service, can you use that save file?
Click to expand...

Apparently saves work that way, so yes. I think.
 
squall211 said:
If you have a saved game file for let's say FFXIII, and you go ahead and rent that game from the service, can you use that save file?
Click to expand...

Save games of PSNow games are always backed up in the cloud and are fully compatible with save games from PS3 PSN games and retail discs. You can start playing game on PSNow on Vita, and then go back home and continue playing from that same spot using your retail disc. Or other way around.
 
DieH@rd said:
Onlive used 1 west coast server and 1 east coast server. On other hand, Gaikai was always for smaller nodes that are placed closer to the largest gaming territories. Here's their old setup with 12 server locations. All those servers are now not in use. Sony built brand new centers.
Click to expand...

Is the present location of the datacenters known? It seems like distance to data center (geographical/hops) would be a considerably more useful metric than bandwidth when it comes to playability.
 
Mikey Jr. said:
Whoa, 500ms?

Maybe it was an early beta thing? Because I am not getting that at all.
Click to expand...

When I played rip tided I had same issue and it was the last round of free beta. I had max connection 65 down 35 up. I would tap left and the delay was unreal. The game looked good though for streaming...problem is I don't know how much input lag ps3 games had so I couldn't tell if it was the game or the streaming or both.
 
Rented out Zeno Clash 2 because $2.99 for a week sounded pretty great to me. Sound quality is pretty bad, the video looks heavily compressed. I am sitting 6 inches away from my monitor though. Input lag is pretty reasonable. 34/4
 
How hard does streaming games hit bandwidth? I'd assume it's similar to streaming video? Basically what I'm asking is if people with caps should be wary.
 
Y2Kev said:
I think internet speed seems to matter less than proximity to the data center.
Click to expand...
"Ping". You're welcome and I agree.

We are a loooooong ways off from perfect and I applaud Sony for trying this in the console space since it needed to be done but it is in no way how I want to experience my games. Especially with all the tech we invest in as gamers to improve our experiences. Its akin to dumping tons of cash on a killer sound system only to use it of FM radio.

PS Now needed to be done for baby steps but there's still a long way to go before we can all agree it is a great way to experience games.
 
Worked great for me. Never got pixelated and I didn't feel any input lag. It could be a real game changer if they can figure out price.

100/100
 
Y2Kev said:
I think internet speed seems to matter less than proximity to the data center.
Click to expand...

Yep.

Distance to the datacentre will affect speed but bandwidth can be kept to a relatively high level across long distances depending if the route is carefully managed.

Latency is the hardest one to overcome as the distance between you and the destination increases, there are physical limits on the mediums we used for data transfer on how fast data can reach one point and back again. Latency is important to any games streaming service as it dictates how quickly the button you press registers with the game and how quickly that result can be sent back to you.
 
Dead Island was the game that I had problems with as well. Something tells me that it was an issue with that game in particular as almost everyone that ha an issue with the service was playing that one.

Everything else I've played worked fine.
 
Y2Kev said:
I think internet speed seems to matter less than proximity to the data center.
Click to expand...

I sure hope you're right.

6 down / 3 up. Sucks, but I'm right near a data center.

Hopefully I'll be able to try it out for other people with lolfail speeds like mine once I get a ps4.

But if someone has tried it out with low speeds / minimal requirements, please post. Love the comparisons and feedback so far.
 
I played a few games, they worked great, couldn't really notice any problems, but I'm not a super video/audio guy.

There was no lag, that I can say for certain. Played a ton of Big Sky Infinity.


?/? Wifi
 
Played DOA5 for a couple of hours. Really impressed with how well it worked. No input lag or video compression on my end. Was unable to test online due to finding no opponents.

Wired, 40/5
 
Y2Kev said:
I think internet speed seems to matter less than proximity to the data center.
Click to expand...

This is what I am thinking, is there some form of map of the data centre locations?

If so it might be handy for the impressions to include a general distance to the nearest data centre.
 
Rented Catherine last night and I was really impressed by the video quality and lack of input lag.

This morning I rented I rented FF13 for 4 hours. It crashed out right away but then ran smoothly for the next two and a half hours. After that though the video got laggy and I was booted from the game. I tried to start it back up again but PS Now spent the remainder of my rental time trying to close my last session.
 
70s Style Pimp said:
This is what I am thinking, is there some form of map of the data centre locations?

If so it might be handy for the impressions to include a general distance to the nearest data centre.
Click to expand...

Gaikai's website used to have a data center map. Might still be up. I'd check but on phone right now.
 
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