Remember that "share" functionality touted for the PlayStation 4 that failed to live up to its promise? It was supposed to allow you to stream your PS4 games directly to a friend and it was supposed to even allow you to play local co-op game with a friend online even if they don't have the game. The sad thing is that Sony provided the developers the option to turn off that promising feature for their games - and of course they did - so my dream of ever playing local co-op games like the two PS4 Skylanders was shattered into pieces when I discovered that the feature was not supported by those games. Well, enter Nvidia Experience's new GameStream feature for the Personal Computer.
Finally, a feature that makes Nvidia Experience an installation must!
Currently in its early beta form, this feature allows PC gamers to stream any DirectX 9 games or higher directly to a friend via Google Chrome. The player can then allow the friend to take control of the game being played and even play local co-op with the friend online, complete with voice chat! This feature is still not perfect and a number of games I have tested thus far just simply wouldn't work. Those that do work however worked rather flawlessly. The quality of the GameStream video is magnificent. Though only maxed out at 720p and 30 frames per second, I didn't notice any artifacts on the video stream and it looked almost as if the games were running on my machine natively. There doesn't appear to be any lag in terms of gameplay as well. The best thing about this? It's not up to the developers to block this feature from being used with their local co-op only games - don't you wish that Sony mandated this feature for the PS4?
Tecmo Koei purposely screwed PC players by removing
online multiplayer from the Steam version of One Piece Pirate Warriors 3.
Thank you Nvidia for making it possible for me to finally enjoy this with a friend.
If Nvidia keeps working on perfecting this feature, Nvidia GameStream will easily be one of the best gaming tools available for PC gaming ever. Heck, it is a mighty impressive one even at its current form. I also hope that this will light a ravaging fire under Valve's butt so they can provide the same feature implemented directly via the Steam client. It's time to buy or re-install those local co-op PC games my friends and play the crap out of them online!
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