Streaming games from remote internet servers could be the future of the video game industry or part of that future, anyhow. By removing the need to own a PC or console to play the latest, most demanding blockbuster games, the medium as a whole could become more accessible. That is if you have a good internet connection. If you’re interested in streaming your desktop PC games to your PC, Mac, phone, tablet, or console, you can try one of a variety of cloud gaming and in-home streaming options today.  If you’d prefer to stream games that you don’t already own, a few companies already have Netflix-like catalogs of games you can stream. The current cloud gaming marketplace is populated by recognizable gaming brands like Steam, Nvidia, and Sony. Alongside the big names is a gallery of startups that claim to have their proprietary tech. So, here are some easiest ways to get a taste of what cloud gaming is like.

STEAM LINK

Valve’s Steam Link has been around for a few years, and its free in-home streaming solution is one of the best and most reliable out there. You can stream games installed on one of your home computers (Mac, Windows, Linux) to practically any other desktop, laptop, phone, or tablet on the same network while using a controller or a mouse and keyboard. Plug in an HDMI cable, and you can easily sling that content to a TV, too.

To get it working, you need two machines (a PC or Android device) to be logged into your Steam account at the same time, adding the new machine to your account with an approval code. Once you have a game installed on your host PC, all you have to do is head to your library, select the installed game’s “Stream” option, and proceed from there. You can also stream your computer’s desktop in a pinch.

Steam users have been able to stream games from within the Steam Mac app for some time. However, with the availability of Steam Link on macOS, users now have the option of choosing a lightweight download (29.8MB) to stream games to their Mac, rather than having to install the Steam app properly, which requires 1GB of drive space.

XBOX APP ON WINDOWS 10

To begin streaming games from your Xbox One, in the Xbox app go to Home > Recently Played to select an Xbox One game and then select “Play from Console” to start your game streaming session. You can also simply select your Xbox One console under Home > Game Streaming in the Xbox app to take full control of your Xbox One from your PC. A notification will appear on your Xbox One that a game streaming session was started by a specific user. During game streaming, your Xbox One will appear “in use” as though the person streaming was in the room.

After everything is set up, you can control the stream quality (up to 1080p at 60 fps), play games from your PC by controlling your Xbox remotely, chat with other players using in-game audio chat, and even use an Oculus Rift to generate a virtual room and giant flatscreen to immerse yourself in the gameplay.

REMOTR

Similar to Steam In-Home Streaming, the free game steaming platform Remotr works by using your gaming PC’s library and processing power to deliver a stream to an Android device, iPhone, tablet, or another computer. But Remote requires you to install not one, but two dedicated apps (one for the host and another for the receiver) to get it working. One awesome feature is local network support for couch co-op games. If you’re firing up a party game like Castle Crashers, you can have up to three friends use their phones or tablets as controllers, each with their screen.
If you fulfill the requirements and follow the setup guide, it’s another way to stream smooth, relatively low-latency game sessions from your host machine without relying on some distant data center that you’d have to pay for monthly.

Remotr is designed for gamers, by gamers. It is built to provide smooth streaming and short reaction times for even the most graphic-intensive games. Remotr automatically detects Steam, Origin, Blizzard, and Glyph games installed on your PC, includes control presets for popular PC games, and gamers can modify and customize their controls for each game. Remotr also supports gamepads – including Xbox 360 and PS4/PS4 Dualshock.
Once you download the mobile app, make sure to download the Remotr Streamer and install it on your computer. The next step is simple – stream any game from your PC!

NVIDIA GAMESTREAM -MOON LIGHT

If you’ve got a relatively recent Nvidia graphics card, there’s a pretty nifty way to try in-home streaming (or even over the internet) to practically any platform under the sun: the unofficial Moonlight app for Nvidia’s GameStream platform. Originally, GameStream only worked if you owned an Nvidia Shield TV set-top box or the old, discontinued Shield Tablet or Shield Portable, all of which still work but the Moonlight open-source project brings it to Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, Chrome OS, and even Amazon’s Fire OS devices. Again, you’ll need an Nvidia GeForce card, plus the free GeForce Experience app, but then it’s just a matter of pairing your device of choice to your gaming PC with a four-digit PIN.

Nvidia’s GameStream has been around even longer than Steam In-Home Streaming, and it’s felt nearly as good in our tests.

HP OMEN GAME STREAM

If you own one of the three supported HP Omen gaming PCs, the Omen Game Steam app is one last way to stream games from your host PC to other Windows 10 PCs on your home Wi-Fi network. Simply hop onto your Omen computer, download HP’s required drivers, install the Omen Command Center on your non-gaming PC, and then start gaming. It’s simple enough.

RAINWAY

Rainway allows you to remotely stream games from your preexisting Steam, Origin, Battle.net, or uPlay libraries, and its claim to fame is the web: you can stream games directly to a web browser window, as well as Mac or Windows PCs or Android phones, with an iOS version planned for a later date. Rainway makes sense if you want to stream games as you would with Steam Link, but you don’t want to sign into multiple machines with your Steam user credentials.
The desktop app features plenty of settings you can tweak, including what quality you’d like the stream to be, which GPU to use for encoding, and which of your monitors you’d like to pull the game stream from if you have multiple monitors set up.

PLAYSTATION NOW

PlayStation Now is the perfect definition of how a cloud game streaming service would be like on a console and a PC. PS Now includes more than 750 PS4, PS3, and PS2 games (over 275 of those are PS4 games), with more being added every month.

It’s an impressive, functional archive of Sony’s best classic PlayStation games, including the original God of War series, The Last of Us, and Uncharted, and it also brings more contemporary titles like NBA 2K18 and For Honor. Since PS Now can be used on a Windows PC, it also serves as an emulator of sorts for PC players who have a spare DualShock 4 controller.

Before the announcement, players were limited to streaming games from the PlayStation Now library, which required a constant internet connection. Because of the bandwidth required to stream games, image quality is less consistent than when installed, and the controls can be slightly delayed.

Saving PS Now titles to their home console will give players the ability to purchase additional downloadable content and add-ons, expanding playtime on individual games. If a player started playing a game using the streaming service, they can transfer their save, download the title for offline play, and continue where they left off without having to log back into the PlayStation Network.

GEFORCE NOW

GeForce NOW gives gamers the freedom to enjoy high-performance PC gaming just about anywhere. It connects a wide range of Windows and macOS computers to supercomputers in the cloud, streaming 1080p graphics at up to 120 frames per second. By utilizing its own Tesla graphics cards, Nvidia’s servers can push games to Mac, PC, and Nvidia Shield players at a solid 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second. Nvidia also has plans to eventually switch to the new RTX server so that features like ray tracing and DLSS can be enabled for supported games streamed on GeForce Now.

The games stream very smoothly, even on my Macbook Air, giving you the feeling you’re playing natively.

SHADOW BLADE

“We were the first to show that cloud gaming works,” said Emmanuel Freund, co-founder of  Shadow, said in a statement. “Others have followed us. Now it is up to us to show that we remain pioneers, innovators, in terms of the technology, and proud to show the values of a French startup to the world.”

The Paris-based startup created Shadow to allow users to play and stream games across any computer, tablet, or TV. Like other similar platforms, Shadow works by giving you a virtualized computer with the means to play 3D games. Currently, Shadow is operational in 38 out of the 50 states, with more on the way. Shadow is subscription-based, there’s no way to demo it for free.

Blade, Shadow’s parent company, is also selling a game streaming console alongside the subscription named the Shadow Ghost. It’s capable of outputting video at 4K resolution at a 60Hz refresh rate or 1080p HD at 144Hz.

STEAM LINK ANYWHERE

Valve`s internet game streaming feature was recently added as a feature within Steam in-home. The Steam Link Anywhere is decent if you’re playing on a fast LTE or Wi-Fi connection using your phone and you have great internet upload speeds at home for your host PC. Valve is being somewhat cryptic about the exact requirements for Steam Link Anywhere., you need to have “a good upload speed and [that] your Steam Link device has a good network connection.” Once you get past that, all you need is a Windows PC to host the games, plus the Steam client running on an Android device or the ill-fated steam link box.

So these were the top and best 10 applications/services where you can steam a game.

Happy Steaming.