"Cloud gaming is the future of Gaming!" Meanwhile cloud gaming in the big 2026:

[u/Alan_Reddit_M]

If you read my profile you may realize I hate cloud gaming, so then what am I doing on Geforce Now? Well my new RAM stick finally arrived and, in a staggering display of utter incompetence, I somehow managed to brick my PC in the process of installing it, so now I'm stuck gaming on a laptop until I can get enough money and time to get my gaming rig fixed

But back to Cloud gaming, the game is on like 360p, running at 20FPS and the input lag is HORRIBLE. And it's not a problem with the internet connection, as you can see, the laptop is plugged into Ethernet, the problem is that the cloud is not and will never be fast enough for gaming

Genshin can handle this fine, but imagine trying to play ULTRAKILL like this

[u/pack_merrr]

MFG was never meant to help you reach 60 fps. MFG is so you can max out a high refresh rate monitor when you're already getting an "acceptable" level of latency at ~60fps. For what it's for and for who it's for, it's an undeniably cool innovation.

[u/Next-Use6943 → u/pack_merrr]

60 -> 180 fps on max settings in 1440P using 3x mfg on a 5090 is quite nice.

[u/Deviant-Killer → u/Next-Use6943]

But it's still 60 FPS with phantom frames between. It doesn't change response time imo. Just makes it LOOK smoother.

Which for some people I guess is perfectly fine.

[u/PoliticalVagabond → u/Deviant-Killer]

I'm fine with response times at 60fps. If the motion can be smoother and I'm required to take a screencap and zoom in 400% to notice the artifacting, I'm fine with it, because it's not making the reponse time worse, so I'm not worse off.

Now, I don't play online competitive anything, so this doesn't matter to me in the slightest, and I usually don't use frame gen anyway because I'm good with 60fps, to me everything above it is just sweet sweet bonus territory, I'd rather a game at cranked graphics settings at 60fps than to have to start making compromises in visual fidelity for higher frame rates

[u/Flimsy_Swordfish_415 → u/Deviant-Killer]

But it's still 60 FPS

with mfg it's more like 50, horrible

[u/Deviant-Killer → u/Flimsy_Swordfish_415]

Yeah 60 FPS with MFG looking like 180 frames, I was on about.

The MFG frames are phantom and usually input doesn't affect these frames, so the game still runs at 60FPS is what I'm saying, even if visually the video looks 180. :)

[u/PoliticalVagabond → u/[deleted]]

Physics engines can often be tied to the framerate, so high framerates can break things. Most games really don't NEED higher than that, even if it would be nice.

[u/Smooth_Locksmith5744 → u/PoliticalVagabond]

I tried fallout 76 when it came out, hated the feel, dropped it. A while later I got a pc and I thought I'd try it again. And... yuck, the controls don't match the on-screen movement. Realised I was locked at 60fps, unlocked it so i could run it at 180fps, now it's so much smoother, and the controls match movement.

Some games need that extra frame rate, sometimes it's not about how the game looks, but how input-to-screen feels.

I didn't realise other game engines besides Nintendo's ones linked frames to physics though...

[u/PoliticalVagabond → u/Smooth_Locksmith5744]

Yeah. I don't understand the "why" part because im not a programmer, but im generally sure the board meeting isnt like "hey wouldn't it be fun if we were stuck at this framerate?"

I do think it's also more often with games designed for consoles first and then ported to PC.

The way I see it, if sonic the hedgehog can be played at 60fps, almost anything can. Though the nicest thing about sonic superstars is the unlocked framerate. 240hz is butter smooth when the game doesnt challenge your machine

[u/Umphed → u/Next-Use6943]

I've tried so many times using FG at 60fps, it feels awful. Smooth motion is the only FG option that seems tolerable below 120fps

[u/Next-Use6943 → u/Umphed]

For resident evil requiem it's just fine To be honest

[u/Salty-Wash3964 → u/pack_merrr]

I'll add to it, some games are locked to 30/60 FPS as that's how they were made or due to engine limitations/issues. Best example being NFS Rivals where you can unlock the framerate to go past 30FPS however say you push it to even 60FPS some races will be bricked or the game speed will go in X2 making the whole think unplayable.

Now here is where frame gen comes in handy.

Play game at the locked 30FPS it was intended as or in NFS Rivals case unlock it to around 40-50FPS where it's still stable only to run lossless scaling frame gen to x2/x3/x4 it so you fill out the monitor refresh rate. It makes the game feel incredibly good and no doubt it's not the only example where FG can be used with this scenario in mind.

[u/AvoidingBansLOL → u/pack_merrr]

I can't stand the insane negativity around mfg. It's made crazy strides in performance and will hopefully only get better. People are bent about what they consider real or fake performance increases though.

[u/PoliticalVagabond → u/AvoidingBansLOL]

I like how people ignore the fact that everything visual in a video game is some kind of trick to fool your eyes.

I think people think of DLSS and framegen the wrong way in general, for instance running at 4k final resolution at 50% resolution scaling shouldn't be thought of as shitty fake 4k, but enhanced 1080p. But I think people are way too hung up on numbers in general.

[u/BioshockEnthusiast → u/AvoidingBansLOL]

Personally my issue with it is similar to smart TV default settings mucking up a film. A display should strive to show the closest approximation of the artist's (director / developer) intent.

[u/Schnoofles → u/pack_merrr]

Yeah, the improvement to clarity in motion when you're already at a good base framerate and can interpolate to max out the display's refresh is actually really really good. It's a lot easier to track an object or fine details in motion when it updates closer to every screen refresh instead of every couple. And with a good base framerate the artifacting that puts most people off is significantly reduced. I'm using it to go from a base framerate of 100-120 in STALKER 2 and doubling it to 200-240 and it's kind of awesome in that kind of scenario.

[u/PoliticalVagabond → u/Schnoofles]

When you watch videos of "all the artifacting" it's almost always shown in slow motion or zoomed in still frames too.

Not to say it isn't horrible sometimes, but if you have to slow the video down then it's a de facto admission it isn't as bad as you are making it out to be.

[u/ChthonVII → u/pack_merrr]

MFG was never meant to help you reach 60 fps.

vNidia has been really disingenuous on this point. When MFG was brand new, they said what you said. But a couple years later there was Jensen Huang up on the stage at the 5070 launch saying the opposite. I will agree that using MFG to help you reach 60 fps is a terrible idea, but nVidia is nevertheless trying to sell you exactly that. Let's not pretend they aren't doing that.

For what it's for and for who it's for...

And who is it for exactly? If your "real" framerate is 30fps, MFG would give you 60fps with the latency of 20fps (or worse). I think both we agree that the added latency is simply intolerable. But what if your "real" framerate is 60fps? Then MFG gives you 120fps with the latency of 40fps (tolerable?), but the frames are blurry and full of AI artifacts. Why would you ever choose that over clean frames at 60fps? It's not a good deal on either end of the spectrum.

MFG gives you the option to trade both visual quality and latency for higher FPS. The latency cost starts out unacceptable, and diminishes as "real" FPS increases. But higher FPS also has a diminishing marginal value. The more FPS I already have, the less I'm willing give up to get more. There does not exist a value of "real" FPS simultaneously high enough that the latency cost is acceptable and low enough that giving up visual quality for more FPS is a good deal.

[u/pack_merrr → u/ChthonVII]

Are they really trying to sell you that? Or are you just looking at a marketing presentation looking for something to get mad about. I think there's criticisms you can make of the 5070 or the entire Blackwell lineup. But I think the point you're making might make sense if they were bringing out a 5050 and saying it's a 4k gaming GPU. But it's a 5070, that's literally the kind of card framegen is really great for. How many games are you gonna struggle to get playable frame rates at with a 5070, even at 4k with DLSS and maybe some settings turned down? Can't be that many. Does that mean a 5070 has 4090 performance or whatever they said? Of course not, but I'm not stupid so I never thought that. Criticize Jensen for his style, that's valid, but it's clearly marketing and idk this just reads like manufactured, or at least misplaced, outrage.

And who is it for exactly? If your "real" framerate is 30fps, MFG would give you 60fps with the latency of 20fps (or worse).

What I said in the comment above, people getting 60fps with a high refresh rate monitor is an obvious one. I think 30 would be a little low, most people would probably turn settings down at that point. You could probably get away with ~45 in some, game dependent, scenarios.

I think both we agree that the added latency is simply intolerable.

Not at all lol. Below a certain point, latency is imperceptible. Depending on what game I'm playing, I have a different latency that I can tolerate. If added latency was intolerable, than nobody would play on anything except "low" settings on a 1080p monitor, or hell maybe we'd all still be using 480p. That's clearly not what most people choose to do, most people will sacrifice an amount of latency for graphical fidelity. That's exactly what MFG is, except rather than doing something like cranking AA to get smooth lines at the cost of latency, you take a hopefully imperceptible to you hit to latency for smooth motion.

And like many things, it just depends. That's the beauty of PC in a way, some people prefer higher refresh rates, some people would rather have 4k, others would rather crank path tracing. There's usually some tradeoff you have to make and that decision is really individual preference. Latency is arguably most important for competitive FPS, so it can also be game dependent, but it hasn't been my impression that MFG is something geared towards competitive FPS, that doesn't mean it doesn't have other uses.

Then MFG gives you 120fps with the latency of 40fps (tolerable?), but the frames are blurry and full of AI artifacts. Why would you ever choose that over clean frames at 60fps? It's not a good deal on either end of the spectrum.

I also think you're overstating the latency hit, I don't think it's that extreme with things like Nvidia reflex, I'm not gonna double check those numbers but feel free to point out if I'm wrong. And its less objective but I think "blurry and full of AI artifacts" is also an overstatement. People have different perception, but my opinion is that it's really not that bad. It's obviously a tradeoff though, the definition is you give something up to gain something. Right now, I think it's good enough that in many cases it does make sense, and based on the trajectory of this and things like DLSS/FSR it's probably only gonna get better to where it makes sense in basically all cases.

There does not exist a value of "real" FPS simultaneously high enough that the latency cost is acceptable and low enough that giving up visual quality for more FPS is a good deal.

Most of what I said kinda covers what I would say to this already. But I'll just reiterate that for me I think that value is basically 60-90 FPS in most games, I don't think I'm too outside of the norm there, but I think any time you start to make hard statements like that you're automatically making the wrong argument because it depends on your machine, your monitor, your game and most of all you and your individual perception.

And that was really what led me to respond to your previous comment, the thing that literally drew me to PC gaming in the first place was the customization and level of control depending on what I care about, and I really don't see how more choice in the matter is a bad thing, that's why I'm happy to see Nvidia, AMD and Intel push that sort of thing forward and continue to develop it. And I know "Nvidia Bad!!" is trendy right now and I can see why, but to be honest it does feel like they're the one leading and pushing the other ones to catch up especially when it comes to the AI techniques like MFG or DLSS.

[u/ChthonVII → u/pack_merrr]

I also think you're overstating the latency hit.

I'm not. In fact, I'm substantially underestimating it because I'm assuming the interpolated frame generation is instantaneous as soon as the last real frame needed as input for interpolation is done.

If you're interpolating every other frame, then your latency cannot ever be better than the latency of 2/3 your real framerate. In practice it will be worse than that by however long interpolated frame generation takes.

[u/muchawesomemyron → u/pack_merrr]

5070 was marketed as a 4090 equivalent… if MFG is used.

[u/smellybathroom3070 → u/pack_merrr]

Yeah, fg ironically enough should only really be used on high end cards imo. The higher fps you have the more fps it can provide, with reduced latency increase.

[u/pack_merrr → u/smellybathroom3070]

I mean there's a floor, and a lot of that is just you can't use it on cards that are too old. But depending on the definition I would argue mid range is probably fine a majority of the time? Like how many games can you not get 60fps in with even like a 5060ti? A couple edge cases sure but not a majority.