spatialcomputing.info

CloudXR, NVIDIA’s real-time XR cloud streaming technology, is now publicly available through the Google Cloud Marketplace with Nvidia RTX Virtual Workstations as a Virtual
Machine Image (VMI).

Like flatscreen cloud gaming, XR streaming promises is to remove the high barrier of entry by rendering resource-intensive visuals on virtual machines in the cloud and serving them up to typically less powerful host devices like PCs, smartphones, or standalone VR headsets.

More specifically, Nvidia’s CloudXR tech lets users run high-end VR graphics in any OpenVR application, which now also extends to developers and vendors using the world’s third-largest cloud service, Google Cloud, something the company says can be done on instances that support Nvidia T4 Tensor Core GPUs.

Nvidia previously made CloudXR available on Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure earlier following the release of its early access SDK in 2019, where the company outlined hopes of kickstarting CloudXR streaming amidst a mounting 5G-centric future.

Whether that 5G future is right around the corner, or years away from fulfilling its many promises for both AR and VR, Nvidia’s CloudXR has decidedly become the most mature and scalable solution of the lot, especially now that it’s available across the top three cloud service providers.

Where that scalability leads us in the near-term isn’t certain. The promise of never having to panic buy the latest GPU out from under cryptominers just to play the latest in PC VR gaming is certainly a tantalizing prospect we’re hoping to see fulfilled someday, as standalone headsets and the promise of minimal setup have quickly become a focus in attracting an untapped vein of new consumers.