LiquidSky continues to see fairly frequent updates, the latest of which comes a little over two months after the beta opened up to the public. Among the changes to the newest v0.2.10 client is an overhauled user interface with a new SkyComputer menu and login screen.
None of the changes are mind blowing, though collectively it's a fairly robust update with a few new conveniences. One of them is a "Remember Me" button at the login screen to properly support automatic logins. While a pretty standard feature these days, it's especially welcome here since LiquidSky does its best to ensure difficult-to-guess passwords—you're required to use a capital letter, numerical character, and a special symbol
LiquidSky also added the ability to record and save gameplay to whichever SkyComputer you've chosen to rent. On top of that, download speeds have been increased up to 10Gbps.
Interestingly, LiquidSky decided to halve the amount of RAM in its SkyComputer Gamer and Pro configurations, which have been downgraded to 4GB and 8GB, respectively. Nevertheless, LiquidSky says the latest update introduces further optimizations to increase performance and stream quality across all SkyComputers.
If this is the first you're hearing of LiquidSky, it's a cloud game streaming service that picks up where OnLive left off. It's often likened to a sort of Netflix for games, though unlike Netflix, you have to own the content that you plan to stream.
The way it works is you can rent one of two virtual PC configurations to stream games to your own PC, tablet, or other mobile device. There used to be three tiers, but LiquidSky recently dropped its SkyComputer Elite configuration. The two remaining ones are Gamer and Pro. While things are subject to change, the Gamer configurations includes 2GB of GPU VRAM, three virtual CPU cores, and 4GB of RAM to run most games at 30 frames per second at 1080p. The Pro configuration bumps things up to 4GB of GPU VRAM, six CPU cores, and 8GB of RAM to run all games smoothly.
You rent these SkyComputer configurations using SkyCredits. The Gamer tier costs 60 SkyCredits per hour, while the Pro setup costs 120 SkyCredits per hour. You can earn free SkyCredits by watching and engaging ads, or buy them through a pay-as-you-go plan starting at $5 or with a monthly subscription starting at $10 per month.
If you're interested in giving LiquidSky a spin, you can download the client here. Just be prepared to wait if you don't plan on buying SkyCredits—availability to non-paying players is staggered.
