Google STADIA? New console/game streaming service.

[zinfamous]

Nah,this will be just like watching a movie what network requirements are concerned.
If you can watch 1080 or 4k videos from youtube you will be able to use this service.
I for once have pretty basic internet but this is not a problem.

also, the bit rate needed for 1080 and 4k video content has got to be way, way under what is needed to stream playable 1080, let alone 4k (lol) content. ...but it while it does sound absurd, there are at least those 2 products--the google one and that morbeus/venum/zombie/whatever-millenial-name-it-is-called that has already demonstrated some rather impressive HD game content.

...as for the discussion here--I think the skepticism of the tech that is needed for this is legit, but we've already seen proof of concept that this is probably possible where users can access the needed services--and tech--that is currently available to make it happen. ...honestly, that's the only problem here. I think many are underestimating the market for customers that actually want a service like this. I don't care that it isn't me, but this is the type of thing that would work extremely well if all falls into place for Google--hardware, service, and content availability.

 

[quikah]

There are a couple of interesting demos. This is Doom 2016, it looks not too good, seems like a lot of stutter/dropped frames or something:

Alternatively there is Doom Eternal which looked pretty smooth.

One difference, the Doom Eternal gameplay looked a bit less intense.

 

[TheELF]

also, the bit rate needed for 1080 and 4k video content has got to be way, way under what is needed to stream playable 1080, let alone 4k (lol) content.

It will mainly be targeted to newer generations that will be playing on tablets or on TVs from their couches where you don't need the same amount of quality.
It probably won't be quite as appealing for somebody with a 4k gaming setup but for console gamers this will be a very appealing alternative.

Google Stadia, designed to run on everything from PCs and Android phones to Google's own Chromecast devices.

 

[purbeast0]

Yeah that Doom 2016 demo alone is proof enough that I won't have any interest in this. It stutters randomly due to network latency I'm guessing, and this isn't even taking input latency into consideration.

 

[EXCellR8]

While it's still kind of early to draw any conclusions, once the system goes live and there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people using it... well yea latency can't be not affected, could it?

 

[TheELF]

Eh it's google,they could reduce network speed and transcoding for video uploads by a tiny bit and it would release huge amounts of resources,and those are not real time things so nobody would even notice.

 

[KentState]

The biggest concern I have with streaming is what it has done to music and some extent tv. Back in the day, you would be a cd and probably give it a complete listening as the artist intended. Maybe even play it over and over again to get more familiar with the songs and feel of the piece of work. When streaming came out, music became one hit disposable music meant purely for a short attention span. So many artists now release a bunch of singles 3-6 months before the album even drops to maximize the play time. I really anymore go back and listen to something that was released in the past because I have little attachment.

Fast forward to streaming and what Google is proposing. It's going to be a bunch of save points and slivers of game play that will come and go with much attachments. People will get bored with diving into games and just sample a little bit of everything. I just hope that games aren't reduced to what modern music has become.

As far as latency, MS, Sony, Steam and Nvidia have tried this in-house and even with both ends on the same 1Gbe switch, there is still stuttering and lag at times when trying to do 1080p@60hz. I've tried Geforce Now since it's free with the Shield TV and games like Dark Souls 3 doesn't feel right. Have played it through multiple times so I was able to compensate, but the latency was noticeable. This is on a Gigabit internet connection with a very low ping in the Atlanta area.

 

[TheELF]

There always have been people that would only listen to mix tapes of the latest hits they recorded from the radio,it's not a new thing for people to pick out only what they like.
Others prefer the whole experience other don't mind others can't be bothered...why play through 5 boring as hell levels if only the 6th is worth anything,why grind for 100hours if you can just have fun?

It's not going to be for everybody, but what is.

 

[zinfamous]

The biggest concern I have with streaming is what it has done to music and some extent tv. Back in the day, you would be a cd and probably give it a complete listening as the artist intended. Maybe even play it over and over again to get more familiar with the songs and feel of the piece of work. When streaming came out, music became one hit disposable music meant purely for a short attention span. So many artists now release a bunch of singles 3-6 months before the album even drops to maximize the play time. I really anymore go back and listen to something that was released in the past because I have little attachment.

Fast forward to streaming and what Google is proposing. It's going to be a bunch of save points and slivers of game play that will come and go with much attachments. People will get bored with diving into games and just sample a little bit of everything. I just hope that games aren't reduced to what modern music has become.

As far as latency, MS, Sony, Steam and Nvidia have tried this in-house and even with both ends on the same 1Gbe switch, there is still stuttering and lag at times when trying to do 1080p@60hz. I've tried Geforce Now since it's free with the Shield TV and games like Dark Souls 3 doesn't feel right. Have played it through multiple times so I was able to compensate, but the latency was noticeable. This is on a Gigabit internet connection with a very low ping in the Atlanta area.

I get what you're saying, but releasing singles far in advance of an album is nothing new. In the days when radio seriously mattered, singles would also be released months before the album, and getting radio time was crucial. It's essentially the same thing--everyone was listening to the radio, anyway, so you would be listening to the same hit singles over and over again. You can replace "Radio" with "MP3 player/phone/streaming" ...and the choice of music for the latter devices isn't that significant, anyway--people for the most part still play the same forgettable pop pablum over and over and over again, despite their seemingly endless choices on their own devices and subscription services.

 

[aj654987]

Ive played both in home steam streaming and nvidia's streaming from their servers, it works very well and I didnt have any issues with lag. Both were basically unnoticable to me that the games were streamed. I am a casual gamer and I imagine the vast majority of gamers will not have a noticable issue with the lag of streamed games assuming they have regular broadband. I only have 30mbps connection and it worked fine for me. I think streaming is inevitable. It will be annoying though with the subscription model and you never really "owning" anything, even less so than digitally owned games. What happens when a contract lapses and you never finished a game and its just pulled from the cloud, youre SOL.

 

[cmdrdredd]

How is this different than what Nvidia tried to do with Game Streaming on the Shield or Sony's Playstation streaming?

 

[Aikouka]

How is this different than what Nvidia tried to do with Game Streaming on the Shield or Sony's Playstation streaming?

I think they're mostly trying to tout their expansive data centers (better latency) and the extra features with YouTube (better interactivity).

Of course, one really important aspect that they've not touched on just yet is games. They can have the best service ever and have poor content. Although, Google has stated that they'll talk about games/partners later on. (Probably at E3?)

 

[EXCellR8]

They've released some information on games: https://store.google.com/product/stadia_founders_edition?noRedirect=true

Since it was only $129 to pre-order the FE I figured it was worth the shot since 1080p only requires like 20Mbps. Do I expect some issues? Sure, but it's an interesting concept and I'm interested in trying it out.

 

[nakedfrog]

"Negative latency"

Google wants to reduce Stadia lag with 'negative latency'

Plenty of gamers are skeptical about cloud-based gaming. Fast internet connections just aren't prevalent enough, the argument goes, and lag will kill the gameplay experience. Google is diving in head first with Stadia, though. In an interview with Edge, Stadia's VP of Engineering Madj Bakar said...

www.engadget.com

 

[purbeast0]

"Negative latency"

Google wants to reduce Stadia lag with 'negative latency'

Plenty of gamers are skeptical about cloud-based gaming. Fast internet connections just aren't prevalent enough, the argument goes, and lag will kill the gameplay experience. Google is diving in head first with Stadia, though. In an interview with Edge, Stadia's VP of Engineering Madj Bakar said...

www.engadget.com

I mean that just sounds a little bit like rollback netcode from the description. However the term "negative latency" is just dumb.

And there is literally no way possible that something will feel more responsive than it does locally. Like physically that makes no sense. You still have the latency from the input being pressed until it is processed, and then the latency until it is drawn. I just don't understand how you could get faster than that. Sounds like BS.

 

[KentState]

Think of it as they play 20 moves ahead and have them all queued up and match the one you do after the fact. At any frame in a game, there are only a handful of outcomes before the next frame. So instead of it rendering 1 frame, it will render 20 and then 20 on those and so on up to a point that matches your latency. Yes, they can match the best hardware you have by throwing a lot of it.

 

[EXCellR8]

It can run the game at a super-fast framerate so it can act on player inputs earlier, or it can predict a player's button presses. These tricks can help the game feel more responsive, potentially more so than a console game running locally at 30fps with a wireless controller.

that sounds like black magic to me.

 

[purbeast0]

Think of it as they play 20 moves ahead and have them all queued up and match the one you do after the fact. At any frame in a game, there are only a handful of outcomes before the next frame. So instead of it rendering 1 frame, it will render 20 and then 20 on those and so on up to a point that matches your latency. Yes, they can match the best hardware you have by throwing a lot of it.

Okay but that won't be faster than you can do locally due to the latency aspect I mentioned. You still have the latency from button presses and painting images to the screen.

And what you are saying with those predictions, what about the next move after that? They have to be calculating the 20x possibilities from each of those 20 movies ahead of time as well. And then 20 ahead of those. You quickly get into a huge number of calculations that will not scale well at all.

And 20 is not a realistic number at all. It is going to be more like 500+ in reality if you are just playing some open world adventure game.

And what you are saying about predicting moves ahead is nothing new at all. It's been around and is known as rollback netcode and has been around for like 15 years or more. GGPO is the one that is known as the best and has been used for fighting games and the general term "rollback" is preferred than input delayed.

GGPO - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It works quite well for fighters because you DO have an exact number of possible inputs that you can do at any given point, since it's all digital input (most fighters). You have 8 directions and (typically) 6 button possibilities, as well as combinations of them. So just doing that math you can see you get WELL over 100 with digital inputs. Now think about analog inputs and that number would skyrocket.

 

[KentState]

If anyone can scale that, it's Google and when was anything "new". Of course they are taking existing concepts, adding AI/ML and leveraging low latency connections like 5G. Will be interesting to see if they can pull any of this off or if it will be as far fetched as cloud computing in Crackdown 3.

 

[arandomguy]

I'm skeptical about predication.

Prediction depends on what you want to predict. You can predict the users actions or you can predict the optimal action, the latter of which the user psychologically may feel better about and attribute it to their action.

Anyone remember this -

You can "predict" the user will mouse over for a head shot, whether you package that as "negative latency prediction" or "aim assistance" or "auto-aim" has different connotations.

 

[purbeast0]

In the least shocking news of today...

Google Stadia Shuts Down Internal Studios, Changing Business Focus

Google Stadia, the late 2019 streaming platform that promised to revolutionize gaming by letting users stream games without needing to own a powerful PC or console, is altering course, getting out of the game-making business and will now offer its platform directly to game publishers alongside...

kotaku.com

 

[NTMBK]

In the least shocking news of today...

Google Stadia Shuts Down Internal Studios, Changing Business Focus

Google Stadia, the late 2019 streaming platform that promised to revolutionize gaming by letting users stream games without needing to own a powerful PC or console, is altering course, getting out of the game-making business and will now offer its platform directly to game publishers alongside...

kotaku.com

Sucks for all the developers. They didn't even get to ship a game.

 

[Aikouka]

I just hope that it doesn't mean that Google will focus more on buying up games that are already in development for PC to become exclusives on their platform. I mean... at least with Epic Game Store, I can still play the game on PC, but if Stadia gets it, you... don't. For example, I'd like to play Orcs Must Die! 3, but it's still just on Stadia. I did try out Stadia once when I played the Immortals: Fenyx Rising demo on it (you get an exclusive armor set if you beat the demo), and... I wasn't very impressed. I didn't have an issue with the latency, but the video quality (on the free tier) was just awful. For a company that owns the top video platform (YouTube), the quality should not look so bad.

 

[Muadib]

I just hope that it doesn't mean that Google will focus more on buying up games that are already in development for PC to become exclusives on their platform. I mean... at least with Epic Game Store, I can still play the game on PC, but if Stadia gets it, you... don't. For example, I'd like to play Orcs Must Die! 3, but it's still just on Stadia. I did try out Stadia once when I played the Immortals: Fenyx Rising demo on it (you get an exclusive armor set if you beat the demo), and... I wasn't very impressed. I didn't have an issue with the latency, but the video quality (on the free tier) was just awful. For a company that owns the top video platform (YouTube), the quality should not look so bad.

Have you also tried Playstation Now? I'm curious if Now is any good.

 

[blckgrffn]

@Aikouka I want OMD3 as well.

Fond memories of holding some top tier scores in OMD1 but never got into OMD2 as much because of the coop bent and not having anyone to really play with. Now my son is getting old enough to grind up some Orcs and we've got everything but... Stadia. And zero chance I ever give money Google for that. It's six months to two years away from getting rebranded/repurposed/absorbed/abandoned.

Which reminds me that OMD2 exists and my wifes Steam account has the other copy, I believe. Hmm...