Wow, cloud gaming (Google's Stadia) is going to disrupt the vid gaming industry, wut

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RPD

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2009
4,971
483
126
In a perfect world sure, but in the US there are a shit ton of areas that this simply won't be a viable gaming solution. You have to realize simply being on this forum and the members are a self selecting group when it comes to new technology and adopting said tech. I'm sure people do play those (crap) games on phones over cell connections, but I'd venture a guess anyone worth a damn (as far as being considered at the top of the competitive pecking order) doesn't.
i-XZk8XBL-2100x20000.jpg
 

Fritzo

Lifer
Jan 3, 2001
41,883
2,121
126
Still not seeing how this will work. Input latency is untenable with my steam link over wireless, much less having to travel multi-ms to some datacenter miles away at best. Pretty sure it'd drive me crazy just playing strategy games and such, much less anything that required actual coordination.

Also, yes, datacaps will ah heck this pretty quickly. I can also only imagine how chewed up the image quality will be from compression, assuming they compress it. If they don't, those datacaps will be hit even faster.

This is my biggest concern as well---there's no way to compensate for latency over a cloud-based gaming system.
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,414
8,356
126
There are people that play stuff like Fortnite and PUBG on phones over cellular connections right now, so I don't think competitive gaming would be that big of an issue

afaik, fortnite and pubg are rendered on my phone directly. not rendered on some datacenter, compressed, sent to my phone, decompresssed, then displayed. LTE latency is pretty low (10s of milliseconds), so network lag isn't any worse (and might be better) than being wired into a cable modem.
 

clamum

Lifer
Feb 13, 2003
26,255
403
126
How is this supposed to happen? I've asked several people this and I just get shrugs and 'google can afford/manage it' or some such nonsense. There's limitations of physics preventing this from working in a way that people won't notice/won't impact gameplay.
Well I just think that as their technology, system, and experience gets better the latency thing will get better. I'll wait to see how it is first before I comment on how it's a horrible issue and they won't be able to solve it.

Looks like their minimum bandwidth requirement is 10Mbps/1Mbps down/up (probably 1080p streaming) and 35Mbps is required for 4K. TheQuartering has a video on it
 

local

Golden Member
Jun 28, 2011
1,850
511
136
The problem is that latency is basically doubled. Even with perfect instant rendering, encoding and decoding your input signal has to go to the remote system to be processed then the result of the process is sent back. That effectively doubles whatever your normal latency would be on a locally rendered system. I have no choice but to use microwave point to point internet if I want anything over 6Mbps and my average latency is in the 30-40ms range. Using a remote system means that it would take at least 60-80ms to see the results of any button push, that would be infuriating even in a single player strategy game. There is nothing their system can do to alleviate this as it is pure physics on how long it takes a signal to get from point A to point B.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,227
9,990
126
Will this kill PC gaming as we know it? Stay tuned!

PS. Did Intel stock drop on this announcement? (Who needs a gaming PC anymore. Just a TV set-top / SteamBox with a BlueTooth wireless controller, HDMI output, and gigabit LAN connection, connected to a gigabit internet connection.)

Is Google going to introduce a "ChromeBook Gaming" PC, to tie in with this service? Wouldn't surprise me at all.
 

ubern00b

Member
Jun 11, 2019
171
75
61
I can't see it taking off personally, it's been done before, Onlive were the first I believe (with a viable working product anyway) and they folded, I believe Sony bought their IP which was later rolled into/incorporated into PlayStation Now and never seen again. Though that was a pure subscription service with a flat cost per month for access to the whole library, think Netflix style. With Stadia you have to buy the frontier edition starter pack (you can buy seperately though it will cost you more for the 2 req'd products) and then there is a subscription on top of that for $9.99 a month + you still have to pay the cost of the games, this doesn't seem to be much cheaper in the long run than buying a console and the games outright. And of course you have the beenefit of "owning" the games or at least the physical disks. What happens if Stadi doesn't succeed? can you transfer the game licenses you have purchased to another platform? seems extremely unlikely, so I can't really see any benefit in this service compared to owning a console or a gaming PC.
 

Homerboy

Lifer
Mar 1, 2000
30,856
4,974
126
We're already able to play Quake Live via a web browser and that wasn't horrific as far as latency and input was concerned. And that rolled out years ago IIRC.
 

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
58,055
12,245
136
Will this kill PC gaming as we know it? Stay tuned!

PS. Did Intel stock drop on this announcement? (Who needs a gaming PC anymore. Just a TV set-top / SteamBox with a BlueTooth wireless controller, HDMI output, and gigabit LAN connection, connected to a gigabit internet connection.)

Is Google going to introduce a "ChromeBook Gaming" PC, to tie in with this service? Wouldn't surprise me at all.
I've lost track of times that [thing] was going to kill PC gaming.
 

RPD

Diamond Member
Jul 22, 2009
4,971
483
126
What a high bar, "wasn't horrific", by who's standard? Is not horrific UNDER 400ping? Cuz anything over 150ping is horrible.
 

ArizonaSteve

Senior member
Dec 20, 2003
737
82
91
Just wait until they start inserting advertising in the gameplay. Google is, after all, an advertising company.
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,135
2,445
126
Just wait until they start inserting advertising in the gameplay. Google is, after all, an advertising company.

I think that was the plan all along for their "free" tier. The "pro" tier that they're launching first will likely have little or no ads in game.
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,135
2,445
126
Remember next time $company comes along touting streamable/cloud gaming, that this is the best that Google could provide at the kind of event that makes or breaks the introduction of new (or updated) technology, then ask if $company can do better.

I'm pretty sure that footage was faked. Google isn't stupid, they would have had multiple dedicated gigabit network connections to their hosting center set up for this demo.

That said, that's what I expect the gameplay to look like if you try to play this on basically any public WiFi connection.
 

ultimatebob

Lifer
Jul 1, 2001
25,135
2,445
126
I can just see it now.

Respawn in 3...2....1

*30 second commercial*

You were killed. Press space to respawn.

I'd do it the other way around. Make them hit space to respawn to make sure that they're near the computer and hopefully paying attention, and then hit them with the ad. :)

Seriously, though, if you've seen how bad the "Free To Play" games have become on the Android and iOS App Stores now, I'd expect worse. I would also expect an ad when the game launches, and every time you get to a new level. Maybe they'll even throw in an extra 30 second ad spot when you're about to fight a boss level, when they know that they have a captive audience.

Google's audience analytics are the best in the biz... they'll know exactly how much advertising you can stand before quitting and keep it right under that threshold.
 

quikah

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,068
649
126
I'm pretty sure that footage was faked. Google isn't stupid, they would have had multiple dedicated gigabit network connections to their hosting center set up for this demo.

That said, that's what I expect the gameplay to look like if you try to play this on basically any public WiFi connection.

Yeah it is, but that was sort of my experience with the Stream beta last year when playing AC:Odyssey (though I never experienced the spinning circle).
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,388
5,256
136
I absolutely hate that everything seems to be moving to cloud/subscription based and everybody just embraces it. It is the start of the end of being able to own things. I miss the old consoles like the Nintendo where everything is 100% local. You buy a game, you own it forever. That's how it should work. Even lot of software is going subscription/cloud based now.

I rather pay for something once, and then own it forever and not have it rely on some 3rd party server for it to work.

I was kind of on the fence about Steam for awhile, but now I love having them manage my library & then I can just sync it up wherever I'm at. On the flip side, I was just talking to my buddy today, who still owns & uses his original NES system with all the games, which is pretty awesome that it's been working for 30+ years.

I had an OnLive system for awhile, which was the precursor to Stadia. It had lag issues, but with fiber & 5G rolling out everywhere, maybe they've got it figured out. Also, Steam just rolled out an experimental out-of-home test feature for In-Home Streaming yesterday:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/51761/

That's gonna be baaaaaaad news for a lot of people on their lunchbreak at work, hahaha!