5 ms·

+1, ex networking+tools gamedev here and have almost the exact same thoughts. They haven't fundamentally solved the latency issue, 50-100ms of ping is brutal a

+1, ex networking+tools gamedev here and have almost the exact same thoughts. They haven't fundamentally solved the latency issue, 50-100ms of ping is brutal and the people who could be a target for this generally won't have a fiber internet connection. Network gameplay works via misdirection, predictable simulations and knowing how to converge a divergent state(including rewinding in time to re-play hittraces and the like). Streaming gets you none of that. It'll work for high-latency sensitive singleplayer games but not seeing it scaling out wider.

Scramblejams 8y ago
And when all the clients and the server are sitting in the same DC? Now you can program your clients and server like they’re all on a LAN. And now you can trust the client. (The client, not the inputs.) Those are huge reductions in complexity. This makes delivering good multiplayer easier, not harder. But I do agree that input/display latency is going to be a thing. Results may be highly variable and you’ll probably know two people in the same city who have very different experiences with it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- sbov 8y ago
  The joystick and display device are just the clients now. You have the same problem just moved around a bit. Without the benefit of being able to use techniques to hide latency, such as client side prediction.
  - Scramblejams 8y ago
    No, the client is still the client. It's still a big bunch of stateful code, but now it's running on the LAN with the server and can't have its bits fiddled by the customer. All that code where the server fastidiously checks the client's untrusted state updates goes away, replaced by a much simpler layer that sanity checks the inputs. All that code where the server has to rewind and replay inputs to deal with late-arriving client state updates goes away (assuming your game isn't cross-DC). All that code where the server is protecting clients from other clients, sending down corrections and fixing up the world so it maintains some semblance of causal order, goes away. At my day job I'm working on a AAA multiplayer game, and making a properly server-authoritative game with significant client-to-server latency mitigation imposes serious costs in dev time and complexity and security review process. And now, at least in theory, they mostly disappear. The input/display lag problem is different from what we have now. It's new. We don't, of course, compensate for lag from input to client. (Between client and server, yes, but that's actually a different beast.) And yes, you won't be able to do much about it. You'll be relying on Google to keep your latencies down. They said they're deploying to 7500 nodes, so there's hope. Time will tell. I'm hopeful a lot of people will be reporting single-to-low-double-digit latencies. But this is much, much more than just moving around the same problem.
    - vvanders 8y ago
      Sorry but I just don't see it. I'm used to designing systems and games that work in 100ms+ latent environments since that's what you see in production(or try mobile where it can be 2-5x that). We were doing 250ms ping times back in '99 with games like SubSpace and the like where you had a predictive game model/design. Yes you lose the overhead of designing for latency because it just won't fundamentally work in those scenarios.
      - Scramblejams 8y ago
        I agree that it will all hinge on what kinds of latencies we see. If Google can produce the same kinds of latencies it does to 8.8.8.8, it's definitely got a shot. Mobile's an even bigger challenge, but I've seen wire-competitive latencies from 5G, so I think there's hope there too. This does, however, leave VR high and dry. Wonder if they have any ideas about that angle.
        vvanders 8y ago
        Getting a consistent latency to their edge servers is going to be tricky. Wifi for instance is completely out. All it takes is someone turning on the wrong blender/micowave/power adapter and just the smallest bit of RF pollution will put you into unusable territory. Gets harder as your population density rises. You can already see this with in-house streaming today. I can stream Netflix but my local LAN XBOne streaming is pretty unusable for things like Monster Hunter. As your population density lowers the chance of you having the sub-30ms latency w/ 0% loss decreases significantly. Like I said in the root, they'll able to get this to work for non-action(~200ms window) singleplayer titles, the idea that you could use this for multiplayer is laughable.
        Scramblejams 8y ago
        I'm seeing anecdotes elsewhere in this thread that wifi worked very well for some testers. Will it be a worse experience than a 2080 Ti on your desktop? Sure. But will Stadia be good enough to win over the expense and hassle of the alternative? Maybe! Regarding your last point, I'm not sure Id would stake their reputation on delivering a game that is going to be "laughable" on Stadia. They might know something we don't. We'll see how it works out.
- gsich 8y ago
  >And when all the clients and the server are sitting in the same DC? But what do you do when they don't? This can happen in multiplayer games with low population or during "bad times". You might have less trouble because latency is more predictable, but you still need the whole rewind stuff.
  - Scramblejams 8y ago
    I predict a lot of game teams developing new IP for Stadia will impose a single-DC-match requirement, because the time/complexity tradeoff of implementing all that stuff won't be considered worth it. Then, if their game fails, maybe they'll blame that decision. :-)
eropple 8y ago
I'm not super sure, anymore, about latency being as big a deal. Particularly with regards to monitors. Display lag on a large TV can be upwards of 50ms by itself; display lag on a monitor can be as low as 5ms. If you're viewing this as a competitor to low-end, relatively lightweight console play, the total lag of display plus network is actually maybe not that bad. Also, living in Boston I was seeing 16ms pings on Google's service when I tried it out, which might be an adoption factor. 16ms plus a monitor's display lag is going to be competitive with most HDTVs. That level of lag definitely makes some games implausible. (Part of why I bought a big-ass OLED is that newer TVs, but particularly OLEDs, seem to have generally consistent display lag; being able to play Tekken 7 on a 55" screen with only 21ms of lag is nice, but to do it on my old LCD is like playing underwater.) But I think it's going to be more practical for more games than the current conventional wisdom suggests.
- vvanders 8y ago
  Yeah, but you hit the nail on the head when you said you have a steady, consistent latency on your TV. When you're stuffing the pipe w/ 4k encoded content that puts a lot more pressure on the connection and added packet loss or delay is brutal in that case. All of this stuff is subtle but it compounds in the same way that the average gamer won't be able to immediately spot 30 vs 60 fps but they'll know that the game "feels" better at 60.
  - eropple 8y ago
    I fully agree that it's an inferior good, and I still don't think multiplayer games will be much of a thing. But I do think that even pretty involved action titles (they tested with an Assassin's Creed title) will be okay. Not great, and I'd get mad at them, but I'm also a really demanding user. Most folks kinda aren't.

Scramblejams 8y ago

And when all the clients and the server are sitting in the same DC? Now you can program your clients and server like they’re all on a LAN. And now you can trust the client. (The client, not the inputs.) Those are huge reductions in complexity. This makes delivering good multiplayer easier, not harder. But I do agree that input/display latency is going to be a thing. Results may be highly variable and you’ll probably know two people in the same city who have very different experiences with it.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
sbov 8y ago
The joystick and display device are just the clients now. You have the same problem just moved around a bit. Without the benefit of being able to use techniques to hide latency, such as client side prediction.
- Scramblejams 8y ago
  No, the client is still the client. It's still a big bunch of stateful code, but now it's running on the LAN with the server and can't have its bits fiddled by the customer. All that code where the server fastidiously checks the client's untrusted state updates goes away, replaced by a much simpler layer that sanity checks the inputs. All that code where the server has to rewind and replay inputs to deal with late-arriving client state updates goes away (assuming your game isn't cross-DC). All that code where the server is protecting clients from other clients, sending down corrections and fixing up the world so it maintains some semblance of causal order, goes away. At my day job I'm working on a AAA multiplayer game, and making a properly server-authoritative game with significant client-to-server latency mitigation imposes serious costs in dev time and complexity and security review process. And now, at least in theory, they mostly disappear. The input/display lag problem is different from what we have now. It's new. We don't, of course, compensate for lag from input to client. (Between client and server, yes, but that's actually a different beast.) And yes, you won't be able to do much about it. You'll be relying on Google to keep your latencies down. They said they're deploying to 7500 nodes, so there's hope. Time will tell. I'm hopeful a lot of people will be reporting single-to-low-double-digit latencies. But this is much, much more than just moving around the same problem.
  - vvanders 8y ago
    Sorry but I just don't see it. I'm used to designing systems and games that work in 100ms+ latent environments since that's what you see in production(or try mobile where it can be 2-5x that). We were doing 250ms ping times back in '99 with games like SubSpace and the like where you had a predictive game model/design. Yes you lose the overhead of designing for latency because it just won't fundamentally work in those scenarios.
    - Scramblejams 8y ago
      I agree that it will all hinge on what kinds of latencies we see. If Google can produce the same kinds of latencies it does to 8.8.8.8, it's definitely got a shot. Mobile's an even bigger challenge, but I've seen wire-competitive latencies from 5G, so I think there's hope there too. This does, however, leave VR high and dry. Wonder if they have any ideas about that angle.
      - vvanders 8y ago
        Getting a consistent latency to their edge servers is going to be tricky. Wifi for instance is completely out. All it takes is someone turning on the wrong blender/micowave/power adapter and just the smallest bit of RF pollution will put you into unusable territory. Gets harder as your population density rises. You can already see this with in-house streaming today. I can stream Netflix but my local LAN XBOne streaming is pretty unusable for things like Monster Hunter. As your population density lowers the chance of you having the sub-30ms latency w/ 0% loss decreases significantly. Like I said in the root, they'll able to get this to work for non-action(~200ms window) singleplayer titles, the idea that you could use this for multiplayer is laughable.
        Scramblejams 8y ago
        I'm seeing anecdotes elsewhere in this thread that wifi worked very well for some testers. Will it be a worse experience than a 2080 Ti on your desktop? Sure. But will Stadia be good enough to win over the expense and hassle of the alternative? Maybe! Regarding your last point, I'm not sure Id would stake their reputation on delivering a game that is going to be "laughable" on Stadia. They might know something we don't. We'll see how it works out.
gsich 8y ago
>And when all the clients and the server are sitting in the same DC? But what do you do when they don't? This can happen in multiplayer games with low population or during "bad times". You might have less trouble because latency is more predictable, but you still need the whole rewind stuff.
- Scramblejams 8y ago
  I predict a lot of game teams developing new IP for Stadia will impose a single-DC-match requirement, because the time/complexity tradeoff of implementing all that stuff won't be considered worth it. Then, if their game fails, maybe they'll blame that decision. :-)

eropple 8y ago

I'm not super sure, anymore, about latency being as big a deal. Particularly with regards to monitors. Display lag on a large TV can be upwards of 50ms by itself; display lag on a monitor can be as low as 5ms. If you're viewing this as a competitor to low-end, relatively lightweight console play, the total lag of display plus network is actually maybe not that bad. Also, living in Boston I was seeing 16ms pings on Google's service when I tried it out, which might be an adoption factor. 16ms plus a monitor's display lag is going to be competitive with most HDTVs. That level of lag definitely makes some games implausible. (Part of why I bought a big-ass OLED is that newer TVs, but particularly OLEDs, seem to have generally consistent display lag; being able to play Tekken 7 on a 55" screen with only 21ms of lag is nice, but to do it on my old LCD is like playing underwater.) But I think it's going to be more practical for more games than the current conventional wisdom suggests.

vvanders 8y ago
Yeah, but you hit the nail on the head when you said you have a steady, consistent latency on your TV. When you're stuffing the pipe w/ 4k encoded content that puts a lot more pressure on the connection and added packet loss or delay is brutal in that case. All of this stuff is subtle but it compounds in the same way that the average gamer won't be able to immediately spot 30 vs 60 fps but they'll know that the game "feels" better at 60.
- eropple 8y ago
  I fully agree that it's an inferior good, and I still don't think multiplayer games will be much of a thing. But I do think that even pretty involved action titles (they tested with an Assassin's Creed title) will be okay. Not great, and I'd get mad at them, but I'm also a really demanding user. Most folks kinda aren't.