3 ms·

You're being downvoted because what you're suggesting is fundamentally impossible and not at all how game netcode works. You're also ignoring many other latency

by tmpz22 7y ago

You're being downvoted because what you're suggesting is fundamentally impossible and not at all how game netcode works. You're also ignoring many other latency bottlenecks from controller input, monitor refresh rate, client CPU/GPU, server CPU/GPU, the network, and probably others I'm completely unaware of. At best Google is handling most of the graphics rendering, but those graphics are still being encoded/decoded client side by different hardware. All the other bottlenecks also remain. 50-250ms latencies are game breaking in many contexts and game genres. Google does not sync these latencies between clients because that would also be game breaking. If you're interested in reading more on these topics checkout some of the gamedev literature for Doom and similar "early" FPS titles. They're filled with fascinating hacks for making clients seem like they are in sync when the truth is anything but.

willis936 7y ago
Being downvoted? 0 points doesn’t seem like a largely unpopular opinion. I’m making a high level point. I am aware of the details that contribute to user experience, and latency specifically, but most of them are unnecessary, and even detract from a conversation at this level. Why do you mention google’s implementation as if it was something I was suggesting would be suitable for competitive gaming? I am suggesting that total player-to-player latency is reduced if all clients and the server are combined into one system.
- tmpz22 7y ago
  I find the HN silent-downvote frustrating (when the comment was adding to the discussion), so I tried to offer an explanation for it. I didn't know if you had 0 points or -10. To the point though, I still think it's unrealistic to completely change game architectures in order for the client to be entirely "dumb". We need client logic for latency interpolation for most multiplayer games (and most games do have a strong multiplayer component even traditionally single player games like GTA). And I think we've arrived at the elephant in the room: Google wants studios to rewrite their games for Stadia's latency models and that just ain't gonna happen for 100 different reasons, not least of which being that most studios are still on 10+ year old game engines.
imtringued 7y ago
>You're being downvoted because what you're suggesting is fundamentally impossible and not at all how game netcode works. In theory you wouldn't have netcode. You would just have "splitscreen" multiplayer where each player only sees their own display.
- smileybarry 7y ago
  That means one single machine is rendering the game for all players, and with modern game engines that can reliably scale to maybe 4 players. Even then, that would come at the cost of graphical fidelity compared to practically any other game on the market. (Some modern games get away with it because of distance from the TV obscuring interlaced rendering or checkerboard rendering) Assuming you build on this by having some unsecured shared state, e.g.: hypervisor shared memory, and all clients rendering their own game -- that means you're now restricting gaming by geographic region. If you do that and segregate players by area, you would fragment the playerbase and eventually kill off the game as any loss of popularity snowballs.
  - willis936 7y ago
    That last part is largely something that should happen. I never want to play counter strike with someone more than 1000 miles away from me.

by tmpz22 7y ago

willis936 7y ago

Being downvoted? 0 points doesn’t seem like a largely unpopular opinion. I’m making a high level point. I am aware of the details that contribute to user experience, and latency specifically, but most of them are unnecessary, and even detract from a conversation at this level. Why do you mention google’s implementation as if it was something I was suggesting would be suitable for competitive gaming? I am suggesting that total player-to-player latency is reduced if all clients and the server are combined into one system.

tmpz22 7y ago
I find the HN silent-downvote frustrating (when the comment was adding to the discussion), so I tried to offer an explanation for it. I didn't know if you had 0 points or -10. To the point though, I still think it's unrealistic to completely change game architectures in order for the client to be entirely "dumb". We need client logic for latency interpolation for most multiplayer games (and most games do have a strong multiplayer component even traditionally single player games like GTA). And I think we've arrived at the elephant in the room: Google wants studios to rewrite their games for Stadia's latency models and that just ain't gonna happen for 100 different reasons, not least of which being that most studios are still on 10+ year old game engines.

imtringued 7y ago

>You're being downvoted because what you're suggesting is fundamentally impossible and not at all how game netcode works. In theory you wouldn't have netcode. You would just have "splitscreen" multiplayer where each player only sees their own display.

smileybarry 7y ago
That means one single machine is rendering the game for all players, and with modern game engines that can reliably scale to maybe 4 players. Even then, that would come at the cost of graphical fidelity compared to practically any other game on the market. (Some modern games get away with it because of distance from the TV obscuring interlaced rendering or checkerboard rendering) Assuming you build on this by having some unsecured shared state, e.g.: hypervisor shared memory, and all clients rendering their own game -- that means you're now restricting gaming by geographic region. If you do that and segregate players by area, you would fragment the playerbase and eventually kill off the game as any loss of popularity snowballs.
- willis936 7y ago
  That last part is largely something that should happen. I never want to play counter strike with someone more than 1000 miles away from me.