3 ms·

Honest question: Have you actually tried Stadia? You have a lot of assumptions and theoreticals in your post, but for all of Stadia's shortcomings the streaming

by gundmc 5y ago

Honest question: Have you actually tried Stadia? You have a lot of assumptions and theoreticals in your post, but for all of Stadia's shortcomings the streaming tech is _incredibly_ good. A ton of people will run mental calculations, assert it must add at least x ms of latency so it can't possibly work, but just try it. It's free. It works. I have been PC gaming for 25 years. I have a $3k+ rig with a 3080. I'm very attuned to input lag and fidelity. Is Stadia as good as playing locally? No, of course not, but it's far far better than I imagined it could be. You might be surprised.

anonymousab 5y ago
A difference of even 2-4f in a fighting game can make all the world of difference, both in balance and in the simple feel of the game. Games have to be designed for an expected amount of delay, which itself is often a design component of how they expect the game to function online (i.e. type and implementation of netcode). So what did we see with that genre on Stadia? Well, Stadia not only adds different input/response latency for both players in a fighting game, but it also doesn't colocate the matches to the same server in between players (or same running game instance); so the matches have the standard lag between Stadia data centers on top of the user <-> stadia delay. Unsatisfying for both players, and inferior to alternative ways of playing those games. Ironically, player-led initiatives for that kind of hosting - to deal with poor netcode of older fighting games - have shown that the very idea is sound, and can deliver a better experience e.g. Parsec game tournaments. Not optimal, but better. Google has simply failed to deliver. Part of the problem is up to the developers to solve, but the buck stops with Google. Stadia needs to deliver a world class experience on its merits, and it needs to give developers the tools and guidance and working examples - if not real games - showing how to do so. And it needed to be doing that on Day -1. Or they can just say "Stadia is for genres X, Y and Z", and only spend their time and money courting games and developers in those genres, and everyone involved would probably be better off for it. They could have - and still can - set grand but realistic expectations and deliver on them.
- gundmc 5y ago
  You chose the single most latency sensitive type of game. If you're someone who plays those games competitively, you're better off sticking to your local rig and CRT display. For most games and most users, you'll get the feel within a minute and forget you're not playing locally. I played quite a bit of Destiny 2 streaming and it was quite playable. Again, no comparison against my powerful local rig but I don't think Google/Amazon/NVidia are targeting 3080 owners for their streaming services.
bartread 5y ago
I play Destiny 2 semi-regularly with friends on Xbox at the moment. Latency issues are sometimes noticeable (and quite irritating), even though it's obviously sending a lot less data down the wire than Stadia during play. Theoretical concern or not, if that can't work flawlessly over my broadband connection then I don't see how Stadia can: it's not magic. Sadly it doesn't actually matter how well it works for other people because it has to work well for me on my internet connection. The evidence I have so far suggests it's not going to be that great, so I'm not going to pay for it. The reason this doesn't bug the heck out of me already is because I don't actually play that many online games: I'm a fan of single player story driven campaigns, and (to a lesser extent) single player sandbox experiences, as well as arcadey racing games with couch and online play. Finally, I also play a lot of more retro titles. These are all experiences that work really well when played on local hardware that absolutely aren't going to improve via any kind of streaming experience as those services currently exist.
- gundmc 5y ago
  Fair enough. For what it's worth, Stadia pro includes Destiny 2 and the expansions/DLC and there's a 1 month free promo. (The base game is also totally free without the pro trial, but honestly there's not much to do in the base game anymore.) Stadia plays Destiny at 60fps (pretty sure Xbox One is 30). So it sometimes actually feels as good or better than on consoles imo. In any case, since it's free it's worth checking out just to see what the tech is like. You might reaffirm your opinions, but you might reconsider them too.

by gundmc 5y ago

anonymousab 5y ago

A difference of even 2-4f in a fighting game can make all the world of difference, both in balance and in the simple feel of the game. Games have to be designed for an expected amount of delay, which itself is often a design component of how they expect the game to function online (i.e. type and implementation of netcode). So what did we see with that genre on Stadia? Well, Stadia not only adds different input/response latency for both players in a fighting game, but it also doesn't colocate the matches to the same server in between players (or same running game instance); so the matches have the standard lag between Stadia data centers on top of the user <-> stadia delay. Unsatisfying for both players, and inferior to alternative ways of playing those games. Ironically, player-led initiatives for that kind of hosting - to deal with poor netcode of older fighting games - have shown that the very idea is sound, and can deliver a better experience e.g. Parsec game tournaments. Not optimal, but better. Google has simply failed to deliver. Part of the problem is up to the developers to solve, but the buck stops with Google. Stadia needs to deliver a world class experience on its merits, and it needs to give developers the tools and guidance and working examples - if not real games - showing how to do so. And it needed to be doing that on Day -1. Or they can just say "Stadia is for genres X, Y and Z", and only spend their time and money courting games and developers in those genres, and everyone involved would probably be better off for it. They could have - and still can - set grand but realistic expectations and deliver on them.

gundmc 5y ago
You chose the single most latency sensitive type of game. If you're someone who plays those games competitively, you're better off sticking to your local rig and CRT display. For most games and most users, you'll get the feel within a minute and forget you're not playing locally. I played quite a bit of Destiny 2 streaming and it was quite playable. Again, no comparison against my powerful local rig but I don't think Google/Amazon/NVidia are targeting 3080 owners for their streaming services.

bartread 5y ago

I play Destiny 2 semi-regularly with friends on Xbox at the moment. Latency issues are sometimes noticeable (and quite irritating), even though it's obviously sending a lot less data down the wire than Stadia during play. Theoretical concern or not, if that can't work flawlessly over my broadband connection then I don't see how Stadia can: it's not magic. Sadly it doesn't actually matter how well it works for other people because it has to work well for me on my internet connection. The evidence I have so far suggests it's not going to be that great, so I'm not going to pay for it. The reason this doesn't bug the heck out of me already is because I don't actually play that many online games: I'm a fan of single player story driven campaigns, and (to a lesser extent) single player sandbox experiences, as well as arcadey racing games with couch and online play. Finally, I also play a lot of more retro titles. These are all experiences that work really well when played on local hardware that absolutely aren't going to improve via any kind of streaming experience as those services currently exist.

gundmc 5y ago
Fair enough. For what it's worth, Stadia pro includes Destiny 2 and the expansions/DLC and there's a 1 month free promo. (The base game is also totally free without the pro trial, but honestly there's not much to do in the base game anymore.) Stadia plays Destiny at 60fps (pretty sure Xbox One is 30). So it sometimes actually feels as good or better than on consoles imo. In any case, since it's free it's worth checking out just to see what the tech is like. You might reaffirm your opinions, but you might reconsider them too.