The best game streaming to date, but not done yet • iGamesNews.com

Is it now possible to stream high-quality, low-latency gameplay over the Internet instead of owning a home console? Google believes that with its data center network and broad influence on the Internet infrastructure, Stadia, a gaming system with next-generation processing specifications, can eventually be played on smartphones, tablets, TVs, and computers. There is the potential here to fundamentally change the nature of the games we play and the speed with which we access them. But fundamentally, Stadia needs to overcome profound technical challenges to replace local experience-today, for the first time, we see Google realize its 4K HDR dream at home.

Our focus is on the Stadia bundle, which costs 119 / $ 129 / € 129 and comes with an innovative Google-designed controller and a Chromecast Ultra that can be connected to a TV, as well as a three-month Stadia Pro subscription, in large quantities The door to free games and high-end 4K HDR streaming. Setting up the living room under optimal conditions is a bit cumbersome and requires two applications.

First, connect Chromecast Ultra to the TV's HDMI port, then plug it into a power source. The power supply also has a LAN port, although not required, but I recommend that you use this port to connect the device directly to the router. Use Google's Home app for relatively easy setup and then direct you to the Stadia app to set up the controller-basically connecting it to a WiFi network. After that, the Chromecast and controller are linked, and you can simply press the Stadia home button later.

The setup here is interesting because Chromecast and the controller are separate clients of the Stadia network, Is not Communicate directly. Google believes that by eliminating middlemen, you can reduce latency. This is one way we need to do more comprehensive testing (for a variety of reasons, we have limited time with the kit), but the preliminary results are certainly impressive.

Of course, there are alternatives to Stadia Premiere Edition configuration. The easiest solution is to connect the USB controller to the computer, then go to https://stadia.google.com, log in to your Google account, and everything goes well. In this configuration, a range of pads are supported-including the Stadia controller itself with USB-C wired capabilities. Another option is to connect the controller to the smartphone and go from there. However, at least in the Android ecosystem, only Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3a phones are currently supported.

The reason we focus on the big screen is mainly because at least for now, it's the only way to access Stadia's high-end video output-Ultra HD at 60 frames per second, and it supports HDR. However, actually accessing it does require some serious bandwidth. On a standard 30mbps fiber optic connection, it is not possible even if the connection is rated "good" (to avoid problems, look for "excellent" or "excellent" grades). This is most likely a limitation of my particular home connection-the reason we haven't provided coverage of Microsoft xCloud is because the UK ISP Sky seems to be averse to streaming platforms. I ended up moving to a bandwidth-rich Virgin Media connection (rated "Excellent") to get the job done. In terms of your Connect, Google has a connection checker to determine the type of experience you might get.

Once in Stadia, you can feel that the platform is not really complete. At the time of writing, integrated Google Assistant support is not yet available (although basic features may be active from day one), the UI is very basic, and basic features of the Stadia mobile app (such as buying games, or adjusting streaming quality). Other basic features such as home sharing are also not activated. Google itself positions it as an evolving platform, and Premiere Edition is geared towards elite users looking for a great big screen experience. However, you can't avoid the feeling that the current settings are far from completing the article- xCloud is actually the complete Xbox environment in your palm. Back to OnLive, despite all the shortcomings, its front-end features are excellent and forward-looking.

However, there is more fish to fry here-for beginners, the feasibility of Google Cloud Game System. When we last viewed the system on Google Campus, the computer's image quality was basically unchanged compared to the Project Stream beta, and although the latency figures looked good, there was no Apple-to-Apple comparison point between us-and we In our opinion the connection with Google is very good. How far are Stadia fares under uncontrolled conditions?

Image quality is important, but latency determines the experience. Lag tests are performed on multiple games, and we have the same experience on the Xbox One X. We compare Google's "button-to-pixel" response numbers with local competitors. To this end, a high-speed camera of 180fps is aimed at the display and controller. Counting the number of frames between pressing the button on the screen and playing the animation, we have an end-to-end delay. In our setup, the display lag is a fixed 39ms cost, which is derived by re-running the Xbox test on a CRT monitor. These 39ms are removed from the final result here.

Before proceeding, there are some caveats. There are indeed some built-in errors with latency tests with high speed cameras-you need to judge When With the button fully pressed, you need to perform many tests to determine the most likely measurement. Second, different actions in the game may have different levels of delay. The shadows of Destiny 2 and Tomb Raider were tested by jumping (MK11 from the rapid jab), while Gilt was tested by crouching. The idea here is that by matching the same actions between systems, we can build a relative delay graph from the local experience to the deductive form of cloud delivery. Another caveat: latency may vary between platforms. This is especially true for Unreal Engine titles.

The most useful comparison here is probably the shadow of Tomb Raider, which offers a high-resolution mode of 30fps and a performance replacement of 60fps on both Stadia and Xbox One X. The results here show that the difference between local and cloud is a 50-56ms experience, but what is really surprising is the difference between the 30fps and 60fps modes on both systems. Destiny 2 plays flawlessly on Stadia and offers a 60fps experience that the Xbox One X can't, but even so, it feels pretty eye-catching on the console-as evidenced by the number of delays. Stadia's best result is a 44ms difference between Mortal Kombat 11 and Stadia running on the Xbox One X.

Ultimately, the question is how the game works feel In the hands. Any game I've played will not be considered "unplayable" or very backward-it may be that "Tomb Raider" is in quality mode, but after a while I'm even used to it. Keep in mind that different actions may have different wait times, so the table above is far from certain. At best, it is a test of a specific action performed in the same scenario on each system. More tests on more games may make Stadia more focused, but for many experiences, a delay of 45-55 milliseconds is generally acceptable, even fast-paced FPS like Destiny 2 can be good To play a role. However, obviously, if you're playing games on your living room display via Chromecast, make sure Game Mode is enabled and be sure you're using a LAN connection.

Then proceed to the next key test: image quality. Google sells Stadia Premiere Edition bundled with Chromecast Ultra as a 4K HDR experience, which is indeed the type of signal the device can output. In fact, HDR also works fine on lower resolution videos and works out of the box on selected titles (can be enabled or disabled, but only available in the Stadia mobile app). To show Stadia's best, we managed to capture the HDMI 2.0 output of Chromecast Ultra while playing at 200mbps. This is to ensure maximum bandwidth and stability. We have a series of comparative galleries here, and we will start with the most impressive port of Stadia that has been tested: Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Stadia uses a 2.7GHz Intel CPU (unconfirmed, but we suspect 8 cores and 16 threads) in combination with a 10.7 teraflop AMD GPU, which sounds a lot like the RX Vega 56, with full-bandwidth HBM2 memory 64 in the high-end RX Vega. When combined with server-grade solid-state storage, we are looking for hardware that is superior to the Xbox One X at all levels. We will perform a more detailed Stadia analysis of important future games, but Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a good starting point.

Google promises to provide us with a 4K experience, and in Tomb Raider's quality mode, this is what you can get-of course viewed through a compressed feed lens. A performance mode is also provided, which is a better way to play, and it seems that it can lock 60 frames per second-based on the small samples we have recognized so far.

However, the filming of Tomb Raider here is important because it does validate Google's 4K claims-not to mention our capture solution is making the most of Stadia's output. The game's general darkness in these areas does help the encoder maintain a higher quality-it can spend more bits on brighter, more detailed areas, but loses some fine details in the dark. Generally, although some sharpness is always lost, the image will stay in motion. This is a 4K video feed. The game is rendered in 4K, but some subtle details are missing. We will look at the differences in visual function and make some enhancements in another article, but if there are flaws, it seems that the quality of anisotropic filtering is degraded.

Our friends at Nixxes seem to be responsible for the Stadia conversion. Overall, it performs very well-I look forward to watching other Tomb Raider champions in the streaming lineup. However, now and now our next call port is Bungie's Destiny 2, and here we see a strategy that is quite different from that of developers.

Once you launch Destiny 2 on Stadia, you know you'll get a completely different experience. For starters, the lengthy and painful load times on the current console have been greatly reduced, but not only that, the rendering priority has also changed. Console Destiny is limited to 30 frames per second, while the Stadia version runs at 60 frames per second. Because the experience is cloud-based, the controller response may not be faster than the Xbox One X version, but in some fairly hardcore combat scenarios, the frame rate remains stable, and of course it will be more pleasant to watch in motion . .

Based on the comparison image-resolution above, the cost of this performance level is very simple. The time we spent playing games with Stagie on Stadia-playing simultaneously in the same session as Shadow of the Tomb Raider-produced a 1080p experience that could expand 4K output with Chromecast Ultra. Supports HDR, very welcomes high frame rates, and the experience is very interesting, but this is not what we expect from a system with such powerful graphics capabilities-especially when you think that the PC version of the game is one of the most optimized and well-executed port.

Comparing the images also implies that the visual capabilities of the game will also be reduced, and we will study them more closely when appropriate, but fundamentally, the idea of ​​Bangui choosing to lock 1080p resolution to high-profile games like this is caused Got people's attention. problem. Of course, this is the early stage of Stadia development, and we haven't really understood the challenges facing game makers-but this is not what we expect from cutting-edge hardware configurations.

Our final game focus is the biggest game-Red Dead Redemption2. Stadia is based on the Linux operating system running the Vulkan graphics API, and from recent PC tests we know that Rockstar supports Rage and DirectX 12 and the latest Rage version. engine. We also know that calling high-end features of PC games requires a certain price, so how developers use the features of Stadia here should be of interest.

Similarly, the obvious gain from Stadia is that although Chromecast Ultra can output 4K, the game itself has a lower resolution. It took a bit of effort to know what was going on, but evidence suggests that Red Dead Redemption 2's internal pixel count is 1440p. Again, we will look at the specific visual feature set of the Stadia port in the future, but a first impression suggests that they have a high degree of similarity compared to the specific settings of the Xbox One X version. At the same time, the Stadia port of RDR2 also seems to be running at the same frame rate of 30 frames per second (Update 9:58 pm: Here are some small plays. Strangely, through the portal-1080p only, Stadia seems to run RDR2 at 60fps, but after rechecking our Chromecast capture, all images were 30fps. Can we see that the quality / performance mode is locked to the signal type? We will soon recheck the Chromecast output). Completely Red Dead Redemption 2: It works well, even in the current situation, Big The built-in delay time of the game does not have any problems during the game through the streaming platform.

Of the three ports tested, there are two main points. First of all, at the highest streaming quality level, the image quality (in terms of how much the encoder compresses the core image) is very impressive-Stadia's compressed stream seems to add some blur and this blur can be overcome by temporary anti-aliasing To achieve and increase the resolution, but remember the skill of streaming games, this is still an amazing achievement. Stadia also offers a significant improvement over what we saw from Google's streaming technology during the Assassin's Creed presentation. How to maintain this level of image quality with more bandwidth constraints is another test.

The question is actually, is it the best way to market Stadia as a high-end 4K gaming system (requires a subscription to access) for big screen playback when the absolute clarity associated with Ultra HD is not commensurate with the intended experience? . But even more worrying is that for systems designed for next-generation consoles, the three key ports we tested did not match the performance gains we hoped to get from Scarlett or PlayStation 5. A powerful CPU can provide the 60fps Destiny 2 experience we've always wanted from a game console, but the native 4K graphics of the Xbox One X are still different. Stadia's 10.7 teraflop GPU is more powerful and modern than the core technology of the Xbox One X, so we hope to see a better experience on Google Suite, whether it's the number of pixels, features, or both. Oddly enough, so far the jury hasn't concluded on this.

Obviously, Stadia is still in its infancy, and many systems can run normally. The controller is excellent and innovative in how it connects directly to the cloud as a standalone client. Although the image quality can't really be expected to rival the local experience on the living room display, it still offers impressive results, and although it has never been so original, Stadia still looks good on smaller screens. Yes, latency is perceptible, but keep in mind that the vast majority of players play on tablets with game mode disabled-latency is something many gamers accept. Delay is important, but after years of cloud system testing, we have found that a consistent response may be more important (we will discuss this with the xCloud team in a short interview).

And what you lose in terms of precision detail and latency is convenience. Loading Red Dead Redemption 2 or Destiny 2 at the same time as the host copy, the reduction in load time alone is huge. Meanwhile, in order to make this article comparable, I had to make my Xbox One X download twice overnight to access games that may have more than 100GB of storage. In short, instant access to anything in the library is of great value.

As a technical statement, Stadia was very impressed with the best image quality and latency seen on the streaming platform, but from a stability perspective, there is definitely room for improvement, and I ’m not sure What happens when others enter? Your bandwidth has been fully resolved: Audio stutters and unstable resolutions often appear on my fiber optic connections, and occasionally the 200mbps connection slows down. Games cannot buffer these issues like movies and TV. It feels that since the OnLive era, many challenges in streaming games have been greatly improved, but bandwidth is still a very valuable commodity for most users. In the best case of Stadia, an hour of gaming requires up to 20GB Content quality level.

The value proposition may be even more pressing. Netflix works because the subscription model is easy to understand-you need to pay extra for more screens and UHD, and that's it. Stadia is the same in terms of asking for a UHD premium (even if key games don't seem to be rendered in 4K), except that you still need to pay the highest price for the game. Coupled with the feeling that the platform and ecosystem are still incomplete, I do think that it may be too early for Stadia to be launched as a full service, especially if the game is limited and the very important exclusive platform is important on the ground.