Software Forever Doom is one of the best looking shooters ever made. Powered by the id Tech 7 engine, the game delivers high-resolution, more sophisticated environments and solid locks at its target of 60 per second. It's been rebuilt from the ground up into the Vulkan graphic level API, which means in theory, it's a game made in heaven for Google's Stadia – a program that focuses on Linux and Vulkan with its technological background. However, after putting some time into the game, it's disappointing overall – at a very basic level, the lag makes the standard Doom Time experience worse than any other platform.
There are benefits, however. To take the Xbox One X as an example, you have 41GB downloads before taking over your controllers. Stadia's cloud-based setup means the process of getting your hands on the game is fast. But in the case of Eternal Doom, this is where Stradia's combined game score ends.
In evaluating this port, we are pursuing our common strategy of using the game with the highest quality of setup. That means we use Stadia controller directly connected to Google servers via WiFi, with the image provided with Chromecast Ultra on the LG OLED B8, rated at 22ms of lag under Game Mode. The 300mb Virtual Virtual fiber connection, and Ethernet-connected Chromecast removes any WiFi-related compliance that may occur, while our lag ratings are performed without any other line-sharing devices. To pull off the Stadia connection tab, our setup is rated as best with 4K enabled. Apart from this, there are still some small, very unusual qualifications in practice.
With everything in place, let's see what we have. Delivering a fast-paced 60-minute fast game per second is not easy at all – especially to avoid data loss through compression. I would have to say based on the visual aspect, Doom Eternal looks amazing on Stadia. The picture quality is up and all the gunfire, all the boundaries of the speedy prisoner, and all the dope touching the prison walls is coming clear. Reduce the burn down and zoom in, we can highlight more blocking, especially on black screen elements. You can also expect banding art in the shadows, but otherwise it's just as good as you would expect from a really powerful streaming platform.
Doom Forever has been given a full split on Stadia, with latency tests and the Xbox One X.
The high pixel counts we get play a big role in that. Stadia runs on multiple samples at 3200×1800 – compatible with Xbox One X for maximum resolution. I haven't seen anything less than this yet, but it is likely to be given a more robust set of resolutions to some comfort. However, surprisingly there is more to it than just running at 1800p. Stadia has all the HUD features available in 4K, but at the same time, the gameplay components also seem to resolve at 1080p. Pixel preview of any objects in front of the skybox – background information at a distance, gives results in 1920×1080. A possible view is the depth of the low resolution of the field complex, the opposite effect with a different solution – resulting in a vague outline of the reaction. For the most part, you get the unmatched image of 1800p and Xbox One X, which is a rating from all the other models. In the meantime, in those 1080p displays you get a traditional 1080p direct image from Stadia around.
The noticeable difference between the Xbox One S and X was already small: Anisotropic filtering is better for X and similarly for terrain LODs. Stadia by comparison maintains the highest quality of recent filtering, and all settings are the same. There are variations in the detail range, where Microsoft's upgraded machine brings a higher level of sophistication closer to the camera. Stadia brings an ambitious combination of both basic features and enhanced quality – Xbox One X upgrades, Xbox One S status updates (or mid-range PC, if you like). The action is far too fast to realize, and, with all the other effects, and all the way it is used, it operates at the same quality level as the Xbox One X.
There are some major changes to Stadia's video selection, too. The grain selection for films has been removed directly – which may be disabled for video assistance. Most visible audio doesn't like the light overlay of the game, and it makes sense to see this removed – and X still has the option. Surprisingly, the slide view field is also removable from Stadia so it sticks to the default 90s model with the Xbox One X. It's unclear why this has been fired; without saving the performance that hits when wiping it. What it does is to swap a short blink menu with a suite of options – just like PCs. The effect is great for their default middle order but otherwise you can turn it off. The Xbox One X does not have this level of granularity, which offers on / off converter instead.
Doom Eternal's performance on the console has been a great success, and that is reaching even Stadia. You will run into some crashes and drops, based on the quality of your internet connection. In my case I got lucky and played two straight hours without any major issues – alongside one or two large stutters it was pretty good. The actual, hardware-side performance rate also sticks to 60fps, which helps give it a solid base to work from. Accepting some drops at 58fps or so in places, Stadia does not struggle with enemy difficulties or effects on the screen – at least at a few levels of aperture. In personal experience with water; Giving action at 60fps is not a problem – so your connection is up to date.
The frame rates are tight at the time, and that should help reduce latency – but this is where Stadia's experience starts to become unstable. From pressing a victim on a Stadia controller to seeing a muzzle flash on-screen, there will always be delays compared to the local playback of a home console. The TV input lag is a feature of all programs, but Stadia has the added challenge of sending input to the server, and then flashes back to the result video video as quickly as possible.
Cutting the chase, using a 240fps high speed camera, the difference between pressing the fire button and the action playing on the screen sees Stadia add another 79ms to 100ms over the same step made on the Xbox One X. Well, to be clear here, 78ms to 100ms is more the latency you get from playing with Doom Forever on Stadia. Thankfully, the Xbox One X effect is full of stupidity and personalization, with 94ms the most common result, but adding anything up to 100ms more than that and adding display latency means that Doom permanently on Stadia delivers the accumulated saturation over a fifth of a second.
Doom Eternal – a preliminary review of Digital Foundry tech, which combines all aspects of the game's technology as well as behind-the-scenes viewing of some new id tools.
There is no skipping over the fact that Doom permanently is a lot more fun to play on Stadia. It looks fantastic: that 1800p image is amazing to see, and the compression is not that great. The true sticking point. Even after adjusting to it after a few minutes, I found capturing the enemy image much easier by adjusting slightly to the left and right, until the reticle synced with them – instead of mounting the camera with the analogue stick as usual. And that's the problem. All my way to taste changes to embrace lag. It's playable, and the more you practice the delay, the better you calculate the correct deduction time. The speed of your actions is reduced. Blurring the endless online returns of installing and retrieving videos that take only a few milliseconds to create a strong connection – between you and the action.
It all raises an interesting question. Given the closed nature of Covid-19 and the increasing pressure on Internet infrastructure, are we looking at the real problem of the game itself or the idea of Stadia itself continuing to operate in rare cases. Back to Mortal Kombat 11 – a game we tested for latency installations when it was introduced – we found that we were looking for a significant increase in latency. It seemed to vary between 14ms and 26ms above, but this is probably the fact that it was tested on different connections (among other things available on the same Media Media network). Perhaps the situation will improve once the world regains a sense of normalcy, but nonetheless, the extra lobster seems to be at a higher level, even reinforcing the difference added to Mortal Kombat 11's re-evaluation.
The inevitable conclusion is that this is a very fun game to play on a local console. Once you tie the limit to the field of view selection, the location you have upgraded with snappier features, it is not possible to go with Stadia solely for permitting reasons, unless you have no other console available. It's certainly playable, but to appreciate the id of the hard work Software put into nailing the action of the top Doom Forever, there are far better options out there. And with the genre defined by its gameplay speed, it is far superior to most Stadia games I've tried. Sadly, though, it's an appealing test case, but as in the case of Wolfenstein Youngblood, the practical outcome highlights Stadia's problems with running FPS games: visual quality is up, but the game is beatable.
