Google Stadia instead of next gen console??

[RobDickinson]

TheDrBrian said:

Oakey said:

gangzoom said:

There's currently a free trial, give it a go. As long as your internet connection is good you can be playing some AAA titles on any device you have in minutes.

Lag is no worse than good old 00s days, no one had issues achieving 'Monster kills' streaks back than in UT .

Because back then nearly everyone had a st ping

It’s bad when you’ve got lag in the controls on a single player game

yep bad server pings is nothing like bad refresh/draw ping

totally different results.

[anxious_ant]

I went through the exact same excitement as OP when I was on trial.
So much that I shelled out for the controller and Chromecast Ultra, along with Pro subscription.
All I can say is that it's down hill from there...
Point of this is to jump in and play anytime I want, anywhere I want.
However most of the time find the horrible controller lag which puts me off (the VERY limited) library of games.

[MattyB_]

There are numerous problems for the service, some are just limitations for the tech, others are Google's poor interpretation of the service.

1. It's very connection dependant. I've got 20mb FTTC and it's not the best for me, I get decent controller reponse, but pixellation and dropouts are common. This is just the tech limitations.

However, the rest is just Google's bad implementation

2. Hardcore games on a system designed for the casual gamer. If most of those games appeal to you, chances are you'll buy a proper console.
3. Restricted catalogue
4. Games are locked into Google's platform
5. A large part of what they promised never happed or was even implemented properly.
6. XBox Cloud exists - completely free, massive game catalogue of better games. I can even play on the XBox (or PC), then carry on where I left off on the cloud platform.
7. GeForce Now exists - I can pay £5/month to play (nearly) all the games I currently own, so I get a massive catalogue already. I can even tweak settings, use mods, etc.

The tech is great, but unless Stadia pivots to something amazing (pay £10/month, get ALL their catalogue available, for example) then it's facing an early death.

[Doofus]

MattyB_ said:

The tech is great, but unless Stadia pivots to something amazing (pay £10/month, get ALL their catalogue available, for example) then it's facing an early death.

It's genuinely disruptive. You're not thinking big enough. Keep watching, there's some really innovative stuff coming down the line.

[bigandclever]

Doofus said:

MattyB_ said:

The tech is great, but unless Stadia pivots to something amazing (pay £10/month, get ALL their catalogue available, for example) then it's facing an early death.

It's genuinely disruptive. You're not thinking big enough. Keep watching, there's some really innovative stuff coming down the line.

Is it? It’s full of false promises so far, like most “disruptive” tech.

[vonuber]

Doofus said:

It's genuinely disruptive. You're not thinking big enough. Keep watching, there's some really innovative stuff coming down the line.

Is it? What happens when your internet goes down?

[WonkeyDonkey]

Isn't destiny 2 free to play on pc anyway?

I find these interesting but I tend to solely play racing sims so little interest from me as any sort of input lag would kill the immersion.

Its definitely an interesting concept, would be lot more tempting if you could import your steam library!

[TheDrBrian]

Doofus said:

MattyB_ said:

The tech is great, but unless Stadia pivots to something amazing (pay £10/month, get ALL their catalogue available, for example) then it's facing an early death.

It's genuinely disruptive. You're not thinking big enough. Keep watching, there's some really innovative stuff coming down the line.

Games as a service, no mods, no editing,no third party stores(or Steam sales), complete reliance on the company to keep the servers going and not stiff you when game+1 comes out.

No thanks.

[RobDickinson]

that ^

[Doofus]

TheDrBrian said:

Games as a service, no mods, no editing,no third party stores(or Steam sales), complete reliance on the company to keep the servers going and not stiff you when game+1 comes out.

No thanks.

TV and movie consumption has moved online, and people now stream. Music consumprion has moved online, and people now stream. The video games market is bigger than those two combined, and will inevitably move online. Streaming is how people now consume their entertainment.

I don't stream music; I download it, and duplicate it across my home and cars. But I know streaming is the solution that most people have adopted, and I know why.

GaaS means multi- and cross- platform gaming. Stadia allows you to take your games with you, and play on a laptop (or even a diskless Chromebook), a phone, a Stadia controller with a Chromecast and, soon, pretty much any other game comtroller.

There are no patches or updates to download and install, and no local hardware requirements other than the controller and a Chrome browser.

Yes, it's internet-reliant, and yes, the UK is well behind most of the developed world in terms of internet reliability, speed and quality, but 5G will address that, and will offer reliable high speed internet to the huge proportion of the world's population that currently has no internet. Streaming services (not only gaming) will see an increase in their audience of up to 50%. Those numbers are too big to ingore, and whilst box games will remain for some time, GaaS is coming.

Google, Microsoft and Amazon think so, anyway.

[Mastodon2]

anxious_ant said:

However most of the time find the horrible controller lag which puts me off (the VERY limited) library of games.

I think the sort of person who plays Destiny 2 with a track pad isn't overly concerned with controller lag.

This is a great example of how a bit of fancy tech can flop and yet still impress the casual user. And before anyone says it's not a flop, look at the daily user statistics. It's not building momentum, it had a bad start and now it is deflating even more.

Maybe this whole streaming games thing has a future, when Internet becomes so instantaneously fast that input lag is no more perceptible than on a controller or mouse and keyboard, until that point it is never going to impress anyone who is really serious about gaming.

[Doofus]

Mastodon2 said:

Maybe this whole streaming games thing has a future, when Internet becomes so instantaneously fast that input lag is no more perceptible than on a controller or mouse and keyboard, until that point it is never going to impress anyone who is really serious about gaming.

Stadia has already successfullt managed the lag issue. There is none.

[Stevil]

Doofus said:

Stadia has already successfullt managed the lag issue. There is none.

That's a bit of an overstatement, there's always input lag regardless of where you play, whether that be on your local machine with a wired controller or playing Stadia. Whilst they have the AI to predict inputs to try and reduce lag and it's better than it has any right to be, it's still noticeably higher than using a local machine. Single-player games are playable but for multiplayer titles it's another factor adding up to that overall disconnect between when you pull the trigger and it registering that action on screen.

Digital Foundry are about the best in the business when it comes to measuring and testing this sort of thing and this is an interesting article on a more recent title:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-...

For me I think the promise of the tech is great, but just like I'll stick with my bean to cup coffee machine over instant coffee, 4K UHD Blu-Ray for proper film watching over Netflix (or record player over MP3, M3 over 320d - insert your relevant comparison here) I've got no plans on getting rid of my PC/Consoles any time soon as for those that know the difference it's worth doing things properly.

[untakenname]

The lag is definitely very noticeable, the first thing that jumped out when I unboxed the Stadia and played Destiny 2 last year was the lag and I'm on a Fibre connection with a decent ping, not exaggerating to say it felt like I online back in the 90's on dialup playing Unreal Tournament.

gangzoom said:

Haven't tried on the TV yet, last time I switched on the Xbox it took 30 minutes to run all the updates.

What's a RX5700? I presume a PC?

Playing on my old 'work' MacBook Pro is about as good as it gets for me these days. First time I played a FPS with WASD keys for ages and quite enjoyed it.

£9/month seems OK to me for whats on offer, providing they keep supplying the bundled games in that price. Strava is costing me about half that much for just been a GPX data tracker .

Yeah the lack of updates is the main thing Stadia has brought to the table, I generally only play my xbox occasionally and have it disconnected from the network simply to prevent from downloading massive updates as I just want to pick up and play.

It probably looks decent on the macbook screen but try plugging in into a large TV.

Google say it's 4K but the actual bandwidth is a fraction of what you get from a dedicated PC GPU and it looks a lot poorer in comparison, it's a bit like with a PC having a game at the highest resolution but then turning down the texture quality and everything else to minimum when it would look better at a lower resolution but with all the quality settings set to max.

The RX 5700 is a midrange graphics card but there's a night and day difference (I've got Grid 2 on both PC and Stadia) when you're looking at a 4k Screen.

Google really need to have one subscription for all their services, I've got Google music/youtube, One plan for storage, Nest for doorbell, Stadia (not for much longer) so I'm paying them quite a bit per month

[Doofus]

I've seen empirical proof of lag and latency metrics on Stadia vs other platforms, and I am satisfied that, connection dependent, there is no player-discernable degradation.

[Oakey]

So the people on here who have it and say they can notice it, they're lying are they?

[Mastodon2]

You're believing a fantasy I'm afraid, a dream cooked up to hide the deficiencies of the platform. Clever tricks and fancy marketing may fool the casual audience, but real gamers will always know the difference. The fact that there will always be latency as your input has to travel to the server to have an effect in the game before the result is relayed back to you is a simple truth.

If that's good enough for you, that's cool, everyone should game at a level that suits them. Some people won't play shooters on anything less that 128 tick server, some people can't feel the lag in Google Stadia. It reminds me of the "Blu Ray doesn't look better thab DVD" arguments of old. Everyone is free to make their choice and there is room for everyone, until Google switches Stadia off because no one uses it, at least.

[Doofus]

Oakey said:

So the people on here who have it and say they can notice it, they're lying are they?

I didn't say that. I just said that I am happy with what I've seen. I have a very sizeable dog in the GaaS fight (not directly tied to Stadia), and I'm not going to do that if I don't believe in the tech or the prospects.

[Stevil]

Doofus said:

Oakey said:

So the people on here who have it and say they can notice it, they're lying are they?

I didn't say that. I just said that I am happy with what I've seen. I have a very sizeable dog in the GaaS fight (not directly tied to Stadia), and I'm not going to do that if I don't believe in the tech or the prospects.

I don't think you're wrong and we're arguing different points, game streaming will take off massively and will be a huge business in the years to come, but I can't see physical machines disappearing and they will remain the choice for the hardcore gamers who care about having the best experience.

[Doofus]

Stevil said:

Doofus said:

Oakey said:

So the people on here who have it and say they can notice it, they're lying are they?

I didn't say that. I just said that I am happy with what I've seen. I have a very sizeable dog in the GaaS fight (not directly tied to Stadia), and I'm not going to do that if I don't believe in the tech or the prospects.

I don't think you're wrong and we're arguing different points, game streaming will take off massively and will be a huge business in the years to come, but I can't see physical machines disappearing and they will remain the choice for the hardcore gamers who care about having the best experience.

You're absolutely right. In the same way that hardcore musophiles will never be without their vinyl ( ). Equally, hardcore coders, hackers and bashers will always use PCs (you can't hack GaaS titles like you can box games). It's about the shift in balance between physical and virtual, and forthe mass audience, that's only going one way.