Google Stadia launches today to mixed reception over input lag

Chary · Nov 19, 2019

Google Stadia has finally kicked off its launch today, releasing eight months after its announcement back in March of this year. Google planned to create a "Netflix" of gaming, of sorts, by allowing players to stream games to any device, be it a netbook laptop's browser, a phone mobile app, or a TV's Chromecast, removing the need to own an expensive gaming console. Theoretically, Google would lower the barrier of entry, and allow millions to play the latest and greatest that gaming had to offer, in a simple and casual manner.

Initially, many took issue with the idea of streaming video games across the country, as data caps, input lag, and slow connections would likely stand in the way of consistent performance. A month prior to launch, in October, Google promised that latency would not be a problem with Stadia, as they claimed their servers and technology would be able to easily handle streaming 4K 60FPS video games to its customers, without issue. There was even an official statement of how Google Stadia would have "negative" latency, and would offer a more responsive experience than playing games locally, in the coming future.

But latency is the thing that gets the most attention. And while it's already proven to be more than playable, [Madj Bakar, VP of Engineering] expects further improvements. "Ultimately, we think, in a year or two, we'll have games that are running faster and feel more responsive in the cloud that they do locally, regardless of how powerful the local machine is," he claims. These improvements will come via a term which sounds rather slippery. "Negative latency" is a concept by which Stadia can set up a game with a buffer of predicted latency between the server and player, and then use various methods to undercut it. It can run the game at a super-fast framerate so it can act on player inputs earlier, or it can predict a player's button presses. These tricks can help the game feel more responsive, potentially more so than a console game running locally at 30fps with a wireless controller.
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This only served to create more controversy for the service, with many skeptical of such a concept even being possible. Those claims are looking to be even more impossible in the near future, as Stadia is having issues with streaming games upon its first day of release.

For many, this isn't a surprise at all. Digital Foundry, and its parent publication, Eurogamer, took Stadia out for a test drive with the Founder's Pack, describing their time with the service as "incomplete", and "basic". More importantly, though, they measured the exact input lag, comparing Stadia against an Xbox One X.

While the above chart shows a definite amount of difference in terms of input lag, Eurogamer admitted that the games they played, at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second on a 200mbps wired connection, felt fine, overall, still being considered playable to the masses who likely wouldn't notice any major input lag.

Ultimately, the question is how the game feels in the hand. Nothing I played could be considered 'unplayable' or very laggy - with the possible exception of Tomb Raider in quality mode, but I even got used to that after a while. Remember that different actions may have different latencies, so the table above is far from definitive. At best, it's a test of the one particular motion carried out in the same scenarios on each system. More tests on more titles may put Stadia into better focus, but 45-55ms of lag generally is perfectly acceptable for many experiences and even a fast-paced FPS like Destiny 2 plays out fine on the pad. Obviously though, if you're gaming on a living room display via Chromecast, do make sure game mode is enabled and definitely ensure that you're using a LAN connection.
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Other sites, however, were not as pleased. Forbes' writers reported massive amounts of input lag, making the 22 launch titles impossible to play or control.

Across all test titles I played, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat 11, Destiny 2, GYLT and Red Dead Redemption 2, I would get periodic stuttering issues with massive resolution and frame drops. Not all the time, but enough to be noticed frequently and disrupt gameplay, which is what everyone feared may happen with this kind of tech. The intensity of the game didn’t matter, it could be the graphically rich Red Dead or the cartoony GYLT. Single player or multiplayer didn’t matter, I could be playing solo as Lara Croft or playing Destiny 2’s Gambit in a pre-arranged match, the issues were the same. You could have 80% of a session be going fine, but then the last 20% would suddenly lurch you into dropping, stuttering territory. And in most games, all it takes is one hiccup to make you pay dearly.
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What many have already likely seen, is the above GIF, which comes from The Washington Post. In their trial, Destiny 2 had full seconds of latency, between pressing a button and the intended action occurring.

It's important to consider that this is all still technically an early access soft launch for Stadia--those who are making use of the service now, are playing with technology that still has much room to improve and change, especially before its separate base release, slated for 2020. But while Google can certainly try to reduce input lag, develop better codecs, and innovate their streaming technology as a whole, many have a fear of if Stadia is actually really here to stay, with Google's infamous track record of creating services, investing into them for a handful of years, and then tossing them aside in favor of new projects looming in the back of our minds.

DinohScene · Nov 19, 2019

What happens to the games once Google decides to stop this?

Tom Bombadildo · Nov 19, 2019

Literally not surprising in any sense. Game streaming simply isn't a feasible service right now, the infrastructure just isn't there.

Gg Google, can't wait for you to cancel the service in a year or two and fuck over everyone who bought games on it

Chary · Nov 19, 2019

Tom Bombadildo said:

can't wait for you to cancel the service in a year or two
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Relevant.

At least I don't have data caps ;O;

Jiehfeng · Nov 19, 2019

The biggest issue of all is that you need to buy each game, making it a night and day difference from a Netflix-esque subscription.

Costello · Nov 19, 2019

What I dont get is, everyone knew this was going to happen, so why did they do it anyway unless they had an actual solution ?

I always thought they were going to come up with some magic trick where latency would be extremely low. Today here we are, and it’s worse than anything else that’s already on the market. What am I missing ?

emmanu888 · Nov 19, 2019

Onlive tried and failed. The only way game streaming can work is if its done over LAN and if the game is running from another PC in the house

CallmeBerto · Nov 19, 2019

Expected tbh. The infrastructure is just not there. (both on the user end and Google's end) My hope that is improves a bit before it opens up to everyone in 2020 as I do want to give this a try and test for myself.

Jiehfeng · Nov 19, 2019

Costello said:

What I dont get is, everyone knew this was going to happen, so why did they do it anyway unless they had an actual solution ?

I always thought they were going to come up with some magic trick where latency would be extremely low. Today there we are, and it’s worse than anything else that’s already on the market. What am I missing ?
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Ignorance is the key plan here I'm sure. They're going to try cashing in on people who know nothing about what the term input lag even means, and ride on the hype of "future cloud gaming". Not everyone researches before buying something, and such people you don't see discussing on the internet. They're mostly on Instagram and Facebook.

AdenTheThird · Nov 19, 2019

Honestly, can't say I didn't see this coming. Google is a massive company, but even that seemed too good to be true. Hoping for improvements to Stadia but for now, I don want to play something with a future that seems almost damned. Best of luck to both the players and developers.

Nerdtendo · Nov 19, 2019

I wonder if this is a "we just launched and we need a second to iron everything out" issue like Disney+ had, or a "Oops we have a bad service" issue.

Costello · Nov 19, 2019

Jiehfeng said:

Ignorance is the key plan here I'm sure. They're going to try cashing in on people who know nothing about what the term input lag even means, and ride on the hype of "future cloud gaming". Not everyone researches before buying something, and such people you don't see discussing on the internet. They're mostly on Instagram and Facebook.
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maybe...
sounds like a bad decision from shit management boards who think the word "cloud" turns everything into gold...

Godofcheese · Nov 19, 2019

Costello said:

What I dont get is, everyone knew this was going to happen, so why did they do it anyway unless they had an actual solution ?

I always thought they were going to come up with some magic trick where latency would be extremely low. Today here we are, and it’s worse than anything else that’s already on the market. What am I missing ?
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They said something that the Stadia controller was going to have learn your "inputs" to reduce input lag and with it being "directly connected" to the server will also reduce latency.
Reviewers says it reduced it "a little" but it's still visibly present

Ericzander · Nov 19, 2019

Honestly I don't really understand who is this for. Stealing from Reddit:

People who like to play videogames have the means to do so. People who want to play videogames, but dont want to buy hardware play F2P games on their phone. People who want convenience / portability will buy a switch. People who want quality will pay for hardware. It feels like google tried to encompass all of these aspects into the product, but it's a matter of "jack of all trades, master of none". It feels like google thinks there's a demographic of gamers who are willing to pay money to play games, but haven't yet for ... reasons?
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Costello · Nov 19, 2019

Ericzander said:

Honestly I don't really understand who is this for. Stealing from Reddit:
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exactly what I was telling @Chary the other day

Jiehfeng · Nov 19, 2019

Costello said:

maybe...
sounds like a bad decision from shit management boards who think the word "cloud" turns everything into gold...
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Yeah I've no clue if this will work, time will tell. In any case there lies plenty of people who just buy consoles cause there are other people and friends who play games as well, they just want to play. If the casual market cannot notice this lag, there is a very good chance of success.

Reecey · Nov 19, 2019

Latency is expected on any connection even on a gigabit line there’s no such thing as zero latency in game! So what google say is bollocks basically and if your fibre connection is pretty overall bad anyway don’t even bother with this.. it’s another sad case for a giant company ie Google’s new platform to base the problems occurring on everyone else’s connection being poor, not them of course!

Viri · Nov 19, 2019

DinohScene said:

What happens to the games once Google decides to stop this?
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Oh, I'm sure Google will strike a deal with Steam and b- BUHAHAHAHAHA! You'll lose all your games, obv. Best case scenario, they'll give you some Google bux to buy stuff from their shop, and tell you to deal with it, and fuck off.

Techjunky90 · Nov 19, 2019

Why not go ahead and throw the bandwidth usage numbers up there too? I believe data consumption is 7-15gb per hour, depending on if it's 720/1080/4k

ninjafrog658 · Nov 19, 2019

Oh my! Color me suprised!

/s

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