The whole array of decisions like this one completely killed any potential the project could have, really. Initial idea could be quite revolutionary. When necessity to buy games was announced, it still sounded like a decent option for developing countries (where internet is usually cheap and uncapped but hardware is stupid hard) Then they announced that stupid $130 bundle as the only option, basically eliminating that "no need for hardware" advantage - at which point, we get a product that appeals to nobody at all.

 

I thought this had "negative latency"? Guess not.

 

I see the "negative latency" thing thrown around a few times. It's not possible, not in the least, and I'm going to take this moment to illustrate exactly how not possible it is.

Here's one method: try and predict the players input with AI. This method is dumb, terrible - honestly, if anyone at google even considered this idea they should be fired. In order for this to be feasible, it'd have to predict at least n frames in advance, where n is latency / frame time. Let's say we have a VERY good scenario where you have a measly 3 frames of latency. It needs to be able to be rolled back if the players inputs don't line up; so it needs to essentially have a "save state" of each previous frame. In order to achieve this, an entire memory dump of the game needs to be generated every. Single. Frame. Let's take a guess that the game uses 6 GB of RAM and 6 GB of VRAM. These aren't unreasonable numbers in the least. Let me tell you; there is no hardware on this planet capable of moving 6-12 GB of data within the time between those frames.

Ok, but what if we assume they somehow managed that impossible feat? Well, what happens if the players inputs suddenly don't line up? It's rollback time baby! And suddenly, the game becomes a stuttering mess. Completely unplayable, constantly jumping between frames as your inputs barely don't line up with the AIs.

What if they also run the game again in tandem with regular input lag to prevent the stuttering? Well, to start, you'd have to start another instance of the game for every single frame of latency between, and keep each one of those a "separate" running instance. Nevermind that this wouldn't work for multiplayer games in the least; even with our purported 3 frames of latency, that means the game has to be running 4 times at once, constantly! Increase this number to even something like 10 frames of latency, and - yeah, I don't care who you are, your servers aren't going to be affordably capable of running 10 instances of a modern triple A game at once. Oh, and did I mention each and every one of these needs to ALSO be streamed to you, so your stadia can switch on the fly when your inputs don't match? Even after all that effort, though, the experience will still be awful as you'll still get stuttering - your input delay will be a stuttering mess of inconsistency, and you couldn't reasonably perform any precise actions like this.

One last thing I'd like to touch on: the idea that they could possibly run an instance of the game for every possible button you could press. No effort here, since it's obvious this is unfeasible, but let's say you have 8 buttons on your controller. That's 2^8th power possible combinations, or 256. Multiply this by itself for every additional frame of latency. At 3 frames of latency, it'd have to be running 16,777,216 different instances of the game. No.

 

lmao i fucking knew it

 

Hhhhhheeellllloo gggguuuyyss

Sent from my Google Stadia Account

 

If anybody actually believed Google's claims regarding input latency, they deserve to lose their money. Game streaming is NOT ready for the mainstream. It will not be for a very long time, if ever.

 

wI told you bro, I told you about the Internet in the USA being too crappy for this.

 

I've been talking about this ever since the announcement of Stadia.

Data caps? 4k? Games need to be purchased? Monthly fees? None of these matter.

The real and only issue with streaming is input lag. Try out any other streaming service available right now. Not a single one, has unnoticeable input lag.

Sure, all of them are playable. But after 35 minutes of gameplay, you feel sick to your stomach, just due to the horrific lag between your actions, and what happens on the screen. It's a similar feeling to being seasick or carsick.

And I'm not even counting competitive games. Any skill based, competitive game is literally unplayable. You'll be decimated by other opponents who don't have input lag like you do.

A higher bandwidth will help you stream 4k but it will NOT reduce input lag. Input lag is related to ping and latency. You can increase your bandwidth to 5 Terabytes per second. If your distance to the servers is anything more than a few miles, you'll still have horrible input lag. Because the amount of time for you to get a response from the server, is still the same.

The ONLY way to fix this, is by using higher quality cabling and redo the entire server technology and infrastructure, to allow for faster data transfer. Possibly with fiber optic cabling. Now imagine the hundreds of millions this costs..

As it stands, streaming games is absolutely useless.

I even made a Temper Tantrums comic strip about this exact issue:

https://gbatemp.net/threads/temper-tantrums-38-stadia.537588/