You mean... literally the majority of displays made in the last 15 years (post-CRT)?
I'm pretty certain almost no one will notice or care about the latency, especially the target audience. Played a mobile game recently? Awful, laggy, glitchy experiences. Still insanely popular.
That is a bit different. You can hide latency in multiplayer games as the scene is still rendering client side. But with this you end up waiting that additional time to actually have the frame respond to your input.
Google is a fraud. BUT, in this case since Google is charging for the service directly, I'm not sure how much data harvesting and monetization is going to go on behind the scenes. Game streaming is something I personally am interested in since I'm very done with burning money buying adequate hardware. If I can stream modern titles at shitty 720p for free to my $10 refurbished LG Rebel 3 phone at some point in the near future, that's one more compelling reason to dig a shallow grave for my progressively less relevant PC. Aside from occasionally doing something that absolutely must have Microsoft Office, I'm already running thin on reasons to use it.
"I'm already running thin on reasons to use it." I know plenty of people who get by with just a phone. Some more have a phone and a tablet (usually in the 9" to 10" range) and then some have a phone and a laptop. I could never live on the internet without a good size screen (20"++, preferably two) and a mouse at the very least. I usually have 2 or 3 programs open and doing tapped browsing on the phone is a nightmare in my opinion compared to the ease of use of using the middle mouse button on PC. Any sort of comparisons (looking up specs for things, comparing slightly different recipes, taking some info and inputting it into something else...) is absolut crap on anything but my PC setup for me. I guess I'm in the minority, but every time I'm around with just my phone is a pain and when I'm on vacation with my phone and a 13.3" laptop, it feels like I got crippled.
If you don't feel that way, more power to you, man! :D
For me, it will take a major UI / UX breakthrough to get me to give up my 2.7k cm² screen real estate and my easy mouse controls.
Oh it's understandable. I'd never survive at my office with just a phone. That'd be far too cumbersome. On the other hand, I never went along with the flow for multi-screen setups because I made the transition to laptops in the mid-90s and didn't get around to getting used to or making use of more than a single sub-14 inch screen. Bigger screens feel just weird to me.
Now for personal use, I rarely if ever even use more than one tab in a browser on my laptop and when it comes to PCs, I'm more comfortable on my Linux'ed HP Stream 11 than my full-sized Windows laptop despite the compromises from having only 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. Mostly I just write things or read e-books or mindlessly scroll through websites at home on my phone because I'm sick of looking at a PC screen anyhow due to how much I depend on my laptop at work. That kind of thing can happen easily on a phone and when I start poking away at my latest book, I'm actually fine with doing it using an on-screen keyboard. I've got a bluetooth model with integrated touchpad and a little phone stand to get closer to a laptop-like setting and I've considered a Miracast/WiDi dongle (but still haven't gotten around to it despite it being on my mind since KitKat started broadly supporting the capability), but none of that would really dramatically slow down my casual writing.
Everyone's usage is particular to them so I respect people that want to and benefit from a lot more compute and the necessary OS and software to make it happen, but after hanging up the towel on video editing for a failed YouTube channel last year, I'm nearly done with PCs.
Uhm... If you want to game at 720p, even in modern titles, you could buy second hand components for extremely cheap. I mean, I bought an R9 280X for like £45 on eBay for my testing, and this card easily will handle 1080p with almost full detail settings at a decent frame rate. 720P no problem.
I don't know if it'd be worth the effort in building a desktop even with used parts if I can piddle around with something like Stadia for free instead using, ideally, a phone app or my existing laptop. Besides that, it's already enough of a pain to have a big clunky laptop around and a desktop is many times larger, less power efficient (worse so on the performance vs power curve with older hardware), and non-mobile.
I am really shocked they did not update the Chromecast Ultra to just a new Google Cast with 4K, HDR and Dolby Vision for $40 with USB-C and whatnot. It is just too expensive for what it offers and has not had a hardware refresh in nearly 3 years. You would figure they would upgrade it for 2019 before launching this service.
They want us to give them $129 now for a service we can't use for 5 more months, and more to the point, have little idea how well it will work, how much latency, what games etc? And that $129 is basically 3 months of service plus $100 for the proprietary controller (since the game is going to be free to play before we can even use this?)
You didn't factor in the Chromecast which is worth $60. So effectively you're paying around $40 for the controller which isn't exactly unreasonable these days.
How does this differ from the Nvidia streaming service that just streams your Steam games?
I prefer that model, I own the games and I'm just paying to use the HW to stream my games. I can also play locally and my saved files are sync'd.
Do I have to re-buy games I already own on Steam? Great to see more competition in this area. Does this mean Google abandoning Android TV as a gaming platform?
You have Diamond Head and Waikiki...Fern Grotto...did the black and green sand beaches on the Big Island survive all the volcanic activity since the 1980's? Anyway, you have enough. You don't need no stinkin' Stadia to have stuff to do.
In Google search it say's Stadia is here The future of gaming. I was like uhm no not my future of gaming. Thank you very much. I much prefer my low latency gaming sessions and to have the game on my own gaming rig that I worked hard to be able to get.
No edit here. I also wanted to add on how Google was saying oh there will be no latency issues because you are connected directly to google through the internet. Key word here is INTERNET. Unless they are going to run millions of cables directly to everyone that is on their service you will still be connected to them just like any other service. Which means when those packets leave your internet connection they still will go through several hops bounced all around the world just like any other services. Sure they can try to do some tricks to make it feel less laggy but the truth is you can not get around how the internet was built and how it works. enough said.
Yep. 10 ms would be maximum before its unplayable for me. That would basically mean it would need to be at max 10 miles away. I guess for metropolitan areas its an option, but not anywhere else.
I see what you are trying to say but no matter what you have to go through your ISP backbone since it is them that provide access to the internet for you. So if you have a ISP with crappy service there is little to nothing Google can do about that. One of my questions for all of this is they say buy games. So what if you already own said games are they saying oh just buy them again from them. That seems a bit counter productive on the wallet for sure. IF I own a game I am not about to buy it again just so I can use their game streaming service. It also sounds like the game selection itself will be very bleak at first and probably for a very long time.
What they need or have to do to get everyone wanting to join in on this is yes have the subscription price but also be able to let user use their game keys with the service and they (Google get the game ready to go and be able to stream it for you. IF they can not do this then this service has failed even before it goes live and they should throw in the towel now and call it a day.
I would hope Google decides to get with game publishers to connect their servers up to their services, so you can tie your accounts together and not have to rebuy anything. Although, at the same time, game publishers might not want to do such. I'm sure they'd love everyone to rebuy their games.
They're probably talking about the buffering. Which just hitting pause and waiting for more to download would fix that. Can't do that with a streaming game.
The minute you see an artifact, you will hate it. And thats pretty much impossible to realize at those FPS in fast games without going very high bitrate. I know, because I encode footage like that all the time. Youtubes bitrate is horrible, it does lots of artifacts all day long. Especially on game footage. You can upload the clearest of picture footage, but after they processed it, it will look like mush again. The worst ones are open world games, like when you run through a forest or over a field of grass. So excuse me if I doubt they have any clue how a service like this has to be.
Steam's in-home streaming was horrible about artifacts when I was still using it mainly to play Fallout 3 and New Vegas a few years ago before my last desktop PC went the way of the dodo. WiFi from the headless desktop shoved in a corner to my wirelessly attached Atom n270 netbook running Linux pushing the netbook's native resolution of 1024x600 was rough looking at times, but playable. The situation improved when I grudgingly moved my desktop close enough to my router to give it 100mbps ethernet via a cable and swapped the old n270 out with the HP Stream 11 I now use as my primary PC, but a climb in game resolution to 1366x768 offset some of the advantages. Nevertheless, I feel like I personally could cope with more artifacts, far beyond what you see in YouTube, and still enjoy slower-paced games as long as Google is offering a freeloader service just so I can walk away from Windows 10 and at least my largest and least portable laptop, potentially my Stream as well to go phone only at home.
Yeah, Ive tried that once. After that I simply bought a very long HDMI cable, and yet the high input lag of my TV still was only good for turn based games, or similar slow games. I dont even know how people play console on a crappy TV without game mode (and even those still have 10 to 20 ms input lag).
I'll pass thanks. One hour of low latency gaming on even a budget PC is worth more than a hundred hours of input laggy mess with game streaming for me.
That said, it's nice to see Radeon Pro getting some use. I think Google is going for maximum performance density with these servers, and I the Radeon Pro V340 that they are using features dual Vega 10 XL (56CU) GPU on a single board so each card can provide two full gaming sessions. Nvidia has no alternative for that as far as I'm aware, and their solutions are likely significantly more expensive. Vega is also quite efficient when operating within its optimal clock range (unlike the RX cards).
Ah, really aggressive pricing. Much more aggressive than I thought. I guess, they're not happy with Twitch and fb streaming popularity. Stadia will allow, effortless streaming. Streaming content will explode for Youtube, only no live feed of the streamer.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
58 Comments
Back to Article
BinaryTB - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
G Suite account support? Project Stream didn't, but that was beta.bubblyboo - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Price is good. They need to work on getting latency to be consistently <100ms though, and eventually <50ms.nathanddrews - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Can't wait to sit through ads between levels and before boss fights. LOLshabby - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
I'm sure the free version will have that, in that case I'm fine with it.Threska - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
No worse than when some racing games had ads.Beaver M. - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Even 50 ms would be a nightmare on most games. Imagine having a monitor with 50 ms input lag... LOLnathanddrews - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
You mean... literally the majority of displays made in the last 15 years (post-CRT)?I'm pretty certain almost no one will notice or care about the latency, especially the target audience. Played a mobile game recently? Awful, laggy, glitchy experiences. Still insanely popular.
Threska - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Plus multiplayer games have been dealing with latency for years even when everyone was on dial-up. Looks like we made it in spite of.AshlayW - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
That is a bit different. You can hide latency in multiplayer games as the scene is still rendering client side. But with this you end up waiting that additional time to actually have the frame respond to your input.AshlayW - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
50ms would be awful. I think worse than playing with Vsync. I already can't play with Vsync on as the lag is too noticeable, even in casual games.AshlayW - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
So basically all monitors aimed at gamers in the last decade have significantly lower lag than 50ms.Beaver M. - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
The real good ones have 1 ms, or even below that.Beaver M. - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
Some very bad TVs maybe. PC monitors, even the bad ones, have far below that.khanikun - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
I feel like everyone is talking about different types of lag, latency, etc. LCD response times, LCD input lag, connection latency, etc.Beaver M. - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
Even if so, it all adds up. It could be much better already, even if you have a top notch PC, why add to it?zodiacfml - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
It's a nightmare with single player or LAN, but multiplayer has huge latency and Stadia will add around 20ms of latency.JoeyJoJo123 - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3NwREMINDER: GAMES AS A SERVICE IS FRAUD.
PeachNCream - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Google is a fraud. BUT, in this case since Google is charging for the service directly, I'm not sure how much data harvesting and monetization is going to go on behind the scenes. Game streaming is something I personally am interested in since I'm very done with burning money buying adequate hardware. If I can stream modern titles at shitty 720p for free to my $10 refurbished LG Rebel 3 phone at some point in the near future, that's one more compelling reason to dig a shallow grave for my progressively less relevant PC. Aside from occasionally doing something that absolutely must have Microsoft Office, I'm already running thin on reasons to use it.Death666Angel - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
"I'm already running thin on reasons to use it."I know plenty of people who get by with just a phone. Some more have a phone and a tablet (usually in the 9" to 10" range) and then some have a phone and a laptop. I could never live on the internet without a good size screen (20"++, preferably two) and a mouse at the very least. I usually have 2 or 3 programs open and doing tapped browsing on the phone is a nightmare in my opinion compared to the ease of use of using the middle mouse button on PC. Any sort of comparisons (looking up specs for things, comparing slightly different recipes, taking some info and inputting it into something else...) is absolut crap on anything but my PC setup for me. I guess I'm in the minority, but every time I'm around with just my phone is a pain and when I'm on vacation with my phone and a 13.3" laptop, it feels like I got crippled.
If you don't feel that way, more power to you, man! :D
For me, it will take a major UI / UX breakthrough to get me to give up my 2.7k cm² screen real estate and my easy mouse controls.
PeachNCream - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Oh it's understandable. I'd never survive at my office with just a phone. That'd be far too cumbersome. On the other hand, I never went along with the flow for multi-screen setups because I made the transition to laptops in the mid-90s and didn't get around to getting used to or making use of more than a single sub-14 inch screen. Bigger screens feel just weird to me.Now for personal use, I rarely if ever even use more than one tab in a browser on my laptop and when it comes to PCs, I'm more comfortable on my Linux'ed HP Stream 11 than my full-sized Windows laptop despite the compromises from having only 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. Mostly I just write things or read e-books or mindlessly scroll through websites at home on my phone because I'm sick of looking at a PC screen anyhow due to how much I depend on my laptop at work. That kind of thing can happen easily on a phone and when I start poking away at my latest book, I'm actually fine with doing it using an on-screen keyboard. I've got a bluetooth model with integrated touchpad and a little phone stand to get closer to a laptop-like setting and I've considered a Miracast/WiDi dongle (but still haven't gotten around to it despite it being on my mind since KitKat started broadly supporting the capability), but none of that would really dramatically slow down my casual writing.
Everyone's usage is particular to them so I respect people that want to and benefit from a lot more compute and the necessary OS and software to make it happen, but after hanging up the towel on video editing for a failed YouTube channel last year, I'm nearly done with PCs.
AshlayW - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
Uhm... If you want to game at 720p, even in modern titles, you could buy second hand components for extremely cheap. I mean, I bought an R9 280X for like £45 on eBay for my testing, and this card easily will handle 1080p with almost full detail settings at a decent frame rate. 720P no problem.PeachNCream - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
I don't know if it'd be worth the effort in building a desktop even with used parts if I can piddle around with something like Stadia for free instead using, ideally, a phone app or my existing laptop. Besides that, it's already enough of a pain to have a big clunky laptop around and a desktop is many times larger, less power efficient (worse so on the performance vs power curve with older hardware), and non-mobile.quiksilvr - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
I am really shocked they did not update the Chromecast Ultra to just a new Google Cast with 4K, HDR and Dolby Vision for $40 with USB-C and whatnot. It is just too expensive for what it offers and has not had a hardware refresh in nearly 3 years. You would figure they would upgrade it for 2019 before launching this service.Beaver M. - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Yeah, because of that alone I will rather stick with my Shield. Still the best one you can get.mode_13h - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
I looked at Chromecast Ultra, earlier this year, and decided to wait for a refresh. As you say, 3 years is a long time, in this market.With 4k becoming mainstream, I'm even a bit surprise the 3rd gen Chromecast doesn't include it.
MadManMark - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
They want us to give them $129 now for a service we can't use for 5 more months, and more to the point, have little idea how well it will work, how much latency, what games etc? And that $129 is basically 3 months of service plus $100 for the proprietary controller (since the game is going to be free to play before we can even use this?)Ummm ... no thanks, I'll just keep waiting.
Duckeenie - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
You didn't factor in the Chromecast which is worth $60. So effectively you're paying around $40 for the controller which isn't exactly unreasonable these days.TheWereCat - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
And if he already owns or really does not care at all about Chrome cast?giltbrick - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Then don't buy it?Sttm - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Chromecast is not worth $60. Its the worst of media sticks, and a joke that Google has not put together a proper AndroidTV device for this package.PeachNCream - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
There's also the bundled three months of Stadia service which appears to go for $30.webdoctors - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
How does this differ from the Nvidia streaming service that just streams your Steam games?I prefer that model, I own the games and I'm just paying to use the HW to stream my games. I can also play locally and my saved files are sync'd.
Do I have to re-buy games I already own on Steam? Great to see more competition in this area. Does this mean Google abandoning Android TV as a gaming platform?
osteopathic1 - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Not Available in Hawaii..;-(PeachNCream - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
You have Diamond Head and Waikiki...Fern Grotto...did the black and green sand beaches on the Big Island survive all the volcanic activity since the 1980's? Anyway, you have enough. You don't need no stinkin' Stadia to have stuff to do.ckatech - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
The base game of Year 1,2 destiny is free as well as pvp, gambit, leviathan. Forsaken raids, shadowkeep and seasons are notrocky12345 - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
In Google search it say's Stadia is here The future of gaming. I was like uhm no not my future of gaming. Thank you very much. I much prefer my low latency gaming sessions and to have the game on my own gaming rig that I worked hard to be able to get.rocky12345 - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
No edit here. I also wanted to add on how Google was saying oh there will be no latency issues because you are connected directly to google through the internet. Key word here is INTERNET. Unless they are going to run millions of cables directly to everyone that is on their service you will still be connected to them just like any other service. Which means when those packets leave your internet connection they still will go through several hops bounced all around the world just like any other services. Sure they can try to do some tricks to make it feel less laggy but the truth is you can not get around how the internet was built and how it works. enough said.Beaver M. - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Yep. 10 ms would be maximum before its unplayable for me. That would basically mean it would need to be at max 10 miles away. I guess for metropolitan areas its an option, but not anywhere else.lmcd - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
If their backbone is better than your ISP's backbone (and it might well be), it could actually be comparable for certain online games.rocky12345 - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
I see what you are trying to say but no matter what you have to go through your ISP backbone since it is them that provide access to the internet for you. So if you have a ISP with crappy service there is little to nothing Google can do about that. One of my questions for all of this is they say buy games. So what if you already own said games are they saying oh just buy them again from them. That seems a bit counter productive on the wallet for sure. IF I own a game I am not about to buy it again just so I can use their game streaming service. It also sounds like the game selection itself will be very bleak at first and probably for a very long time.What they need or have to do to get everyone wanting to join in on this is yes have the subscription price but also be able to let user use their game keys with the service and they (Google get the game ready to go and be able to stream it for you. IF they can not do this then this service has failed even before it goes live and they should throw in the towel now and call it a day.
khanikun - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
I would hope Google decides to get with game publishers to connect their servers up to their services, so you can tie your accounts together and not have to rebuy anything. Although, at the same time, game publishers might not want to do such. I'm sure they'd love everyone to rebuy their games.Threska - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Same tricks (and complaints) as when Netflix came out.Beaver M. - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
???Latency doesnt matter on Netflix.
khanikun - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
They're probably talking about the buffering. Which just hitting pause and waiting for more to download would fix that. Can't do that with a streaming game.coburn_c - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
16GB an hour on a 1 terabyte data cap is two hours a day of gaming, if you live alone and do absolutely nothing else with your internet connection.Threska - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
I suspect it depends upon the game, and with a more intelligent client it could be gotten down.mode_13h - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
Yeah, it's probably VBR. So, the actual data rate won't stay pegged at the max - but they need to be able to burst at the required rate.Beaver M. - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
The minute you see an artifact, you will hate it.And thats pretty much impossible to realize at those FPS in fast games without going very high bitrate. I know, because I encode footage like that all the time. Youtubes bitrate is horrible, it does lots of artifacts all day long. Especially on game footage. You can upload the clearest of picture footage, but after they processed it, it will look like mush again. The worst ones are open world games, like when you run through a forest or over a field of grass.
So excuse me if I doubt they have any clue how a service like this has to be.
PeachNCream - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
Steam's in-home streaming was horrible about artifacts when I was still using it mainly to play Fallout 3 and New Vegas a few years ago before my last desktop PC went the way of the dodo. WiFi from the headless desktop shoved in a corner to my wirelessly attached Atom n270 netbook running Linux pushing the netbook's native resolution of 1024x600 was rough looking at times, but playable. The situation improved when I grudgingly moved my desktop close enough to my router to give it 100mbps ethernet via a cable and swapped the old n270 out with the HP Stream 11 I now use as my primary PC, but a climb in game resolution to 1366x768 offset some of the advantages. Nevertheless, I feel like I personally could cope with more artifacts, far beyond what you see in YouTube, and still enjoy slower-paced games as long as Google is offering a freeloader service just so I can walk away from Windows 10 and at least my largest and least portable laptop, potentially my Stream as well to go phone only at home.Beaver M. - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
Yeah, Ive tried that once. After that I simply bought a very long HDMI cable, and yet the high input lag of my TV still was only good for turn based games, or similar slow games. I dont even know how people play console on a crappy TV without game mode (and even those still have 10 to 20 ms input lag).mode_13h - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
Heh, maybe it's really just a ploy to sell more Google Fiber subscriptions. Except, I think they've halted expansion plans...Samus - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
What in the hell is Google doing!?AshlayW - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
I'll pass thanks. One hour of low latency gaming on even a budget PC is worth more than a hundred hours of input laggy mess with game streaming for me.That said, it's nice to see Radeon Pro getting some use. I think Google is going for maximum performance density with these servers, and I the Radeon Pro V340 that they are using features dual Vega 10 XL (56CU) GPU on a single board so each card can provide two full gaming sessions. Nvidia has no alternative for that as far as I'm aware, and their solutions are likely significantly more expensive. Vega is also quite efficient when operating within its optimal clock range (unlike the RX cards).
zodiacfml - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
Ah, really aggressive pricing. Much more aggressive than I thought. I guess, they're not happy with Twitch and fb streaming popularity. Stadia will allow, effortless streaming. Streaming content will explode for Youtube, only no live feed of the streamer.rrinker - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
And then a year from now, Google decides it isn't really working all that well and just shutters the whole thing....peevee - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
Will they shut it down after or before Basic will become available?gojapa - Saturday, June 8, 2019 - link
hum... SpaceX StarLink + Stadia = $$$damianrobertjones - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
Can Anandtech also announce when they're going to cancel the service?