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Digital Foundry: Project xCloud Beta Tested: Can Streaming Deliver A Handheld Xbox One Experience?
- Thread starter chandoog
- Start date
I think it's cool that this tech exists and it may even be the future but in the present, it simply lags too badly. I have a 400mb connection at home and games such as Tekken 7 and Forza have been almost unplayable. Yes some game genres will work better than others I know.... But my own personal experiences have not been good with cloud streaming.
Which is a shame as I was willing to give it a chance!
Which is a shame as I was willing to give it a chance!
Surprise surprise - 60fps (Killer Instinct) on xCloud lines right up, latency-wise, with 60fps tests Digital Foundry did previously on Stadia and PSNow. All, uncannnily, in the 12Xms range for 60fps fighting games tested on each.
That is to say... the tech is as good as it ever was, but it seems there are no new silver bullets for latency this year.
That is to say... the tech is as good as it ever was, but it seems there are no new silver bullets for latency this year.
I got a good laugh out of people recently championing xCloud while crapping on Stadia's poor showing at launch. The technology is what it is, and that is laggy. How much a person is willing to put up with is the question.
You forget that xcloud has bluetooth mandatory as of right now so it actually has even more latency to deal with. It would be nice to see it when there can be direct connection. It's clear that xcloud isn't what people on this forum will like...but for the majority of gamers out there (the ones who don't even know what game mode on a tv is), it will be fine..and for the people who don't have access to consoles.
I think the crapping on Stadia was how bad they botched it (like not giving out codes to people and waiting and messing up wires and such)...I don't think it was about the tech. I'm just happy that the tech works and I'm using both Stadia and xCloud.
People here were never going to give Stadia a chance. They were shitting on since the day it was announced.
Having used both, I don't personally see any difference in latency in either service using my phone. Both have worked really well for me.
I tried Forza Horizon 4 on it and while it's obviously not on par with my native 4K experience at home, it's more than playable. I don't expect to be playing Call Of Duty online or a rhythm game on streaming anytime soon, but what I could play so far is definitely good enough for 90%+ of the games I own. I don't see it turning my Xbox One into a useless product anytime soon, but I can't wait to be reliably continue my games when I'm on the move. And the tech, while being far from finished, is good already. Looking forward to be able to properly use the service when it launches in Italy and when (in a couple years) where I live will also be covered with good 5G. 4G is just a tad too little for it probably.
The network would be the bulk of the latency. Stadia was test with wireless controllers - true, there's a direct-connect situation going on there, but it's also true, that ethernet was seemingly used here, while wifi was tested with PSNow. So the conditions of the testing aren't 1:1 across all these different scenarios, in ways that may favour each service - maybe in the future we'll get a same environment test, with the same connection, the same wired vs wifi etc.
But it is just remarkable how each hit almost exactly the same spot, down to a difference of single milliseconds, with 60fps fighting games, across all their different tests.
But all of them are tested in different factors as you just stated, so it's not "remarkable" as they are all in different situations...
Won't part of that be due to server location? Like Stadia for me, the closest Google server I can ping to is 50ms, and I can definitely feel the latency when gaming. But people who are closer probably won't notice it as much since it'll be lower latency and closer to a native experience. So if that's the same thing you run into, it might be something that improves in the future with more server locations.
You can have lag in networking while your processing or making packets, fixable but not addressed. This is hidden and not added to latency measurements
You can have lag on hops, unfixable not worth addressing unless host/s sucks
You can have lag on wireless access point, thanks for mentioning still have no clue what kernel or features you're running so latency metric is basic.
You're account for some lag but totally ignoring one that can exist at the source. That's not my opinion it's what experts have found.
Thanks for accounting for bluetooth lag.
SQM works so those who have it will not have the problems of those you don't. Consumers need to use SQM to deal with Bandwidth problems becaused it exist their own lans not the isps or the cloud, no streaming tech or isp tech can fix something on your end. You've done this in two different vids now not accounting for the fact SQM literally fixes a problem you mentioned.
Seems you still need a highly debloated connection, decent kernel and hops not to suck on this tech. I actually felt xcloud was better than stadia even though it's beta.
Saddens me they could be doing a bang up job in some areas but won't.
Latency isn't a silver bullet and its not helped if you use network features built for bandwidth but aren't latency friendly to test or outright just play on streaming service. None of these platforms aim to reduce latency in various areas so the results should laregly be the same. Based on exactly what you mentioned from test there is added 40-80ms added but since testing was limited and hops weren't properly fleshed out narrowing it down would be insanely hard.
I'm being blunt I seriously wonder what a debloated connection on haste would be like vs standard crap consumers are gonna see in test like these.
You can have lag on hops, unfixable not worth addressing unless host/s sucks
You can have lag on wireless access point, thanks for mentioning still have no clue what kernel or features you're running so latency metric is basic.
You're account for some lag but totally ignoring one that can exist at the source. That's not my opinion it's what experts have found.
Thanks for accounting for bluetooth lag.
SQM works so those who have it will not have the problems of those you don't. Consumers need to use SQM to deal with Bandwidth problems becaused it exist their own lans not the isps or the cloud, no streaming tech or isp tech can fix something on your end. You've done this in two different vids now not accounting for the fact SQM literally fixes a problem you mentioned.
Seems you still need a highly debloated connection, decent kernel and hops not to suck on this tech. I actually felt xcloud was better than stadia even though it's beta.
Saddens me they could be doing a bang up job in some areas but won't.
Latency isn't a silver bullet and its not helped if you use network features built for bandwidth but aren't latency friendly to test or outright just play on streaming service. None of these platforms aim to reduce latency in various areas so the results should laregly be the same. Based on exactly what you mentioned from test there is added 40-80ms added but since testing was limited and hops weren't properly fleshed out narrowing it down would be insanely hard.
I'm being blunt I seriously wonder what a debloated connection on haste would be like vs standard crap consumers are gonna see in test like these.
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Who are these people that don't have access to consoles? I know Google and Microsoft seem to believe lots of them exist, but I'm just not seeing it. If someone can afford to buy a Stadia kit, or a screen + controller for xCloud, I feel pretty confident they can just buy a $200 console if they really want one.
I think it makes it even more remarkable - uncanny - that each hits, nearly to the millisecond, the same latency in the same type of game - despite years between some of these tests, the different connections etc. Quite the funny coincidence.
But coincidences and variances aside, I think it's completely fair to say there's no major tech breakthrough apparent in these results. They're bang in line with what you'd expect based on previous tests of cloud services from DF.
Everyone's going to have a different experience, both objectively and subjectively. That's the 'beauty' of cloud services. You might have a better experience with Stadia, I might have a better experience with xCloud, he might have a better experience with PSNow. Some people - like Digital Foundry it seems - might have quite a similar experience with each of them. It's going to vary completely by local setup - ironically - and even by time. I've been streaming with PSNow and privately from AWS with Steam, and at different points in time, and depending on what else is going on with my home network, have had better and worse experiences with each at different times. It's just how it is.
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Like others have said, there's no magic latency solving evolution introduced here as it performs right along Now and Stadia.
Would liked to have seen some sort of closer comparison to all three services from DF.
My dreams of negative latency were short lived :(
Jokes aside, I'm genuinely disappointed that we've reached the limit of what's possible atm.
Jokes aside, I'm genuinely disappointed that we've reached the limit of what's possible atm.
Stadia tech is more polished with less input lag but there are so many problems surrounding the service itself and its business model.
i don't believe you
everyone in the xcloud beta thread said its perfect and near exact response that they get normally
/s
They should have a setting that enforces or warns when you arent on a 5GHz or WiFi6 network. My experience on that was pretty good. Never will be better than native but a decent enough alternative w/ Halo 5.
But out and about when stuck with 2.4GHz it was pretty bad.
But out and about when stuck with 2.4GHz it was pretty bad.
I think it was xcloud that told me that I was on a 2.4GHz connection... I'm pretty sure it wasn't Stadia as I was able to continue playing...I could be wrong, I've been playing on both recently.
Yes some People definitely said this but I was mostly reading that this was much better than Psnow. I was expecting some improvements as Microsoft owns azure and can directly tune them to decrease some latency but seems like we have reached peak streaming quality for the moment. Only thing better now would be higher fps
I had fun playing Sea of Thieves when streaming from my console. I got into the cloud beta recently as well and need some time to sit down and try that out.
There indeed is a bit of lag with it, so I wouldn't personally play FPS or fighting games with it, but something like SOT I learned pretty quickly how much input delay there was and adapted to it. Its fun!
There indeed is a bit of lag with it, so I wouldn't personally play FPS or fighting games with it, but something like SOT I learned pretty quickly how much input delay there was and adapted to it. Its fun!
Mobile is first and foremost the target of xCloud. Console and PC are still their focus for in the home on a TV/monitor.
Game streaming will make us all HPW(High Ping Whiner)'s again. Finally.
Hope LPB's will stick to their own servers. I've always said It's basically cheating.
Hope LPB's will stick to their own servers. I've always said It's basically cheating.
This video goes into that. India is a country for example where most people have a phone, but not a game console.
They also over-promised and under-delivered on the technical capabilities of their games. Think that was the big deal.
We haven't in any fashion gotten near what's possible.
The streaming platforms are badly tuned and don't use various low latency tech that has been out for 5-10 years.
The issue surrounding Stadia vs xCloud was about content and execution rather than technology.
Game quality settings aside, the actual streaming tech in Stadia is, by far, the best I've used.
Where you are getting +12Xms range? That wasn't in this video, nor in their Stadia article, nor in their PSNow article. And the values are quite different from each other, they aren't uncannily similar in the slightest. Stadia had +44ms latency in Mortal Kombat 11, PsNow had +68ms with Ultra Street Fighter 4, xCloud with Killer Instinct had +54, +75, and +90ms of latency depending on the phone.
All 3 work in pretty much the same way and deliver comparable streaming services in comparable conditions. Those conditions are variable though, from location to location, network to network, and moment to moment. Topics about these services are going to be full of posts saying how one service works great for them but another was unplayable, then others responding it was the exact opposite for them.
I don't think there will ever be a mass market streaming service that has a critical technical advantage over the others.
I was looking at the absolute total latency on each service (minus display latency), for Killer Instinct on xCloud, Ultra Street Fighter 4 on PSNow and Mortal Kombat 11 on Stadia. 121ms, 126ms, 122ms respectively. Looking at additional latency in isolation, we might indeed say DF found Stadia to be a bit better than xCloud and PSNow. It would be a good reason to ideally test the same game across all three services - though that still might not perfectly isolate the latency of the rest of the stack in each case, as I've a feeling devs have the opportunity to reduce the base input latency in their Stadia builds that they might not have deploying a game on xCloud or Now, for the moment anyway. (i.e. base input latencies in the stadia version of a game and the xbox version of a game and the ps version of a game may all vary for whatever reason, and we can't compare Stadia against it's 'local' latency alone).
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Also one more thing I remembered watching this video is that all games for xcloud are running on Xbox one s which is worst performing current gen console. Some games will even feel worse.This is same issue with Psnow. Stadia can perform much better in this regards as most games will be targeting 60 fps
I have been more impressed than I expected to be with xCloud at the beta stage especially. My first attempts were on an admittedly ancient phone in the Galaxy Note 5 which pretty much was unplayable due to stuttering and such. I have since bought a Samsung Galaxy S6 tablet that works amazing with it now, and the scaling of the 720p stream on the tablet's 1440p works better than expected here too. I am not saying that I never notice any input lag at all, but in general I would say that I can play Xbox games on here without really thinking too much that I am playing on xCloud. My boys are far more sensitive to lag, and even they agreed that it felt much better than God of War on PSNow did when I tried it recently.
The bottom line is that there are no silver bullets yet for the overall tech and the various networking setups and otherwise, but Xbox Game Pass is what is really going to make this a compelling option for alternative play options. I was able to try out Mark of the Ninja: Remastered on xCloud and get achievements through the first level or two, and I ended up buying the game digitally during the Black Friday sale to be able to play locally on my Xbox One X when I want to with my progress saved of course.
The bottom line is that there are no silver bullets yet for the overall tech and the various networking setups and otherwise, but Xbox Game Pass is what is really going to make this a compelling option for alternative play options. I was able to try out Mark of the Ninja: Remastered on xCloud and get achievements through the first level or two, and I ended up buying the game digitally during the Black Friday sale to be able to play locally on my Xbox One X when I want to with my progress saved of course.
Majority of gamers aren't going to care...I say that because Xbox One S sells the most.
I have high hopes for xCloud.
The older I get the less time at home I have to game. But being able to play console games on my phone during my lunch break sounds like a great idea to me. My hope is that my current digital game library and Game Pass sub will allow me to play lots of games without having to buy into another ecosystem (just hope MS don't charge another fee for it and it's just included in Game Pass Ultimate).
I can understand the latency being an issue but I hope it will be fine for story based single player games like RPGs and action games. The video seemed promising on the latency front.
Also hope that with the next gen those games have a cloud option too.
The older I get the less time at home I have to game. But being able to play console games on my phone during my lunch break sounds like a great idea to me. My hope is that my current digital game library and Game Pass sub will allow me to play lots of games without having to buy into another ecosystem (just hope MS don't charge another fee for it and it's just included in Game Pass Ultimate).
I can understand the latency being an issue but I hope it will be fine for story based single player games like RPGs and action games. The video seemed promising on the latency front.
Also hope that with the next gen those games have a cloud option too.
Why would Microsoft and Google not be using low-latency tech that's a decade old?
Nice. Looking forward to trying it when it launches officially next year.