Digital Foundry: Project xCloud Beta Tested: Can Streaming Deliver A Handheld Xbox One Experience?

[Dreamwriter]

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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Total latency isn't a good measure, because the base console has latency itself, and different games will have different total latency - I mean, Assassins Creed Odyssey on a local Xbox One X has like 120ms latency between a button press and its visual response! So when that game has like 160ms on Stadia it means quite a different thing, the total number makes it sound horrible and like it's far worse than if you were comparing with Mortal Kombal 11, but the streaming service is only adding 40ms in this example. So if you want to talk about the latency added by the streaming tech, you gotta look at the difference between playing a game on local hardware and the same game on streaming hardware. And in that the three services are quite different.

 

[LCGeek]

Why would Microsoft and Google not be using low-latency tech that's a decade old?

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Can't speak for MS.

Google knows better but like docsis consortium is still iffy on implementing SQM that just works across the board when they need. They didn't do anything on sqm but somehow found time to implement their own udp tech which is old as sqm in to stadia.

Napi Polling should be on either platform period considering its built right in to it. The tech keeps your sockets open so that instead of closing or flipping betwen them ones that need stay open so your latency stays low. Why would you want this feature. In case the kernel is unable to handle all incoming packets, the kernel does not have to do any work in order to drop them: they are simply overwritten in the network card's incoming ring buffer. Without NAPI, the kernel has to handle every incoming packet regardless of whether there is time to service it, which leads to thrashing. You also are wasting cpu resource processing packets that are mostly likely useless especially in a real time game running in milliseconds on the low end. Linux is used in a bulk of network and it' seem logistically dumb in a instance with a strong cpu to approach latency backwards.

I'm more pissed that offload are still enabled across the board and weren't redesigned to better fit the stream platform or outright disabled. GRO and checksum need to go you can keep the rest as they won't affect it those two are notorius for fucking with latency which do they second you enable them.

Making a customized cloud based vpn network would be a pain for anyone.
Napi polling isn't easy to turn on.
SQM despite working, in their own instances may required hardware offloaded nat based SQM which only netgear Does on chips they work with.

Time and Talent the people who work on the subject of low latency and are good at, are rare in networking. Dave usually says from his own experience management or ignorance and he works for one of the big companies mentioned.

 

[RingRang]

People in other countries as was expressed in the video...

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This video goes into that. India is a country for example where most people have a phone, but not a game console.

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and those people have a desire for console gaming and unlimited amounts of high speed bandwidth at their disposal?

 

[zedox]

and those people have a desire for console gaming and unlimited amounts of high speed bandwidth at their disposal?

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This is hilarious.

 

[JaggedSac]

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!

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Your massive amount of bandwidth is largely irrelevant regarding latency in this case. Given the feed is only 720p60.

 

[RingRang]

This is hilarious.

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Is that an answer to my question?

 

[gofreak]

Total latency isn't a good measure, because the base console has latency itself, and different games will have different total latency - I mean, Assassins Creed Odyssey on a local Xbox One X has like 120ms latency between a button press and its visual response! So when that game has like 160ms on Stadia it means quite a different thing, the total number makes it sound horrible and like it's far worse than if you were comparing with Mortal Kombal 11, but the streaming service is only adding 40ms in this example. So if you want to talk about the latency added by the streaming tech, you gotta look at the difference between playing a game on local hardware and the same game on streaming hardware. And in that the three services are quite different.

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I'd grant that Stadia looks better in terms of additional latency, but the problem is, we can't really evaluate Stadia's rest-of-stack latency because we don't have its base latency to start with. We can only compare it to other console SKUs which may differ quite a lot on this front from the Stadia build, so 'additional latency' against another console sku might not be a totally fair point of comparison for just evaluating the latency of the streaming tech.

For example - Mortal Kombat 11's Xbox One X local latency is ~20ms higher than Ultra Street Fighter 4 latency on PS4. That suggests that maybe its input latency isn't/wasn't totally optimal vs other 60fps fighters. What if the Stadia build of Mortal Kombat 11 pared the local latency back by 20ms? That would put the 'rest of stack' latency closer to the 6x ms range observed in other services. What if a hypothetical Ultra Street Fighter 4 port to Stadia, already relatively optimal on other platforms, couldn't pare back the local latency further? Would there be the same improvement in 'additional latency' as in Mortal Kombat, vs Xbox One X?

That's why the absolute performance is kind of a more tempting metric, in that it's just simpler in the face of these questions and (imperfect) comparisons.

Being able to build a game from scratch with an eye on input latency for Stadia is a totally fair advantage, by the way, but it just might complicate calculation of 'real' latency added by the rest of the streaming stack vs other services.

 

[zedox]

Is that an answer to my question?

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No, because I would assume that you would common sense to answer that question on your own for why a business would try to enter that market instead of asking me.

 

[Swift_Gamer]

Wait so all 3 cloud streaming service have similar latency? Why was I reading many comments here that xcloud feels much better than Psnow

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Because people have do hate on something...

 

[Gestault]

From my xCloud time, I've had consistent fun with F1 2019, Tekken 7, KI, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Gears Ultimate felt better than Gears 5, for some reason.

I had the same experience as the article's mention of Halo 5 campaign feeling odd, while Shadow of the Tomb Raider worked well generally, with one additional wrinkle: I was able to play acceptably in Halo 5 Arena multiplayer. Definitely several notches below where I would normally perform, but it was good enough to be fun (and felt better than campaign). Frankly, I got slightly more "ego" points knowing all my kills were earned while at a disadvantage.

 

[digitalrelic]

IB

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Wait so all 3 cloud streaming service have similar latency? Why was I reading many comments here that xcloud feels much better than Psnow

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Because people have do hate on something...

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As others have pointed out, no, they don't have the same latency.

 

[RingRang]

No, because I would assume that you would common sense to answer that question on your own for why a business would try to enter that market instead of asking me.

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As I said in my initial statement on this matter, I just don't know where they're going to find all these customers who want to play console games, but can't be bothered to buy a console. Oh, and they also have the bandwidth speeds and cap to accommodate streaming games. Your only response to me thus far has been to mock and insult me that I just don't get it. Okay then.

 

[zedox]

As I said in my initial statement on this matter, I just don't know where they're going to find all these customers who want to play console games, but can't be bothered to buy a console. Oh, and they also have the bandwidth speeds and cap to accommodate streaming games. Your only response to me thus far has been to mock and insult me that I just don't get it. Okay then.

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Currently there are not any Xboxes sold in India...at all. Import costs are high. Consoles aren't cheap (unless you are some elitist ass person) A country with 1.3bn people in it and you think that there's no group of people that would want to play console gaming? That's why I laugh as that's common sense in itself with just the number of people in the country alone.

 

[VinylCassette64]

As others have pointed out, no, they don't have the same latency.

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....Huh? Wrong quote?

 

[Mr_DyZ]

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.

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People were shitting on Stadia because of the expectations Google set forth. Microsoft's product isn't a paid product right now. Stadia is making claims that can't be backed, all while offerring it up as a "premium" subscription service lol.

 

[Pryme]

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.

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If you don't see the difference between expectations for a free beta and a paid, released service, I'm not sure how you can be helped to understand why people were so down on Stadia.

 

[Fezan]

Majority of gamers aren't going to care...I say that because Xbox One S sells the most.

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They will care when you combine network latency with bad performance

 

[LavaBadger]

Majority of gamers aren't going to care...I say that because Xbox One S sells the most.

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The deficiencies of the S are also a lot less noticeable on a phone screen too. The only thing that I really notice still is load times.

 

[Fezan]

The deficiencies of the S are also a lot less noticeable on a phone screen too. The only thing that I really notice still is load times.

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So you won't notice when it will drop below 30fps and show even more latency

 

[Deleted member 20297]

I am still waiting on a report how much latency there is inherent to PSNow, Stadia and xcloud. This means how much latency is there if network latency is ruled out.
This is of course hard because even testing the same games on the three services does not mean you hit the same dc and even then you have the same network latency. But there is inherent latency with processing the input and recoding the game stream that is then sent back.
I hope someone will be able to do that in the future.

 

[Beer Monkey]

A good example of where we stand in 2019 with wireless WiFi streaming is local Oculus Quest with Virtual Desktop and ALVR.

1) The PC has HEVC encoding hardware on the GPU to generate the output stream.
2) The PC is wired directly into the user's 5ghz router.
3) The router is streaming directly to the Quest headset.

Yet try to play VR pinball with this solution versus USB 3.0 wired directly from the PC to the Quest (which is an android mobile device platform, just in a headset). WiFi can't match wired, plain and simple. The wireless latency is noticeable every time.

It isn't reasonable to expect any service to even equal the in-home Quest streaming with the PC wired straight to the router, let alone beat it. Not for the foreseeable future. Sure, the streaming host in the cloud can try to reduce latency by pulling video straight out of the back buffer, but the nearest Google and MS cloud data centers are still two frames away from my home.

 

[LavaBadger]

So you won't notice when it will drop below 30fps and show even more latency

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Yes, frame rate will still play a role, and games that suffer from bad framerates are still going to feel bad in person or over streaming. It's ultimately going to be hard in those cases to know what is the S and what is latency, and if they stack, it will feel worse (Which no doubt impacts the play of some of these games).

But resolution, texture quality, and other visual flair matters a lot less on a 5 inch screen.

This sort of thing definitely won't hold up when it comes to next gen games on the current hardware.

 

[Fredrik]

i don't believe you

everyone in the xcloud beta thread said its perfect and near exact response that they get normally

/s

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Because their wireless controller and TV and AVR adds latency that xCloud goes around by displaying and controlling the game on the same device.

Plus, turns out people don't actually care as much about latency as they thought they did when reading about it.

 

[Hoo-doo]

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.

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Who would have thought. The laws of physics remain unbroken.

People were genuinely in make-believe land about XCloud. All because it wasn't actually out yet compared to services that were.

 

[Chamon]

So it seems that both Stadia and XCloud are not so different from PS Now, that came years ago... Let's hope things get better

 

[zedox]

Who would have thought. The laws of physics remain unbroken.

People were genuinely in make-believe land about XCloud. All because it wasn't actually out yet compared to services that were.

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Nope, no make believe land. Still a good service and I do have a better experience with it than I do PSNow...Stadia, better graphics wise and input latency around the same. But ya know...I use these things.

 

[Deleted member 20297]

A good example of where we stand in 2019 with wireless WiFi streaming is local Oculus Quest with Virtual Desktop and ALVR.

1) The PC has HEVC encoding hardware on the GPU to generate the output stream.
2) The PC is wired directly into the user's 5ghz router.
3) The router is streaming directly to the Quest headset.

Yet try to play VR pinball with this solution versus USB 3.0 wired directly from the PC to the Quest (which is an android mobile device platform, just in a headset). WiFi can't match wired, plain and simple. The wireless latency is noticeable every time.

It isn't reasonable to expect any service to even equal the in-home Quest streaming with the PC wired straight to the router, let alone beat it. Not for the foreseeable future. Sure, the streaming host in the cloud can try to reduce latency by pulling video straight out of the back buffer, but the nearest Google and MS cloud data centers are still two frames away from my home.

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I tried streaming to my PC from my PS4, at home. All wired. There is noticable lag, even on the same layer2 so I think the actual encoding of the video is already inducing high latency.

 

[LCGeek]

Who would have thought. The laws of physics remain unbroken.

People were genuinely in make-believe land about XCloud. All because it wasn't actually out yet compared to services that were.

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Has nothing to do with physics unless you want get technicall about how you mean it. I will be very fair cause your being broad.

They are networks that weren't designed for low latency show me how they aim to be best then I will consider physics which only limits to 7ms per 1000 miles. The lag we are seeing isn't from that factor.

it's coming from routing, network processing and from people using wireless tech like wifi or bluetooth.

 

[Lowrys]

Can't speak for MS.

Google knows better but like docsis consortium is still iffy on implementing SQM that just works across the board when they need. They didn't do anything on sqm but somehow found time to implement their own udp tech which is old as sqm in to stadia.

Napi Polling should be on either platform period considering its built right in to it. The tech keeps your sockets open so that instead of closing or flipping betwen them ones that need stay open so your latency stays low. Why would you want this feature. In case the kernel is unable to handle all incoming packets, the kernel does not have to do any work in order to drop them: they are simply overwritten in the network card's incoming ring buffer. Without NAPI, the kernel has to handle every incoming packet regardless of whether there is time to service it, which leads to thrashing. You also are wasting cpu resource processing packets that are mostly likely useless especially in a real time game running in milliseconds on the low end. Linux is used in a bulk of network and it' seem logistically dumb in a instance with a strong cpu to approach latency backwards.

I'm more pissed that offload are still enabled across the board and weren't redesigned to better fit the stream platform or outright disabled. GRO and checksum need to go you can keep the rest as they won't affect it those two are notorius for fucking with latency which do they second you enable them.

Making a customized cloud based vpn network would be a pain for anyone.
Napi polling isn't easy to turn on.
SQM despite working, in their own instances may required hardware offloaded nat based SQM which only netgear Does on chips they work with.

Time and Talent the people who work on the subject of low latency and are good at, are rare in networking. Dave usually says from his own experience management or ignorance and he works for one of the big companies mentioned.

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Thanks for the detailed reply.

 

[Deleted member 20297]

Can't speak for MS.

Google knows better but like docsis consortium is still iffy on implementing SQM that just works across the board when they need. They didn't do anything on sqm but somehow found time to implement their own udp tech which is old as sqm in to stadia.

Napi Polling should be on either platform period considering its built right in to it. The tech keeps your sockets open so that instead of closing or flipping betwen them ones that need stay open so your latency stays low. Why would you want this feature. In case the kernel is unable to handle all incoming packets, the kernel does not have to do any work in order to drop them: they are simply overwritten in the network card's incoming ring buffer. Without NAPI, the kernel has to handle every incoming packet regardless of whether there is time to service it, which leads to thrashing. You also are wasting cpu resource processing packets that are mostly likely useless especially in a real time game running in milliseconds on the low end. Linux is used in a bulk of network and it' seem logistically dumb in a instance with a strong cpu to approach latency backwards.

I'm more pissed that offload are still enabled across the board and weren't redesigned to better fit the stream platform or outright disabled. GRO and checksum need to go you can keep the rest as they won't affect it those two are notorius for fucking with latency which do they second you enable them.

Making a customized cloud based vpn network would be a pain for anyone.
Napi polling isn't easy to turn on.
SQM despite working, in their own instances may required hardware offloaded nat based SQM which only netgear Does on chips they work with.

Time and Talent the people who work on the subject of low latency and are good at, are rare in networking. Dave usually says from his own experience management or ignorance and he works for one of the big companies mentioned.

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But that is only the server side. The client would also use low-latency tech for receiving the stream.
There is also DPDK which bypasses the kernel mechanisms more or less completely to feed network data directly to an application.
In any case, a crucial thing here is routing which relies on routing protocols which is very dependant on the network gear that your ISP uses and what MS/Google/"Gaikai" use.

 

[The Albatross]

I've been doing the console streaming portion of this and it's pretty decent. Sometimes hit or miss, but I usually do it for quick stuff like doing a quick 'Daily Challenge' in RD Online or something, not for truly "playing" th egame.

Also... AZZZRRREEEE

 

[LCGeek]

But that is only the server side. The client would also use low-latency tech for receiving the stream.
There is also DPDK which bypasses the kernel mechanisms more or less completely to feed network data directly to an application.
In any case, a crucial thing here is routing which relies on routing protocols which is very dependant on the network gear that your ISP uses and what MS/Google/"Gaikai" use.

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Some tech matters whether you receive or send.

DPDK is good solution, while we wait for XPD. Just it has drawbacks and while I'm not going to argue against really good processing speed it shows flaws when you need packet management. Toke said as much in his big paper.

While isps are a problem MS or Google can get rid of lot back end issues using a decent vpn solution to get to the isps. Currently from what I've seen or had shared to me we still have plenty of 3rd party routing that should be removed or lessened. A few years back using vpns for gaming was a no since improvements have been made it's very viable and takes care of certain routing problems that have no other better solution in theory. We have haste it's pathetic 2 big companies for a big streaming product would employ a crappy routing solution to otherwise solid OS or hardware decisions that do favor low latency or getting there.

I've mentioned routing ad nauseum in other threads related to these products. Its the No.1 issues even before we have to deal with packet management. I think you can find a little quote paraphrasing of me on the point of whoever gets a solid routing solutions first with a decent product will win in this area.

Good talking though not enough even know what DPDK is or why it's good.

 

[Deleted member 20297]

Some tech matters whether you receive or send.

DPDK is good solution, while we wait for XPD. Just it has drawbacks and while I'm not going to argue against really good processing speed it shows flaws when you need packet management. Toke said as much in his big paper.

While isps are a problem MS or Google can get rid of lot back end issues ensuring their custom vpn and isps are all that get in the way of routing. Currently from what I've seen or had shared to me we still have plenty of 3rd party routing that should be removed or lessened. A few years back using vpns for gaming was a no since improvements have been made it's very viable and takes care of certain routing problems that have no other better solution in theory. We have haste it's pathetic 2 big companies for a big streaming product would employ a crappy routing solution to otherwise solid OS or hardware decisions that do favor low latency or getting there.

I've mentioned routing ad nauseum in other threads related to these products. Its the No.1 issues even before we have to deal with packet management. I think you can find a little quote paraphrasing of me on the point of whoever gets a solid routing solutions first with a decent product will win in this area.

Good talking though not enough even know what DPDK is or why it's good.

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I also talked about it on that matter a lot in several threads ;) I think a solution would be private peering as much as possible when it comes to ISPs but often that costs but I know that some ISPs do that at least with Google which makes sense when you consider how much traffic goes into that route (literally ;)), especially when you consider that nowadays people listen to music on youtube...
But yeah, it's the number one issue in any case, there is only so much time to save on the other parts.

 

[cyrribrae]

I played and finished Ace Combat on xCloud and loved it - both WiFi and LTE. No issues besides when the internet cuts out a bit (very infrequent). I wonder how much latency is afforded by using my Bluetooth setup vs if we could wire the controller - I'll find out eventually I guess.

 

[LCGeek]

I also talked about it on that matter a lot in several threads ;) I think a solution would be private peering as much as possible when it comes to ISPs but often that costs but I know that some ISPs do that at least with Google which makes sense when you consider how much traffic goes into that route (literally ;)), especially when you consider that nowadays people listen to music on youtube...
But yeah, it's the number one issue in any case, there is only so much time to save on the other parts.

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We want the same thing just different implementations, the result would be the same to most.

Routing agreements have to be made peroid. More companies in gaming should coaslece around getting this done with various isps they will not grow up in networking until demands and services exist that force them too. Riot did this for LOL and it was huge to QOL why google and ms haven't is mind boggling or most other companies.

I feel other parts aren't worth saving if the basic paths to them are so garbage no packets can get through properly or in time.

 

[Prine]

So it seems that both Stadia and XCloud are not so different from PS Now, that came years ago... Let's hope things get better

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Not true, Stadia is better, Xcloud is still in beta so we cant use that as conclusive evidence. From my playthrough, ie Street fighter on PSNow vs Killer Instinct its night and day.

 

[Box]

No surprises here. Didn't Phil Spencer say just the other day that mainstream is years away?

 

[Pasha]

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.

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MS weren't the ones promising 4K60FPS and "negative latency" with xCloud, so any shit that Stadia was getting was their own fault.

 

[Deleted member 20297]

We want the same thing just different implementations, the result would be the same to most.

Routing agreements have to be made peroid. More companies in gaming should coaslece around getting this done with various isps they will not grow up in networking until demands and services exist that force them too. Riot did this for LOL and it was huge to QOL why google and ms haven't is mind boggling or most other companies.

I feel other parts aren't worth saving if the basic paths to them are so garbage no packets can get through properly or in time.

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Routing on the internet is still more or less best effort, besides some private agreements, sadly. Unless there are SLAs in place, game streaming will be a wild, varying experience.

 

[Beer Monkey]

I tried streaming to my PC from my PS4, at home. All wired. There is noticable lag, even on the same layer2 so I think the actual encoding of the video is already inducing high latency.

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Again, Oculus wired is good, but maybe PS4's encoding just isn't low latency in comparison to the PC GPUs.

 

[Dreamwriter]

I'd grant that Stadia looks better in terms of additional latency, but the problem is, we can't really evaluate Stadia's rest-of-stack latency because we don't have its base latency to start with. We can only compare it to other console SKUs which may differ quite a lot on this front from the Stadia build, so 'additional latency' against another console sku might not be a totally fair point of comparison for just evaluating the latency of the streaming tech.

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My point is, saying definitively that no streaming technological advances have been made, they are all exactly the same and we have apparently reached the limit in streaming technology, based on "the game had XXX total latency" doesn't make sense when a large part of that latency is from the game itself, unless you are comparing the exact same game on the different platforms.

 

[AngelOFDeath]

With the "Halo 5 feeling odd, Tomb Raider felt fine" this is how I feel in regards to PS Now when it comes down to PS3 games & PS4 games. PS3 games have a significant "this feels odd" type of lag to it, vs PS4 games which just feel fine, basically like if you're playing with Game Mode off. Some games you will feel it more than others that's for sure.

 

[LCGeek]

Routing on the internet is still more or less best effort, besides some private agreements, sadly. Unless there are SLAs in place, game streaming will be a wild, varying experience.

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Sadly.

It will continue to best effort till we packet manage properly. Cable companies are gonna be the only ones aiming for this in the future cause it's mandated in docsis. Which means until more people are on 5g or fiber, which won't resolve all routing problems but some basic ones we are in a crap shoot, though I don't feel I was arguing otherwise.

I believe in the tech cause of the technology but I've said it for a quite a few threads until we manage it well it produce the results we are seeing.

You know enough about dscp. So besides them not even managing packets on invididual basis they won't shuffle them in to flows that have a fixed amount of bandwidth vs one that allows anything possible to suck all the bandwidth cause the device doing so has no sqm or other bandwidth controls that are available or possible.

 

[Deleted member 20297]

Sadly.

It will continue to best effort till we packet manage properly. Cable companies are gonna be the only ones aiming for this in the future cause it's mandated in docsis. Which means until more people are on 5g or fiber, which won't resolve all routing problems but some basic ones we are in a crap shoot, though I don't feel I was arguing otherwise.

I believe in the tech cause of the technology but I've said it for a quite a few threads until we manage it well it produce the results we are seeing.

You know enough about dscp. So besides them not even managing packets on invididual basis they won't shuffle them in to flows that have a fixed amount of bandwidth vs one that allows anything possible to suck all the bandwidth cause the device doing so has no sqm or other bandwidth controls that are available or possible.

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ISPs do usually use dscp or better QOS and COS but usually they only split voice traffic and "other" (besides separating business customers from the peasants), for obvious reasons.

 

[LCGeek]

ISPs do usually use dscp or better QOS and COS but usually they only split voice traffic and "other" (besides separating business customers from the peasants), for obvious reasons.

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SQM does it fairly instead of only for consumers they chose. The irony of their current packet market strategy is that does little in fifo queue and if it were cake we would get better bandwidth utlilzation with latency across the board.

Sorry about what implied in the last post. Yes they do use DSCP but it might as be best effort with the queing mechanism they use. DSCP is mildly helpful on fifo buffers. Setting tons of client packets all marked for a queue that isn't suppose to be handling the data that would be incoming by seperating out the plebs won't fix the fact the queue is only processing so much and once it' full it doesn't do shit. Marking is a great strategy but not on a one lane street that is trying to play favorites with people.

There are posts on other forums about using SQM to make voice, gaming or udp traffic good and it's alarming how much better it is vs just packet marking and going fifo.

Dave taht and others have talked about how dangerous flawed of that strategy is in practice and how we all lose out. Again doesn't matter cause ISP can mismanage traffic create a bandwidth problem and earn plenty of free profit from it.

 

[gofreak]

My point is, saying definitively that no streaming technological advances have been made, they are all exactly the same and we have apparently reached the limit in streaming technology, based on "the game had XXX total latency" doesn't make sense when a large part of that latency is from the game itself, unless you are comparing the exact same game on the different platforms.

Click to shrink...

Well, I don't think I said quite all those things - especially about reaching the limit of streaming tech. I don't think we have - or if we have, i'm sure it's only for the moment. If I said 'no advances' or 'exactly the same' - let me qualify: no big leaps. For whatever contributors to latency make up the end experience, and for their variances across services, in the end they had a similarly laggy, or lag-free (depending on your point of view) experience with cloud gaming 2 years ago as they've measured this year with Stadia and xCloud. Back then they're absolute best experience was 118ms, this year it was 121ms. Back then they played a fighting game off the cloud with more or less the same overall responsiveness as a fighting game they tested this year off the cloud. I know these are different games with different pipelines, but I think it's noteworthy enough, given some of the hype previously, that the overall bar wasn't pushed up so much - at least for DF, here.

That doesn't mean it's the same for everyone, it doesn't mean that there haven't been some advances in individual components or that some things are to some degree or another 'better' now, or that these services aren't better than others on one front or another. Especially when it comes to - e.g. - game builds that go for optimised input latency from the beginning, or higher framerate, or both, in the case of something like Stadia, where specific builds are possible. But for some of the hype I saw previously (e.g. single-digit additional latency), the evidence in this DF testing at least isn't there for that idea of a breakthrough leap in latency this year. Whether it's 40 or 50 or 60ms of additional latency, these are all quite a bit more in the same ballpark than the e.g. 4ms being touted from some controlled previews.

 

[Deleted member 4552]

You cannot get rid of latency.

You can make a billion server locations to cut it down

You can implement some sort of Rollback netcode with super advance input input prediction to guess what the player will do, but it will be sometimes wrong or a packet gets dropped and have to rollback

Game streaming will always be compromised in one way or another because physics and economics exist.

 

[Prine]

You cannot get rid of latency.

You can make a billion server locations to cut it down

You can implement some sort of Rollback netcode with super advance input input prediction to guess what the player will do, but it will be sometimes wrong or a packet gets dropped and have to rollback

Game streaming will always be compromised in one way or another because physics and economics exist.

Click to shrink...

There's local latency that Rich spoke of that can be addressed, but yep, your broadly right. But perceptively, they can get it to the point you don't end up being offended by it, which is what I think they will go for, because the idea of having an Xbox, with all its features, all its games, friends list, saves etc in your pocket might be a good enough of a proposition to accept some of the current issues re streaming. Plenty of games will not be disrupted by it.

 

[Deleted member 4552]

There's local latency that Rich spoke of that can be addressed, but yep, your broadly right. But perceptively, they can get it to the point you don't end up being offended by it, which is what I think they will go for, because the idea of having an Xbox, with all its features, all its games, friends list, saves etc in your pocket might be a good enough of a proposition to accept the slight hit to performance.

Click to shrink...

So I think they key is as an additive service not a replacement.

 

[LCGeek]

You cannot get rid of latency.

Click to shrink...

Considering what it is you will always have some, unlike google you can't have negative latency since it's inherently a measure of delay.

You can make a billion server locations to cut it down

You can implement some sort of Rollback netcode with super advance input input prediction to guess what the player will do, but it will be sometimes wrong or a packet gets dropped and have to rollback

Game streaming will always be compromised in one way or another because physics and economics exist.

Click to shrink...

Everytime I hear that word applied without a specificity I will show up in these topics.

7ms for 1000miles. You don't need billions of data servers just dozens or hundred in well placed spots. Not hard considering we have billions of networking devices out there.

For some the compromise and struggle to get there is worth it. You clearly don't feel it is so I'm wondering where all your points really lead to even if they are factually correct.

offline games will always be compromised by low level OS functions doesn't mean I stop playing games.