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[sonomamashine]

"GRID is, by and far, one of the best times I've had with a racing game. Thanks to a great mixture of arcade and simulation, with a wide variety of options to let you cater the game to you, it's suitable for everybody. Not only that, thanks to the nemesis system and AI race-master, as well as the 400 unique AI personalities within the game, each and every race genuinely feels different. Simply put, GRID looks, sounds and plays great and is arguably the best all-around game from Codemasters."

Now, GRID is about to release on Google Stadia as well. Even though it won't be among the initial twelve launch titles available to Stadia Pro subscribers on November 19th, it's still due to hit before the end of the year according to the latest update.

With Google's cloud-only streaming platform due next week, we were able to briefly talk to Mark Green, Development Director for GRID at Codemasters, about the game's porting process.

How was your experience with Google Stadia? What would you say are the main differences compared to developing for a console or PC?

Development on any new hardware is always equal parts exciting and interesting. Perhaps the area with the biggest difference was the streaming, but also the ability of Stadia to talk to other Stadia so quickly transforms some ideas around multiplayer – for example developing a whole new mode for GRID Stadia which has 40 cars on track at the same time, something that just isn’t possible with other hardware.

What's the biggest surprise you had during the whole process?
Probably that Google were able to deliver on what they promised – I mean racing games are particularly sensitive to controller lag and yet I can’t feel any when playing on Stadia, the experience is fantastic.

How does GRID compare when played on Stadia to a PC running the game at max settings?

I’d say it is very similar – it looks beautiful and runs smoothly in 4K!

Google stated its interest in enabling cross-play for as many games as possible. Are you looking into adding cross-play to GRID between Stadia and other platforms (PC, PS4, XB1)?

We’re always interested in bringing people together to play our games and it’s something we want to do more of in the future, but I can’t promise if/when this might happen for GRID.

Google also discussed the possibility of exploiting elastic compute/rendering to deliver much better world simulations in games. What do you think about this potential opportunity for developers?

I think it sounds fantastic. Personally, I love open world games and the idea of making these even more immersive is great. With our 40-car mode, we’ve probably only just scratched the surface of what Stadia is capable of and I’d love to have more time with the Designers and Programmers looking at just how they can utilise the extra power.

Overall, would you consider Stadia as next-gen as the upcoming consoles from Sony and Microsoft?

New hardware always gets us excited, it doesn’t matter whether it’s local or remote, and we know we can rely on all the platform holders to come up with amazing new abilities which designers will hungrily try to understand and use them to create great new features within games. Focussing on Stadia, I think their integration with YouTube may prove to be a masterstroke, leading us to new ways to interact with games.

Lol imagine playing that 40 cars mode, the lag, teleporting mess, crashes, why would you do that ?

 

[ljubomir]

Lol imagine playing that 40 cars mode, the lag, teleporting mess, crashes, why would you do that ?

Why would it be a teleporting mess? One (and almost only) advantage Stadia has over traditional gaming is that all servers could be on the same network. In terms of multiplayer performance that could be quite refreshing. Imagine a session of counter strike where everyone has a <1ms lag.

 

[cookiemuffin]

lol 1ms lag. maybe if all the players are in stadia's server room.

 

[TheAdmiester]

It would indeed be 1ms *network lag* as every client is running on the server while speaking to the same server. The rub is that there’s still plenty of display lag, as the results still have to be sent across the Internet back to your screen.

 

[JCK75]

"GRID is, by and far, one of the best times I've had with a racing game. Thanks to a great mixture of arcade and simulation, with a wide variety of options to let you cater the game to you, it's suitable for everybody. Not only that, thanks to the nemesis system and AI race-master, as well as the 400 unique AI personalities within the game, each and every race genuinely feels different. Simply put, GRID looks, sounds and plays great and is arguably the best all-around game from Codemasters."

Now, GRID is about to release on Google Stadia as well. Even though it won't be among the initial twelve launch titles available to Stadia Pro subscribers on November 19th, it's still due to hit before the end of the year according to the latest update.

With Google's cloud-only streaming platform due next week, we were able to briefly talk to Mark Green, Development Director for GRID at Codemasters, about the game's porting process.

How was your experience with Google Stadia? What would you say are the main differences compared to developing for a console or PC?

Development on any new hardware is always equal parts exciting and interesting. Perhaps the area with the biggest difference was the streaming, but also the ability of Stadia to talk to other Stadia so quickly transforms some ideas around multiplayer – for example developing a whole new mode for GRID Stadia which has 40 cars on track at the same time, something that just isn’t possible with other hardware.

What's the biggest surprise you had during the whole process?
Probably that Google were able to deliver on what they promised – I mean racing games are particularly sensitive to controller lag and yet I can’t feel any when playing on Stadia, the experience is fantastic.

How does GRID compare when played on Stadia to a PC running the game at max settings?

I’d say it is very similar – it looks beautiful and runs smoothly in 4K!

Google stated its interest in enabling cross-play for as many games as possible. Are you looking into adding cross-play to GRID between Stadia and other platforms (PC, PS4, XB1)?

We’re always interested in bringing people together to play our games and it’s something we want to do more of in the future, but I can’t promise if/when this might happen for GRID.

Google also discussed the possibility of exploiting elastic compute/rendering to deliver much better world simulations in games. What do you think about this potential opportunity for developers?

I think it sounds fantastic. Personally, I love open world games and the idea of making these even more immersive is great. With our 40-car mode, we’ve probably only just scratched the surface of what Stadia is capable of and I’d love to have more time with the Designers and Programmers looking at just how they can utilise the extra power.

Overall, would you consider Stadia as next-gen as the upcoming consoles from Sony and Microsoft?

New hardware always gets us excited, it doesn’t matter whether it’s local or remote, and we know we can rely on all the platform holders to come up with amazing new abilities which designers will hungrily try to understand and use them to create great new features within games. Focussing on Stadia, I think their integration with YouTube may prove to be a masterstroke, leading us to new ways to interact with games.

Lol imagine playing that 40 cars mode, the lag, teleporting mess, crashes, why would you do that ?

Can you imagine how terrible driving those big iron horses is going to be? I mean you have to find crazy fuel sources , not like my trusty mule here.. some corn and water and she's good to go.

 

[Virex]

Why would it be a teleporting mess? One (and almost only) advantage Stadia has over traditional gaming is that all servers could be on the same network. In terms of multiplayer performance that could be quite refreshing. Imagine a session of counter strike where everyone has a <1ms lag.

 

[Tesseract]

the problem is we're not yet in that 5g world, but once we are i mostly agree with all of what google is trying to accomplish with stadia

 

[Trimesh]

the problem is we're not yet in that 5g world, but once we are i mostly agree with all of what google is trying to accomplish with stadia

I would heavily temper your expectations for 5G. The latency numbers that are being thrown about that look so impressive are based either on D2D mode or in some cases on two devices connected to the same mm wave cell - I.E. they are cherry picked best case conditions that don't represent the operating conditions you can expect in the real world. What will happen in practice is that your signal will have to cross the network backhaul to the nearest switch and then get gatewayed to the Internet where it's subject to normal routing delays.
Note that this is true even if the network is running an IP based backhaul - in most cases, even using the same switch since the typical telco approach is just to send irrespective of protocol into a big MPLS and just let the switch figure out where it has to go and how the data needs to be transformed in order to be usable by the target network.

 

[Tesseract]

I would heavily temper your expectations for 5G. The latency numbers that are being thrown about that look so impressive are based either on D2D mode or in some cases on two devices connected to the same mm wave cell - I.E. they are cherry picked best case conditions that don't represent the operating conditions you can expect in the real world. What will happen in practice is that your signal will have to cross the network backhaul to the nearest switch and then get gatewayed to the Internet where it's subject to normal routing delays.
Note that this is true even if the network is running an IP based backhaul - in most cases, even using the same switch since the typical telco approach is just to send irrespective of protocol into a big MPLS and just let the switch figure out where it has to go and how the data needs to be transformed in order to be usable by the target network.

no doubt, i've echoed these thoughts in other threads

 

[ljubomir]

It would indeed be 1ms *network lag* as every client is running on the server while speaking to the same server. The rub is that there’s still plenty of display lag, as the results still have to be sent across the Internet back to your screen.

As you've pointed out, there's no fixin' around display and input lag, that's inherent to the streaming technology. But it has nothing to do with rubberbanding or teleporting, as many people here mistakenly assume, like Virex who apparently does not know what network latency is. I'm really skeptical that Stadia can deliver acceptable performance to the masses, but dismissing the multiplayer potential with low latency private networks is just silly.

 

[Virex]

As you've pointed out, there's no fixin' around display and input lag, that's inherent to the streaming technology. But it has nothing to do with rubberbanding or teleporting, as many people here mistakenly assume, like Virex who apparently does not know what network latency is. I'm really skeptical that Stadia can deliver acceptable performance to the masses, but dismissing the multiplayer potential with low latency private networks is just silly.

 

[vkbest]

Why would it be a teleporting mess? One (and almost only) advantage Stadia has over traditional gaming is that all servers could be on the same network. In terms of multiplayer performance that could be quite refreshing. Imagine a session of counter strike where everyone has a <1ms lag.

I don't believe that. A French or Spanish guy shouldn't be connected to the same server that a British guy on a service such as this, where latency is the key.

 

[LostDonkey]

 

[Cattlyst]

I don't really understand the point of Stadia. If you want to play games while you're at home, just use a console or your PC...if you want to play games while travelling use a Switch, Apple Arcade or a Vita or something? Stadia seems - to me at least - dead on arrival.

 

[SleepDoctor]

Cant wait for this trash to flop.

Paying for a subscription to a service where you still have to buy the games you don't even own and its all streamed. Perfect recipe for disaster.

 

[junguler]

cringe is right, stadia will likely fail but google doesn't care. they have the money to burn. i don't blame developers for taking free money from these assholes tho, milk them as much as you can.

 

[xrnzaaas]

cringe is right, stadia will likely fail but google doesn't care. they have the money to burn. i don't blame developers for taking free money from these assholes tho, milk them as much as you can.

Codemasters really need that extra money, their games have been selling worse and they don't have enough funds to create a next-gen engine from scratch.

 

[joe_zazen]

God i hate pr speak...so disingenuous.

 

[Ban Puncher]

 

[small_law]

I don't really understand the point of Stadia. If you want to play games while you're at home, just use a console or your PC...if you want to play games while travelling use a Switch, Apple Arcade or a Vita or something? Stadia seems - to me at least - dead on arrival.

I'm not going to lie. The only reason I signed up for Stadia is to play Destiny 2 anywhere. That's pretty much it.

 

[Cattlyst]

I'm not going to lie. The only reason I signed up for Stadia is to play Destiny 2 anywhere. That's pretty much it.

That's fair enough, will be interesting to see how Stadia performs (in terms of take up and actual performance)

 

[JCK75]

Cant wait for this trash to flop.

Paying for a subscription to a service where you still have to buy the games you don't even own and its all streamed. Perfect recipe for disaster.

You don't...
You have to pay for the increased CPU/GPU and Network Bandwidth of running games at 4K 60fps, 1080P is free, There are people who use Shadow game streaming which you have to own the games you play, it's $35 a month which I guess seemed like a solid price over buying a gaming PC or something.. buying a game to play at 1080P at no extra charge with all of the costs to go into operating a streaming service is absolutely bonkers (in a good way). When I question it's viability it's only because I don't know how they can afford to keep something like this afloat if they are only charging 4K gamers and only asking $9 a month.

 

[BusierDonkey]

Nothing I want more in a fast-paced arcade racing game than latency and streaming artifacts. Sounds like a winner to me.

I stream my Xbone to my PC over 12 feet and still get hiccups and artifacts. Google can't deliver me a 4K/60 YouTube video over my 600Mb/s+ connection that isn't full of artifacts, But I'm supposed to believe games will be latency-free and look as good as games my PC runs locally?

 

[Heebie Jeebies]

The number of cars on track is irrelevant. You could have 10 cars, 40 cars, the amount of cars that you will race against wheel to wheel will be usually just be a handful, the rest you won't see apart from the beginning, or unless the field has a skill imbalance. Where 40 cars would be cool is a destruction derby arena, not on Imola.

 

[Bladed Thesis]

Remember when the Stadia announcement streaming on YouTube lagged? That was great.

 

[daninthemix]

Why you so threatened by Stadia OP?

 

[small_law]

That's fair enough, will be interesting to see how Stadia performs (in terms of take up and actual performance)

That's one of the things I'm interested in seeing, especially how they handle Destiny 2's network infrastructure. On consoles at least, game instances are peer to peer connections. That doesn't seem like a thing you would do with a service like Stadia, but I'm not sure. I want to see how they handle it.

 

[sonomamashine]

Cant wait for this trash to flop.

Paying for a subscription to a service where you still have to buy the games you don't even own and its all streamed. Perfect recipe for disaster.

cringe is right, stadia will likely fail but google doesn't care. they have the money to burn. i don't blame developers for taking free money from these assholes tho, milk them as much as you can.

It wont flop, people play games on a smartphone for god sake, this is targeted to "youtubers" fans, and will sell.

Why you so threatened by Stadia OP?

I'm not, just talking about the 40 cars argument that don't make sense to me.

 

[SleepDoctor]

It wont flop, people play games on a smartphone for god sake, this is targeted to "youtubers" fans, and will sell.



I'm not, just talking about the 40 cars argument that don't make sense to me.

Hasn't been doing so good. Playing on your smartphone is one thing but the business practice of paying a subscription and still paying full price for games you don't own, and still don't compare to their console counterparts is another thing.

We're not talking about Cod mobile, pubg mobile, or any other f2p game where spending money is optional.

Streaming is still years away imo.