• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Priject xCloud gets upgrade to Xbox Series X



Currently the Project X Cloud uses Xbox One S Blades, but in 2021 they will be upgraded to Xbox Series X. Which means people who use Project X Cloud will get Xbox Series X quality on to their phones and mobile devices and/or whatever you use.

So if your phone is able to display 4K resolution and has HDR, you will be able too see experience these things along with ray tracing and all that good stuff.

As someone who has been using Project x Cloud on my android phone for quite a few months now, I am super excited for this. Genius strategy and this is where Microsoft will shine for many consumers, mostly casuals though. This is basically Xbox's version of handheld gaming/switch.

The only question remains is how much bandwidth will that be taking up and so on. Right now I can stream really smoothly on a 5G wifi network without any hitches with silly smooth 60fps at 1080p. Either way, technology moves on and this is the right thing to do imo.
 
Last edited:
This was always the plan so not really news worthy. As for streaming a 4K HDR stream to a phone over data/ wifi, Good luck to anyone expecting that to be smooth.

I would have to assume that means they will move from 720p to 1080p.

When streaming to mobile devices I'd bet they would keep the option for 720p in just for performance sake. Not everyone if going to push a stable 1080p stream.
 
Last edited:

Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
This was always the plan so not really news worthy. As for streaming a 4K HDR stream to a phone over data/ wifi, Good luck to anyone expecting that to be smooth.



When streaming to mobile devices I'd bet they would keep the option for 720p in just for performance sake. Not everyone if going to push a stable 1080p stream.

Fair enough. I would likely keep it at 720 for that reason as my home conenction is only 30 megs. But on the console front if they want to start having people stream games to a TV, 720P aint gonna cut it.
 
This was always the plan so not really news worthy. As for streaming a 4K HDR stream to a phone over data/ wifi, Good luck to anyone expecting that to be smooth.



When streaming to mobile devices I'd bet they would keep the option for 720p in just for performance sake. Not everyone if going to push a stable 1080p stream.

It is actually getting pretty close to feasible. I have Verizon Fios and am able to stream Stadia at 1440p.
 

48086

Member
I have the beta on iphone and I wasn't really impressed. Connected to wifi, I was still able to easily notice input lag. Hopefully the xsx will help with that.
 

Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
I have the beta on iphone and I wasn't really impressed. Connected to wifi, I was still able to easily notice input lag. Hopefully the xsx will help with that.

You are never going to be able to remove the input lag. Thats not really a goal of xloud or any streaming service. Reduce it yes, eliminate it no.
 

Andodalf

Banned
I think people are misunderstanding what this means. MS has already talked about using XSX for Xcloud, which is why it has ECC ram, but it’s not to run XSX games, it’s to run 4 XOS instances at once. They said that very early on
 
I have the beta on iphone and I wasn't really impressed. Connected to wifi, I was still able to easily notice input lag. Hopefully the xsx will help with that.

You need to be connected to 5G wifi to reduce it more. I played DMC 5 and had no issues.
 
Last edited:

48086

Member
You are never going to be able to remove the input lag. Thats not really a goal of xloud or any streaming service. Reduce it yes, eliminate it no.

I didn't say eliminate. When I tried it a month or so ago, the input lag was extremely noticeable on mobile. And yes, casuals would notice. It's a cool service but they have a ways to go.
 

-Arcadia-

Banned
Yeah, I'm fine with keeping it at 720p, so that the game runs as smooth as it can + my cell phone data doesn't get nuked.

It's good to know that around the time Series X exclusives will be appearing, it'll be possible to play them this way. One wonders if that's part of the reason behind things being cross-gen in the first year.
 

Andodalf

Banned
Here’s the initial DF article with the specs talking about this

“The exact same Series X processor is used in the Project Scarlett cloud servers that'll replace the Xbox One S-based xCloud models currenly being used. For this purpose, AMD built in EEC error correction for GDDR6 with no performance penalty (there is actually no such thing as EEC-compatible G6, so AMD and Microsoft are rolling their own solution), while virtualisation features are also included. And this leads us on to our first mic-drop moment: the Series X processor is actually capable of running four Xbox One S game sessions simultaneously on the same chip, and contains an new internal video encoder that is six times as fast as the more latent, external encoder used on current xCloud servers.”


XSX hardware in Xcloud is NOT XSX gameplay on Xcloud
 
  • Like
Reactions: JLB

Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
I didn't say eliminate. When I tried it a month or so ago, the input lag was extremely noticeable on mobile. And yes, casuals would notice. It's a cool service but they have a ways to go.
Nobody said casuals wouldn't notice? the input lag is isnt going to be reduced much farther in all likelihood(it will go down for sure but its never going to be as good as a controller native) but its not in any way bad enough to not be playable. I played Shadow of the tomb raider half on xcloud and half on native one x and with the input lag it was still more than playable. If you are having massive input lag spikes it would come down to either the device or the app not playing nice with something.
 
Last edited:

geordiemp

Member
I think people are misunderstanding what this means. MS has already talked about using XSX for Xcloud, which is why it has ECC ram, but it’s not to run XSX games, it’s to run 4 XOS instances at once. They said that very early on

So if your streaming, do you get a whole XSX running the game per gamer.... or does it give you 1/4 of its resources ?
 

48086

Member
Nobody said casuals wouldn't notice? the input lag is isnt going to be reduced much farther in all likelihood(it will go down for sure but its never going to be as good as a controller native) but its not in any way bad enough to not be playable. I played Shadow of the tomb raider half on xcloud and half on native one x and with the input lag it was still more than playable. If you are having massive input lag spikes it would come down to either the device or the app not playing nice with something.

Like I said, I was on a 400mbps down connect and using an iPhone 11 Pro. Nothing wrong with the device or connection. I also wasn't having massive input lag spikes. Playing Halo and Forza there was a noticeable amount of input lag. Much more so than when I tried Project Stream which had virtually no input lag.
 
Last edited:

Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
Like I said, I was on a 400mbps down connect and using an iPhone 11 Pro. Nothing wrong with the device or connection. I also wasn't having massive input lag spikes. Playing Halo and Forza there was a noticeable amount of input lag. Much more so than when I tried Project Stream which had virtually no input lag.

OK and I didn't experience that. Where as with stadia free trial I couldn't get it to stop lagging every 3 seconds. So clearly there is something else at play. Where the data center is, app compatibility being better with some phones or the other etc.

No one is blaming your hardware.
 

JLB

Banned
Here’s the initial DF article with the specs talking about this

“The exact same Series X processor is used in the Project Scarlett cloud servers that'll replace the Xbox One S-based xCloud models currenly being used. For this purpose, AMD built in EEC error correction for GDDR6 with no performance penalty (there is actually no such thing as EEC-compatible G6, so AMD and Microsoft are rolling their own solution), while virtualisation features are also included. And this leads us on to our first mic-drop moment: the Series X processor is actually capable of running four Xbox One S game sessions simultaneously on the same chip, and contains an new internal video encoder that is six times as fast as the more latent, external encoder used on current xCloud servers.”


XSX hardware in Xcloud is NOT XSX gameplay on Xcloud

Good point, although Its kind of a given that xloud will run XSX games eventually.
 

48086

Member
OK and I didn't experience that. Where as with stadia free trial I couldn't get it to stop lagging every 3 seconds. So clearly there is something else at play. Where the data center is, app compatibility being better with some phones or the other etc.

No one is blaming your hardware.

Lol, why are you being so defensive? Xcloud is still in beta. It's fine it has issues.
 

SpartanN92

Banned
If Xcloud didn’t run like ass where I live then I’d be a bit more excited.

100down/10up 5Ghz on a Galaxy Note 10
 
Last edited:

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Performant streaming is more an issue of latency rather than bandwidth. That said, xCloud has greatly improved over the past 6 months. Not quite up to the level of GeForce Now, but still very much playable. It could be useful on PC and console for quick launching games that aren't installed, so you can jump right in and play without sitting through a massive download through the not-always-great MS Store.
 

MarkMe2525

Member
I have the beta on iphone and I wasn't really impressed. Connected to wifi, I was still able to easily notice input lag. Hopefully the xsx will help with that.
I live in rural Mississippi and have had fantastic experiences with xcloud on Verizon LTE and wifi here. I will say racing games have never felt right and I had issues countering moves in WWE 2k20 so input lag is real. Most games though do work as intended and are impressive. I do find myself consciously only playing games that don't require sub 4-5 frame reaction times. Like you were saying too, if the series x can run these games at notably higher frame rates that may mitigate some of the lag.
 
Top Bottom