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[Lort]

Project Xcloud demo of Halo 5 nearly indistinguishable from local play

Only a few ms of additional input latency when streaming to a smartphone.

arstechnica.com

Thats some surprisingly great results and if thats how it runs at retail noone will be complaining about latency.

 

[xStoyax]

Are we gonna ignore all the reports of noticeable lag and artifacting at E3 hands on? We gonna act as if they didn't have the phones connected with an Ethernet adapter & bypassed bluetooth? Because you know i'm sure everyone in real world settings will be using their phones using the built in ethernet ports on the trains & buses.

Sorry if i'm a bit skeptical, I just so happen to remember the last time Microshills bragged about the power of the cloud was when we saw 100% destruction in Crackdown 3 that got downgraded by 1000%

 

[SlashBringingHasher]

nah i want to own my games

 

[Lort]

Are we gonna ignore all the reports of noticeable lag and artifacting at E3 hands on? We gonna act as if they didn't have the phones connected with an Ethernet adapter & bypassed bluetooth? Because you know i'm sure everyone in real world settings will be using their phones using the built in ethernet ports on the trains & buses.

Sorry if i'm a bit skeptical, I just so happen to remember the last time Microshills bragged about the power of the cloud was when we saw 100% destruction in Crackdown 3 that got downgraded by 1000%

You can clearly see in the photo the only thing plugged into the usb port is the controller so its Wifi.. and there were plenty of reports about how awesome it was. The video clearly shows that latency that Artstechnica is claiming.

Try clicking the link next time.. thats what its there for.

 

[Mattyp]

Are we gonna ignore all the reports of noticeable lag and artifacting at E3 hands on? We gonna act as if they didn't have the phones connected with an Ethernet adapter & bypassed bluetooth? Because you know i'm sure everyone in real world settings will be using their phones using the built in ethernet ports on the trains & buses.

To fair the amount of traffic at E3 on the network would be insane. Surprised they where running on wifi at all, even then the dedicated hardline into e3 would be saturated as well.

Think when you go to a music festival and you can’t even send a message from the amount of traffic.

Would wait for real word mobile tests without 50,000 people all online in one building. Never mind the cherry picking of people who used it and reported on it.

I’ll never use it, but options for those who will and all.

 

[GreatnessRD]

Nah, I'm good. Gotta be streaming a game and then decide to click on the multiplayer function? lol, good luck with that garbage.

Man #freemyconsoles

 

[Pallas]

I would consider it as a option, it wouldn’t be my go to way of gaming though. It’s certainly looking more promising than Google’s Stadia currently.

 

[STEaMkb]

nm

 

[TLZ]

Lag, and too much data.

Won't work.

 

[Stilton Disco]

There's no way in hell my village will ever be close enough to a data centre for lag to not be incredibly noticable, even ignoring how much worse streamed image quality is and how my broadband only got upgraded enough to handle 1080p video streaming last year, and unreliabley at that.

Maybe this is the future of gaming for some, but it's just not viable as an option for me. And that's without even touching the bollocks surrounding game ownership.

 

[Mista]

No. I’m not against it because of the latency alone. I’m against it because I like to own my games and also if a server outrage happens I won’t be able to play “my games” so that’s a big no for me. I’m not going to be under the mercy of a server

 

[Kokonoe]

I feel like I'll use streaming but not as a replacement. More so as a option for like say playing in bed.

 

[Quezacolt]

No, even if everything else worked fine, i won't give up on owning my games. It's the reason why i don'y care about paying for PS+, or Game Pass.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

Project Xcloud demo of Halo 5 nearly indistinguishable from local play

Only a few ms of additional input latency when streaming to a smartphone.

arstechnica.com

Thats some surprisingly great results and if thats how it runs at retail noone will be complaining about latency.

The issue from the very beginning, is "why"?
Why stream games?

And no, it isn't cheaper. Not by a mile. Stadia had just revealed that there is no financal savings whatsoever for buying Stadia games. You end up buying games at full price, AND paying a sub, AND lose all the games you paid for when you stop subscribing.

So what exactly are you getting out of it in return? What is the purpose? If it isn't actually superior in gameplay, AND it costs more, what good is it?

 

[Armorian]

Good lag in controlled conditions of E3? Yeahh....

I live in central Poland so the closest azure region is ~400km from my location.

 

[FeldMonster]

The ability to play the games I already own and play almost every day (Halo 5, Destiny 2, TitanFall 2), while I travel for work or while I am on vacation and can't bring my X with me? I wanted to sign up the moment it was announced. Who wouldn't? I will play locally at home, and via streaming when I am not.

As for how much I would be willing to pay? $9.99 per month seems fair. $4.99 would be ideal. $19.99 I would have to think about it, but as there aren't really alternatives I would probably still sign up.

 

[DanielsM]

Either way it will cost more and you won't own the box even though you are paying for the box.

 

[mejin]

In 2013, MS tried to make the whole gaming community as a big sucker. They are just trying again.

 

[Pidull]

If Friends and The Office getting removed from Netflix has taught me anything, it's that the digital streaming future is shit.

Thankfully, I foresaw this happening with those shows and have been securing physical media for a while now. I don't see that being an option to fall back on with games.

Even now with patches, games are like if you bought a DVD of season of a TV show, but it only came with 9 episodes, the 10th one you had to download (along with superior edits of other episodes with missing scenes).

I don't want access, I want fluid ownership.

 

[HeresJohnny]

If a salesman came to my house and told me his product was almost or merely as good as the product I already had, what would I need his for?

You guys keep forgetting that you need to make the case for streaming. We don’t have to make the case for keeping the established norm. The downsides still vastly outweigh the positives and (most) of the public knows it according to polls. It’s like you’re coming out with a controller that you use your feet to play and informing us smugly that “it’s the future.” Just because you could doesn’t mean you should, and there are those of us who know the real positives are for the power players in the industry who want to control content and kill the used game business. They have their little bitches going around like surrogates trying to convince everyone how they need this, completely ignoring that if it was something we needed, it wouldn’t have to be explained. It would be obvious to everyone.

 

[Masatshi]

nope, never, if there is ANY latency...

 

[quest]

In 2013, MS tried to make the whole gaming community as a big sucker. They are just trying again.

Fan boys are the best you know who the industry leader in streaming is?

 

[Mistershine.]

Either way it will cost more and you won't own the box even though you are paying for the box.

And if the rumour of it being included gamepass ultimate is true?

 

[DanielsM]

And if the rumour of it being included gamepass ultimate is true?

It eventually has to be paid for, there is no magic. The box or even virtual box has to be paid for and maintained, this is generally going to cost more, but best case is its even in cost but at the end of the term, you own one and the other one you don't.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

It eventually has to be paid for, there is no magic. The box or even virtual box has to be paid for and maintained, this is generally going to cost more, but best case is its even in cost but at the end of the term, you own one and the other one you don't.

I just realized something; that even though who support game streaming, admit that they wouldn't pay extra for the privilege.

That game streaming is agreed by both sides to be inferior to owning a console and running it locally. It's just that streaming supporters argue that it would be cheaper so it is okay.

But if Streaming is so good and "the future", why would you need it to be cheaper? Virtual Reality advocates openly admit to paying more because they want better experiences that flat games don't offer. No VR advicates suggest that VR games should be cheaper than flat games.

So why are Streaming advocates wanting their services to be cheaper? The same reason people wnt the Xbox1S All Digital to be cheaper; we are all in agreement that game streaming is the inferior way to play, and as such no one really think it is workable to also make it more expensive.

And yet, reality is that game streaming is expensive to run. Regardless of being a lesser game platform, it none the less, cost more.

 

[ethomaz]

It is worked pretty bad in controlled environment.
Imagine how it will be on your home lol

There is no surprise here... the service has it purpose but the experience playing is sub par.

 

[Clear]

Inevitably performance is going to fluctuate based on variances in local signal strength and bandwidth contention. Essentially its the same achilles heel as Kinect, when it works, it works great. But, when conditions aren't ideal the experience suffers, and that's basically the kiss of death.

Its like somebody handing you a game controller and saying "it works great, most of the time". It just doesn't fly because you want absolute reliability in gaming for obvious reasons.

 

[DanielsM]

I just realized something; that even though who support game streaming, admit that they wouldn't pay extra for the privilege.

That game streaming is agreed by both sides to be inferior to owning a console and running it locally. It's just that streaming supporters argue that it would be cheaper so it is okay.

But if Streaming is so good and "the future", why would you need it to be cheaper? Virtual Reality advocates openly admit to paying more because they want better experiences that flat games don't offer. No VR advicates suggest that VR games should be cheaper than flat games.

So why are Streaming advocates wanting their services to be cheaper? The same reason people wnt the Xbox1S All Digital to be cheaper; we are all in agreement that game streaming is the inferior way to play, and as such no one really think it is workable to also make it more expensive.

And yet, reality is that game streaming is expensive to run. Regardless of being a lesser game platform, it none the less, cost more.

Nice post. Yeah, I think there are a few things going on, some of what you mention for sure.

The other thing why I think there are a select few that think this is the future (even though its been around for a decade+) is that they are use to getting free shit, so we have a whole generation of people that have no idea what the cost of money is - they actually think Netflix, Hulu, Tesla, etc. actually make money, in reality they are cash burning operations funded by zero interest rate policy. The people that are older have already seen this, to similar degree.

So... some people are willing to forgo quality for free shit, imo, but we know there is no such thing as a free lunch.... eventually the price will have to be paid. Until that day, party on!

These people think they are going to get free shit for life.

 

[Pimpbaa]

I think I would just use it for xbox exclusives. I love the Forza Horizon series (like in my top 5 easily), but buying a console mostly just for one game series is a bit of a waste for me. I can see myself next gen getting a PS5 and using Xcloud instead of buying an xbox. Couldn't vote in the poll because my answer didn't really fit any of the poll choices.

 

[Holammer]

There is a place for streaming on mobile or as a demo deliver system. but any serious gamer and especially PC users with high refresh displays will (and should) laugh it out of the room. There's a reason why they demo it on 3rd person games where controls are already sluggish as is to work well at 30fps.

 

[bellome]

The issue from the very beginning, is "why"?
Why stream games?
...

What is the purpose? If it isn't actually superior in gameplay, AND it costs more, what good is it?

Publisher total control over the industry.

 

[Typhares]

The only way I would ever use streaming is as an 'add-on' product.
Basically Game Pass giving me access to a library of games on either a PC or streaming.
Then what would be nice is that if I bought a game on xbox/pc it would unlock the streaming version.
Without those conditions no thanks, not paying full price for a stream.

 

[Insane Metal]

No thanks.

 

[xStoyax]

To fair the amount of traffic at E3 on the network would be insane. Surprised they where running on wifi at all, even then the dedicated hardline into e3 would be saturated as well.

Think when you go to a music festival and you can’t even send a message from the amount of traffic.

Would wait for real word mobile tests without 50,000 people all online in one building. Never mind the cherry picking of people who used it and reported on it.

I’ll never use it, but options for those who will and all.

Ummm to be fair there's gonna be a lot of traffic at every location where they're promoting people playing at - Airport, train, city, apartment etc. Even out in rural areas I still have to usually do some small time research to fine the cleanest wifi channels when flying my drone.

 

[joe_zazen]

Man, you write headlines like someone in PR

If x1 local latency = xcloud, they are sabotaging their local hardware intentionally. You need to then test 3rd party open source software in other hardware to see actual results.

 

[Lort]

Reading the posts here seems like Microsoft has a messaging problem...

You wont be paying to stream from your own console with the games you own now .. ( you dont now on playstation or xbox). So you will all basically be able to do it for free if you want.

If you pay for ultimate ( gamepass + xbox live) like many people and probably most xbox players here will.. youll be able to stream all your library all gamepass and xbox live gold games from the cloud.

Microsoft will probably rent games to pay per minute as well.

The reality of xCloud at E3.


"Nearly indistinguishable" lol

This tells us absolutly nothing.. its not shot at high soeed .. nobodys counting the frames .. the game chosen dosent have low latency .. the game animations are made to look good not match up with the actual response of the game. .. its kind of amusingly like saying your mobile internet dropped out one day for 3 seconds and netflix had to buffer so “netflix streaming will never work for anyone”.

The lowest latency shown is what youll get in ideal conditions and is less in the demo on halo5 than any game that runs at 30 fps .. ..

for reference because some of you may not have the leet network skills to run ping or speedtest lol... im 400 miles from the nearest Azure data center and its got a ping of 30 ms ..( from my iphone over my wifi to my cable internet) over 4 g my ping is 32 ms..If we had one in my city it would be 5 ms.

If i was running an xcloud game the latency based on this video would be about 100 ms so about the same as a 30 fps console game and faster than a 60 fps game without the tv in game mode.

If you want to get to the point either the Artstechnica video has been faked or azure and xcloud deliver < 70 ms end to end latency.

 

[joe_zazen]

Reading the posts here seems like Microsoft has a messaging problem...

You wont be paying to stream from your own console with the games you own now .. ( you dont now on playstation or xbox). So you will all basically be able to do it for free if you want.

If you pay for ultimate ( gamepass + xbox live) like many people and probably most xbox players here will.. youll be able to stream all your library all gamepass and xbox live gold games from the cloud.

Microsoft will probably rent games to pay per minute as well.



This tells us absolutly nothing.. its not shot at high soeed .. nobodys counting the frames .. the game chosen dosent have low latency .. the game animations are made to look good not match up with the actual response of the game. .. its kind of amusingly like saying your mobile internet dropped out one day for 3 seconds and netflix had to buffer so “netflix streaming will never work for anyone”.

The lowest latency shown is what youll get in ideal conditions and is less in the demo on halo5 than any game that runs at 30 fps .. ..

If you want to get to the point either the Artstechnica video has been faked or azure and xcloud deliver < 70 ms end to end latency.

Arstechnica is not some neutral consumers rights org, and microsoft is trying to sell shit. I am very impressed at the heavy pr messaging about Xcloud and gamepass. MS pr is top notch.

 

[scalman]

so problem is net. i think its great thing and in future we all will have our games to be apble play like this full hd and no lag, 5G should change that allready soon

 

[DanielsM]

so problem is net. i think its great thing and in future we all will have our games to be apble play like this full hd and no lag, 5G should change that allready soon

Input latency can be slightly reduced but not eliminated, but even if it was equal (although that probably won't ever happen) its going to cost the same or more than native playing, eventually.

 

[RedVIper]

so problem is net. i think its great thing and in future we all will have our games to be apble play like this full hd and no lag, 5G should change that allready soon

No you won't.

Unless someone breaks the speed of light there's always going to be "lag"

 

[Shifty]

Where's the poll option for "ye gods the lack of grammar is killing me"?

 

[Mattyp]

Ummm to be fair there's gonna be a lot of traffic at every location where they're promoting people playing at - Airport, train, city, apartment etc. Even out in rural areas I still have to usually do some small time research to fine the cleanest wifi channels when flying my drone.

There will be a lot of traffic in all those places but none of those will still come close to a packed out E3.

Drone interference is what we need to be working on but I'm with you, city there's no point even trying on distance. Rural I can easily get 500 metres height out of my mavic, just wish I had the ability to force the software to allow it to go higher than that. Batteries really start to drain at those heights but. I was on a boat recently off the coast of quite a popular area (Amalfi) about 200 metres from shore and couldn't even get 50 metres of height, felt like it was being jammed for sure.

 

[scalman]

lag thats not brake your local gameplay is ok for me. not for online games maybe but local its fine. but where we are now we couldnt imagine that 5-7 yrs ago. same we cant imagine what we will have some years forward... one day this will be normal way to play any games out there

 

[Shmunter]

Project Xcloud demo of Halo 5 nearly indistinguishable from local play

Only a few ms of additional input latency when streaming to a smartphone.

arstechnica.com

Thats some surprisingly great results and if thats how it runs at retail noone will be complaining about latency.

Arstechnica, not so technica if their idea of local play is on a tv without game mode enabled.

 

[xStoyax]

There will be a lot of traffic in all those places but none of those will still come close to a packed out E3.

Drone interference is what we need to be working on but I'm with you, city there's no point even trying on distance. Rural I can easily get 500 metres height out of my mavic, just wish I had the ability to force the software to allow it to go higher than that. Batteries really start to drain at those heights but. I was on a boat recently off the coast of quite a popular area (Amalfi) about 200 metres from shore and couldn't even get 50 metres of height, felt like it was being jammed for sure.

If they were hardwired and using MS servers (which MS themselves told reporters it was dedicated) then all those other people wouldn't make any difference. It was really the best case scenario they could have, and they still had multiple issues reported. Not everyone at E3 was using xCloud at same time, and once you go hardwired then there's no such thing as wifi interference.

 

[dirthead]

I'm sorry but you basically have to be ignorant to believe that STREAMING can have the same latency as a local offline game.

If the latency is the same, it means something is HORRIBLY wrong with the local setup.

I also love how it says "almost identical." You know what another phrase for "almost identical" is? "Not identical."

I can say that 20ms and 200ms are "almost identical."

 

[Shmunter]

I'm sorry but you basically have to be ignorant to believe that STREAMING can have the same latency as a local offline game.

If the latency is the same, it means something is HORRIBLY wrong with the local setup.

I also love how it says "almost identical." You know what another phrase for "almost identical" is? "Not identical."

I can say that 20ms and 200ms are "almost identical."

The on,y thing I could think off if there is some client side frame progression blending to give a satisfying illusion of instant response. Really maybe that’s what’s needed.

 

[Fbh]

The thing with all these streaming services is that the demo you see in an extremely controlled environment isn't necessarily going to be the same your average consumer will get back home.
I can see a Digital Foundry video telling me a game runs at 1440p and locked 30fps on Ps4 Pro and I know the Pro I have in my house here on the other side of the world will give me the same result. But streaming has too many variables, to the point that anything except the experience from someone who lives in my same city, has the same ISP and pays for the same speed as me is pretty much meaningless. And even then it's not a guarantee as I have a friend who meets that exact criteria but when we are playing online we still sometimes get different performance .


But even in the theoretical case where it actually works really well for me I'm not too interested. I'm already not a fan of how ownership works with current digital content (except maybe GOG) and this just seem to take this "buying a game = glorified unlimited renting" concept to the next level

 

[coolmast3r]

The reality of xCloud at E3.


"Nearly indistinguishable" lol

This (or similar) GIFs should be posted in every thread in which someone claims that the input lag of xCloud or Stadia (or any other streaming service for that matter) is "indistinguishable" or "inperceptible".


Also, loving the hilarious "it wasn't shot using high speed camera" deflections. Calm down, people have eyes and they can easily tell whether there is noticable input lag or not.

 

[FearlessBelgian]

There is no future for cloud gaming because this is physically impossible to receive less than 100 ms ( 100 ms is extremely bad for gaming) from a local server because of time of process ( input, encodage, decode,ect...) Maybe when you are near from a data center you can have 30-40ms of input lag bug this is just good for solo games (not solo games like Mario because need some good input timing)