I wonder if it would be possible to implement some sort of runahead feature, such as what the libretro team has recently added to their project. Two identical instances of the game running simultaneously on two servers, one feeding back inputs to the other in such a way as to eliminate input lag entirely. Maybe this would be impossible over a network, but it works like magic in RetroArch.
Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?
51–60 of 92 posts
Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?
#52It's the next evolution of DRM. First you owned your games, then you owned a license to your games, now you will rent your games. It's going to happen at some point and there won't be much fighting this from AAA studios. "You mean it will be 100% impossible for piracy to exist?" In addition, if Google is smart, they'll also be building their own game engine and tooling to run along with it. Google will market this en…
> Any multiplayer game, in their architecture, will have no latency ...except all the latency between the player and the game of course.
The view layer will have latency but the code that actually runs the game logic wont.
Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?
#53I'm not a gamer, but it * could * turn out to be a successful on-ramp for a large number of casual non-committed gamers.
Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?
#54This could be great for strategy games like Civilization, Sim City/City Skylines, Age of Empires. Or, you know, chess.
It's also plausible for games where latency isn't a big issue. Something like EVE Online seems like a good fit (I've never played, but I get the impression it isn't a quick reaction type game).
At the conference they focused a lot on first person action games and streaming to Youtube. Both of these aspirations are deluded. Action games are plausible if you're on a network with super low latency to Google's data centers, like say Google Fiber. Since Google just discontinued Fiber, this isn't going to happen.
Streaming to Youtube is nice, but in no way needs a dedicated hardware button.
There are definitely interesting things they could do with massively multiplayer worlds with low barriers to entry. There's real potential here, if Google manages to focus on this product long term.
If Google can stay focused. There's the rub.
Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?
#55Absolutely pointless. without client and server side input prediction you get huge input lag - way above tolerable ranges. with input prediction you get annoyed players that their character doesn't do what they want. Plus with multiplayer games you get extra lag on top of that. And lets not forget about local input lag. Transfer speed requirements are sky-high. Also - can i just own something? i don't want to perpetu…
"Also - can i just own something? i don't want to perpetually rent things."
I've gone the other way. I used to download and buy movies and music. I never enjoyed having to sort it all in my computer. Thanks to spotify and streaming services I really don't get have to worry about, "owning" these things anymore. Most of the time I didnt actually want to own the movie after watching it once.
I realized this recently about steam. I've got 500ish games. I only buy them because they are on sale and I know I'll play them eventually but don't want to pay full price for them. I'd happily pay a monthly price to be able to rent/stream/play any game in the steam library that I want. It would also solve the near constant issue with multiplayer games where I want to play with friends but they don't want to make a $60 investment for a game they may not enjoy.
Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?
#56Having been mobile / traveling a lot. I tried using multiple cloud gaming services. I didn't want to lug around a gaming laptop. The biggest issue I've had is internet. Outside of my own home the internet has been slow, laggy, or compressed the image to much. It's generally unplayable. In between being able to afford a gaming device. I used parsec, and rented a machine to play games. FPS online multi player games wer…
What do you mean with "I... rented a machine to play games"? Is it a online service? Would you mind talking a little bit more about that?
I'm guessing "parsec" in OP's comment is the parsec gaming service [1], which is basically Stadia.
Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?
#57Absolutely pointless. without client and server side input prediction you get huge input lag - way above tolerable ranges. with input prediction you get annoyed players that their character doesn't do what they want. Plus with multiplayer games you get extra lag on top of that. And lets not forget about local input lag. Transfer speed requirements are sky-high. Also - can i just own something? i don't want to perpetu…
John Carmack is of a completely different opinion and if there's someone I trust regarding this stuff it's him.
Link? I don't accept third party "sources" like this.
Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?
#58The same things I think about a lot of Google's things they come up with, why? meh, and wonder how long this will last...
Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
John Carmack is of a different opinion regarding 2.
This (repeated) comment would carry more weight if it included a citation, i.e. a link to the source.
Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?
#60Lag will always be an issue. I used to play a lot of competitive games like street fighter, tekken, starcraft.
There is zero chance of a fighting game like Tekken ever being popular on Stadia due to lag.
Distance from LA to New York: ~4500km.
Time of light speed to travel 4500km: ~30ms
Time of 1 frame at 60fps: 16.7ms
There are moves in Tekken ('just frame') that require 1 frame precision to pull off. For a while it was popular to hook up old CRTs to playstations to reduce lag as much as possible.
People might think the network will get better eventually, but the speed of light isn't getting any faster. The network is no match for the local bus, and it never will be due to physics.