Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service • Hacker News Board

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#481

Post by kllrnohj » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 1:40 AM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #471

kllrnohj wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it did, sorry.

Oh okay, in that case there's no real example you've given for the cost, so $30 may or may not be the cost, but considering a high-end rig approaches $3k and is relevant for 5 years, $30 is a great deal, especially if you get access to a large game library, which is what's happening. Origin isn't relevant to this conversation.

Er... What?

$15/month for a streaming service + $15/month for game access service equals, drum roll, $30/month.

What are you not getting here? Origin is relevant as a reference point for what the games themselves cost on a subscription.

Stadia still needs to actually pay for games, after all. Either as a subscription (reference origin's pricing), or you straight up buy them at the normal $60/pop.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#482

Post by kllrnohj » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 1:48 AM UTC

wmf wrote: post #382

kllrnohj wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The streaming services of gaming is coming. It's already failed multiple times. OnLive tried & failed. Nvidia's has been in beta for years. Sony has one. Everyone in this area has tried this. Nobody has seen what could be described as "success", and the cost models so far have been ludicrous. Turns out renting Xeons and Radeon MI Instincts in a professionally staffed, maintained datacenter is way, way more expensiv…

Or to look at it the other way, it's a Vega 64 with double RAM so Google probably pays $600 or less. Google doesn't pay enterprisey gouge pricing.

It'd be a Vega 56 basis not Vega 64 but the problem is that "double the ram" part.

HBM2 memory is super expensive. Like, rumors are 16GB of HBM2 is $320 expensive. Toss in anything custom here and there's zero chance this is under $600/GPU.

Even in the hotly contested consumer market the 16gb HBM2 Radeon VII is $700. And that doesn't have any high speed interconnects to allow for sharing memory with CPU or multi-gpu.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#483

Post by codegoblins » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 1:59 AM UTC

meruru wrote: post #281

jpambrun wrote: post #12

And the games will run on Linux using Vulkan. I find that pretty awesome.

Between this and Valve's push for gaming on Linux, another of Linux' Achilles heels is solved. What else is missing before the Linux desktop is adequate for pretty much everyone?

Linux for everyone will happen when I no longer need to explain what a "package manager" or "dependency" is to my retired mother. So, never, basically.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#484

Post by shereadsthenews » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 2:03 AM UTC

kec wrote: post #218

shereadsthenews wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google operates tiny little datacenters in every ISP POP in America. That is why the video I just watched on Youtube in Oakland came from some place 2ms away even though Google's nearest real datacenter is in Oregon.

How do you edge cache games though? Edge caching youtube requires a giant pile of hard drives, Edge caching games requires a giant pile of hard drives and a giant pile of compute power.

If you don't think Google can drop-ship racks of GPUs to major cities, I think you are underestimating them.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#485

Post by Krasnol » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 2:06 AM UTC

pergadad wrote: post #329

holoduke wrote: post #219

The reason why these kind of initiatives fail is because they do not solve a real problem or issue. The average Joe doesn't need another subscription just to play some games. Having a console where you buy games is more than enough. I also silently hope that Google will fail hard with this one. Since they are the worst publisher on earth with absolutely no compassion towards its developers relationships.

$400 for a current console and $60 or so for a recent game. Assuming you buy the next gen after 3 years or so there's quite a budget invested in the gamer's part - a streaming service at maybe $20/month that gives you access to recent titles doesn't look that bad in comparison.

So what would be the businesses incentive here?

It's not like we're talking about charity here.

I have the feeling this is peak microtransaction. They've found out that people are likely to spend small amounts over time then one big sum at once and now you don't even own the game. It became the microtransaction.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#486

Post by odensc » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 2:09 AM UTC

As someone who participated in the beta, it's not as good as they make it sound. The compression of the video stream is quite bad in any slightly intensive scenario, the latency is certainly noticeable, frame drops every once in a while, and in general it's nowhere near as fluid as a local gaming experience.

I have gigabit fiber and quite a good machine, so I'm certain that's not the issue. Maybe some of these issues could be solved by closer edge servers, but it'll be a while till it reaches the level where you can play FPS', etc.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#487

Post by bitxbit » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 2:09 AM UTC

rifung wrote: post #435

bitxbit wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Enthusiast gamers fret/obsess over a small difference in FPS, refresh rate and lag especially when it comes to competitive gaming. Until Google can deliver a service that is indistinguishable, it’s DOA in my view.

> Agreed. Enthusiast gamers fret/obsess over a small difference in FPS, refresh rate and lag especially when it comes to competitive gaming. Until Google can deliver a service that is indistinguishable, it’s DOA in my view. I work for Google, opinions are my own. I agree but I don't consider this service to be for hardcore enthusiasts. The enthusiasts will continue to buy their powerful gaming machines because they r…

Fair enough and I do want to see services like this and the developments from solving these difficult problems.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#488

Post by root_axis » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 2:10 AM UTC

pergadad wrote: post #329

holoduke wrote: post #219

The reason why these kind of initiatives fail is because they do not solve a real problem or issue. The average Joe doesn't need another subscription just to play some games. Having a console where you buy games is more than enough. I also silently hope that Google will fail hard with this one. Since they are the worst publisher on earth with absolutely no compassion towards its developers relationships.

$400 for a current console and $60 or so for a recent game. Assuming you buy the next gen after 3 years or so there's quite a budget invested in the gamer's part - a streaming service at maybe $20/month that gives you access to recent titles doesn't look that bad in comparison.

Even with a very conservative 3 year lifespan of a console (5 years is closer to reality) 20 dollars a month over 3 years is 700+ dollars and at the end of the day you don't own anything. It seems like a pretty bad deal overall.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#489

Post by Wowfunhappy » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 2:20 AM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #451

derefr wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you picture your hypothetical vision of things working on the server side? Naively using buffering would make the input stream desync from the output stream. "Input prediction" works well enough when a game supports it, but lag would reappear for titles where the game doesn't. A general solution (for games with no input prediction) would require you to run the game in an x86 emulator with save-state + rewind s…

But for everything besides cutscenes, game streaming essentially has to work like a VoIP call (hard-realtime), doesn't it? I imagine most music, and some during-gameplay dialogue, could be buffered at the client. I'd expect sound effects to be the only audio that needs to be super low latency. Maybe certain dialogue too, if the speaker is visible on screen. This alone might alleviate a lot of the GP's problems, since…

Ugh, I'm past the edit window and forgot to put a '>' before that first sentence. I was quoting, not plagiarizing, promise!

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#490

Post by Animats » Wed, Mar 20, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

Any indication on how this ties in with the Google/Improbable deal for big-world games? Those work better if all the clients are in the same data center, a few microseconds apart.

This only works with Google web clients, such as Chrome, right. It may turn out that all this is just a ploy to force everyone to use a Google web client, giving Google total control over the online user experience. ("Browser" is so last cen.) Then Google can exit games, except for putting ads in them and on top of them.