Stadia, Google Game Streaming platform [2019-2021]

Game Streaming Platform.

Cue the "fuck the right off" responses...
Stadia can fuck the right off, in a world where we'll have soon to be existed PS5 and Xbox Scarlet as good old fashioned home consoles.
Even when I've recently upgraded to a 40 mbps down connection, I just can't see how that would cope in the real world not to mention sharing and the low bitrate streaming quality compared to a local disc.
 
How so? Xbox HW (One S based right & one X later on) is an order of magnitude cheaper and smaller in physical size (4x modified One S boards per blade). Also Google isn't fitting all their data center with those Stadia servers either. Just like Xcloud, it's going to be a tiny part of their Cloud infrastructure in the beginning.

How is Xbox hardware going to share computing loads? One Xbox runs one Xbox game. Where as one instance of Stadia hardware could be applied to run multiple games at once or multiple instances could be applied to run one game...
 

DF Article to go along with the video: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-google-stadia-spec-and-analysis

Google's Stadia specs

Google has released the following data for Stadia. It's a curious mixture of data points, combining the kind of minutiae rarely released on some components along with notable omissions elsewhere, such as the amount of cores/threads available for developers on the CPU. Regardless, it paints a picture of a highly capable system, clearly more powerful than both the base and enhanced consoles of the moment.
  • Custom 2.7GHz hyper-threaded x86 CPU with AVX2 SIMD and 9.5MB L2+L3 cache
  • Custom AMD GPU with HBM2 memory and 56 compute units, capable of 10.7 teraflops
  • 16GB of RAM with up to 484GB/s of performance
  • SSD cloud storage
Google says that this hardware can be stacked, that CPU and GPU compute is 'elastic', so multiple instances of this hardware can be used to create more ambitious games. The firm also refers to this configuration as its 'first-gen' system, the idea being that datacentre hardware will evolve over time with no user-side upgrades required. Right now, it's not clear if the 16GB of memory is for the whole system, or for GPU VRAM only. However, the bandwidth confirmed is a 100 per cent match for the HBM2 used on AMD's RX Vega 56 graphics card.

...

When asked whether Stadia employs the Vega architecture or the upcoming - and extremely mysterious - Navi, Google would not comment. What we can say is that the Project Stream tech demo carried out at the end of last year, stretching into 2019 was carried out on Stadia hardware within Google's datacentres. This would indicate that the final hardware was good to go some time before that. Also, perhaps it is entirely coincidental, but Crytek released a real-time ray tracing demo last week, running without RT acceleration on an RX Vega 56, which (as mentioned) is the closest consumer equivalent to Stadia's GPU - the same number of CUs, similar clocks and also using HBM2 memory.
 
At first I was like wtf are we talking about fake sugar on this forum.

Anyway its impressive specs but I don't see this over taking dedicated consoles anytime soon. Esp if we start getting new consoles next year from sony and ms. it may end up tieing up exclusives however
 
& ported to Vulkan

Hope the project lasts long enough to kickstart decent Vulkan games at least. Carmack still the only dev which really pushed it and Carmack is gone for the moment, though his engine survives (the Valve games and Fortnite aren't really pushing anything).
 
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So the sh** talking has already started. Google console warriors in the waiting... somewhere.

But seriously, fun times ahead... :yep2:
Begun the teraflops war has. I'll be requoting this pic in the near future. On the bright side this pretty much ensures both PS5 and Scarlet to be more powerful than 10.7 TF coming a year later.
 
Hope the project lasts long enough to kickstart decent Vulkan games at least. Carmack still the only dev which really pushed it and Carmack is gone for the moment, though his engine survives (the Valve games and Fortnite aren't really pushing anything).
The only dev 100% behind & pushing Vulkan is Id Software. Valve is for the most part transitioning to Unity (all their VR content besides 2 demos using Source 2 was done in Unity & they also acquired Compo Santo which is currently working on a AAA Unity powered game Valley of Gods).
 
Stadia can fuck the right off, in a world where we'll have soon to be existed PS5 and Xbox Scarlet as good old fashioned home consoles.
Even when I've recently upgraded to a 40 mbps down connection, I just can't see how that would cope in the real world not to mention sharing and the low bitrate streaming quality compared to a local disc.
Both Microsoft and Sony have very good exclusive IPs. We can argue over the breath or relevance but arguments aside, I'll take Halo and Forza or Uncharted and Gran Turismo over exclusively third party titles which by the way, I'll get with either platform along with a serious commitment to the ecosystem versus a Google streaming service. It's not even close.
 
Both Microsoft and Sony have very good exclusive IPs. We can argue over the breath or relevance but arguments aside, I'll take Halo and Forza or Uncharted and Gran Turismo over exclusively third party titles which by the way, I'll get with either platform along with a serious commitment to the ecosystem versus a Google streaming service. It's not even close.
Absolutely, also there's no sense of pride of "owning" a streaming platform that at the end of the day doesn't even belong to you without a sub.

Bright side? Bright side you say? Master ultragpu... not a bright side. A dark cloud has fallen. The cloudwars have begun.
I'll never join the cloud.
luke-skywalker-noooo.jpg
 
Begun the teraflops war has. I'll be requoting this pic in the near future. On the bright side this pretty much ensures both PS5 and Scarlet to be more powerful than 10.7 TF coming a year later.
It might be worth considering that Google’s ability to push this sort of hardware is an echo of Microsoft’s statements surrounding the economics of cloud in terms of reducing pressure of HW cost, so I’m not sure if this is a definitive indicator/correlation even if it turns out to be true.

Currently we don’t know as much about Sony’s plans to ramp up Play Now or exactly how MS is approaching it. Having two different SKUs lets MS have a tiered structure for streaming quality on top of potential power/cost savings for folks that don’t need or want to pay for the highest quality (ala UHD Netflix, for example). Cutting back via clocks is another approach, but there might be less flexibility for what that means e.g. PS4 mode or PS5 mode. That said, it remains to be seen how MS will approach the XO revision for their introduction of current gen xcloud, or the extent of the monetary structures.

At any rate, let’s not get bogged down into console pissing matches again. This isn’t the thread for it.
 
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It might be worth considering that Google’s ability to push this sort of hardware is an echo of Microsoft’s statements surrounding the economics of cloud in terms of reducing pressure of HW cost, so I’m not sure if this is a definitive indicator/correlation even if it turns out to be true.

Currently we don’t know as much about Sony’s plans to ramp up Play Now or exactly how MS is approaching it. Having two different SKUs lets MS have a tiered structure for streaming quality on top of potential power/cost savings for folks that don’t need or want to pay for the highest quality (ala UHD Netflix, for example). Cutting back via clocks is another approach, but there might be less flexibility for what that means e.g. PS4 mode or PS5 mode. That said, it remains to be seen how MS will approach the XO revision for their introduction of current gen xcloud, or the extent of the monetary structures.
Yeah I'm seeing the benefit of a Cloud based approach for sure, it does make sense in many perspective especially for the more bandwidth capable countries. And yes we need to see more in terms of pricing, subs and how it performs in real world at 4k/60fps HDR. I'm a bit pessimistic tho, we shall see.
 
Because reality does not work the way many think it does.

60fps game requires a frame to be rendered in 16ms. Cool. Player pushes button = chain of events starts. GPU finishes the frame it is rendering [up to 16ms]. GPU renders the frame with new button press [16ms]. That frame is placed into a framebuffer, where it waits for the display to take and show the previous frame. The frame is moved from the framebuffer to the screen when display requests it [to fit the native refresh rate of the screen].

From the button press to that being seen on screen, a lot of time can pass.

And there could be few more things that can introduce even more delays [like triple buffering]. 30fps RDR2 has over 200ms of input delay, while 30fps Driveclub has veeeery low lag.
and why this isn't exactly the same with Stadia?
 
& ported to Vulkan
Which might be part of the reason 12on7 was announced. If Stadia gets strong support and developers are all running Vulkan, MS will lose a lot of influence on their API.

Hmm, Stadia’s entry will push MS harder than Sony or Nintendo here; as they will be competing on 3P library, the other two still have a strong 1P following as of this generation.
 
How is Xbox hardware going to share computing loads? One Xbox runs one Xbox game. Where as one instance of Stadia hardware could be applied to run multiple games at once or multiple instances could be applied to run one game...
That’s how XCloud will start. This is why I was adamant in the next gen console thread that both CPU and GPU were custom. There are needs and features here that largely outweigh a pure “performance” profile when I was referring to custom.

Splitting workloads or being able to take on more than one. Low energy footprints or changing the GPU to handle a great deal of multiple and varying GPU loads, the number of VM instances it can run etc.

Scarlett has a lot of work to do here that a traditional console does not.
 
Yeah I'm seeing the benefit of a Cloud based approach for sure, it does make sense in many perspective especially for the more bandwidth capable countries. And yes we need to see more in terms of pricing, subs and how it performs in real world at 4k/60fps HDR. I'm a bit pessimistic tho, we shall see.
The greatest allure of any cloud streaming platform is how simple it is to trigger on the impulse to play. The fact that Google will go from watching a streaming player, being able to queue up on their game like the old arcades, or just play now in a single click and be loaded to go in 5, is a deadly new low barrier way for people to try games.


This service isn’t for eSports players or players requiring locality, but this will definitely suffice for a lot of families that are unwilling to purchase more devices than they already have.

Without knowing pricing details however I do not know. If it is a Netflix style subscription, they would be much more effective than building your own library, and a much better use of their hardware.
 
The greatest allure of any cloud streaming platform is how simple it is to trigger on the impulse to play. The fact that Google will go from watching a streaming player, being able to queue up on their game like the old arcades, or just play now in a single click and be loaded to go in 5, is a deadly new low barrier way for people to try games.


This service isn’t for eSports players or players requiring locality, but this will definitely suffice for a lot of families that are unwilling to purchase more devices than they already have.

Without knowing pricing details however I do not know. If it is a Netflix style subscription, they would be much more effective than building your own library, and a much better use of their hardware.
More and more I feel like gamers are been divided into two crowds in the near future much like the Blu Ray crowd where the image quality enthusiasts sticks to the local player and 4k UHD rays while the other feed on Netflix junk food. Man, to think consoles used to be the instant gratification compared PCs back in the old days.
 
More and more I feel like gamers are been divided into two crowds in the near future much like the Blu Ray crowd where the image quality enthusiasts sticks to the local player and 4k UHD rays while the other feed on Netflix junk food. Man, to think consoles used to be the instant gratification compared PCs back in the old days.
I wouldn’t say the population is divided, but perhaps growing. If we’re realistic about Googles actual competitive advantage, it is the low barrier solution they have with YouTube and chrome.

All other things can be done by competitors in some fashion, but going from browsing YouTube to playing in 5 seconds really acts on some instincts of impulse we’ve never had in gaming before. And no one else can do it. I have to say looking back at MS, and their move to purchase Mixer and such, they had the right idea but Google showed them how to execute. At least they have a good roadmap on what to do now. But mixer is a fraction of YouTube and twitch.

The streaming is very strong in large households, 2-3 children, means no fighting for a console, no needing to buy 3 consoles or 3X the titles to do multiplayer.

Google brought an electric bus service to an industry that has largely been happy with everyone purchasing their own cars and driving them point to point.
 
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