Eso Stadia Review: The Benefits and drawbacks/Pros and Cons of the Google Game Streaming Service.

Thechuckage · June 2020

Firstmep wrote: »

I thought Stadia was DOA, I was very surprised to hear zeni put Eso on there.
Nvidias cloud gaming actually works much better.

Money talks and if you dont think there was some "talking" then dont know what to tell ya.

Elsonso · June 2020

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

eKsDee wrote: »

And that's the thing, Stadia may actually end up feeling worse since there's a delay between when you press a button and when the ESO client (running on Stadia's servers) responds. ESO does give the ESO client a bit of agency (namely regarding movement), and Stadia would introduce a delay that otherwise wouldn't be there.

I think it's possible that Stadia-style latency could actually be better. Sure, you might get some input lag, but you also won't have as many situations where your screen shows you dodged an attack but you still take damage anyway (which is super frustrating).

It is possible that Stadia will "fix" that because it will add latency between the player and the "PC". In other words, you won't see the dodge quite as quickly, so the time between when you see it, and when it actually happens, will be shorter. The perception lag may erase, or make smaller, the window where you perceive that is happening.

The input and output lag with Stadia will mimic slow player reflexes. You will see stuff a little later than it happened and it will be a little longer before your instructions get to the Stadia PC. I am wondering how people will respond to that, since that will be slower than the speed they are actually responding.

CleymenZero · June 2020

Reekes wrote: »

Dear all

On CCU it works superb on a 4 k TV. Butter smooth. Just put aside your techno PC loving hysteria, relax and enjoy it as another method to enjoy the game.

Dear Reekes,

I don't know what you're talking about. I have a gigabit connection, connected through ethernet with cat7 cable and I could CLEARLY notice the increased latency. The experience was not butter-smooth at all as it was crystal clear that there was an increase in latency.

I love how people chuck facts and what basically ALL REVIEWERS FROM REPUTABLE SOURCES have said about Stadia to "PC loving hysteria". It's very ignorant to act that way. I'm definitely not on that game streaming hate bandwagon but I'm not completely oblivious to facts...

Fact: There is latency between you and the ESO mega server when you play on your client, my ping averages 120ms on a good day
Fact: There will be latency between ESO mega server and Stadia server then latency between Stadia server and your client (be it on CCU, phone, PC etc.) The latency shown on the Stadia session was 100ms so I would need to know what my latency between Stadia and my session is to measure the impact
Fact: This will result in an increased latency

Here is a tidbit of my experience: As I was trying to simply use abilities and look around, it was clearly delayed resulting in overshooting/overcompensation

Stop defending the indefensible or just stop ignoring facts. Is it ok for ultra casuals? Of course, it is! For most casuals, their reaction time is slower than the increased latency incurred but you won't see me in a trial or PvP on stadia unless I really want to meme.

Now if they had crafting addons support though, it would be heaven! You don't need much performance for crafting writs so I would totally sub to Stadia Pro AND keep my ESO+ sub if they did have that.

Bradyfjord · June 2020

@Thevampirenight Were you able to get into a high intensity part of the game? Like pvp, or other group content?

Charon_on_Vacation · June 2020

fps matter.

latency does matter and is only showing the in-game connection between stadia and the eso servers, it is NOT showing the
additional latency from you to stadia.

stadia has input lag (obviously), which is quite noticable if you are used to a competitive environment.

sure, you can play using stadia, but it's worse than other options.

Elsonso · June 2020

Charon_on_Vacation wrote: »

fps matter.

latency does matter and is only showing the in-game connection between stadia and the eso servers, it is NOT showing the
additional latency from you to stadia.

stadia has input lag (obviously), which is quite noticable if you are used to a competitive environment.

sure, you can play using stadia, but it's worse than other options.

I think that one outcome will be a subset of people complaining about Stadia lag, as they realize that some of their ESO lag wasn't actually because of ESO lag.

Tandor · June 2020

Elsonso wrote: »

Charon_on_Vacation wrote: »

fps matter.

latency does matter and is only showing the in-game connection between stadia and the eso servers, it is NOT showing the
additional latency from you to stadia.

stadia has input lag (obviously), which is quite noticable if you are used to a competitive environment.

sure, you can play using stadia, but it's worse than other options.

I think that one outcome will be a subset of people complaining about Stadia lag, as they realize that some of their ESO lag wasn't actually because of ESO lag.

When people complain about performance they typically don't bother to mention the platform, server, where they are in the real world, what content they're doing in the game world, their system specs and how many others in their house are sharing their connection, or if on PC whether it's through Steam and whether their add-ons are fully updated. I suppose we can now expect them not to mention whether or not they're using Stadia

!

Hurbster · June 2020

1600 by 900, wonder how it runs in HD.

Eifleber · June 2020

ESO Stadia .. If I understand correctly it's some kinmd of Citrix version of ESO?

fred4 · June 2020

You can't use addons? Hahahahahahahahaha. Well that won't ever be relevant for me then. Not that I was thinking about it. Thanks for the review, though.

In terms of latency, the in-game number isn't a good indicator of the quality of your experience, at least not it's absolute value. As much as 150 can be fine, if it's Internet latency. 150 is NOT fine, when it's server-induced Cyrodiil latency and your skills don't fire reliably. This number is not absolute. I get around 110 to PC EU when everything is good. Whether that could be brought down to 33 is pretty irrelevant in a game that has a GCD of 1 second. However when it's consistently above 130 (!) in my case (!) I know from experience that's usually not Internet lag, that tends to be server lag. E.g. when you see something slightly elevated above what you normally get, that tends to go hand in hand with lag that you can feel. When a skill doesn't fire and you have to cast it again, cause nothing happened in the GCD you were casting it first, that's the real problem and a server problem. It can lose you complete seconds as you start spamming skills until they succeed.

fred4 · June 2020

Eifleber wrote: »

ESO Stadia .. If I understand correctly it's some kinmd of Citrix version of ESO?

You could call it that.

Thevampirenight · June 2020

Bradyfjord wrote: »

@Thevampirenight Were you able to get into a high intensity part of the game? Like pvp, or other group content?

For you and others, I went into Gray Host Cyrodiil and did a test when I got there i was 100 latency but it dropped to like 67 sometimes 34 but was more in the 67/100 latency range.
As for how it preformed it seemed better then before but maybe not the best could even be worse for those that do have beasts of machines and internet connections. Someone with something like that should at least test it out for us. But it seemed good to me, I am to be honest with you not the best judge on how it should perform. However the Latency seemed good or at least Googles Latency.

I think there is a good chance that @Elsonso is right about Elder Scrolls Online not being routed the same way as the non Stadia version and someone would have to test it out or trace it to see if its the case. There is a very good chance in theory that Google Stadia is being routed differently here is why. Google has to have direct access to the servers because they have to launch the game through them that means that Google itself is routing the game for the Stadia version not Zenimax. With their own access to the servers they don't have to route through the services Zenimax typically uses for its servers. They can just route it through one of their data bases instead.

Google does have to its advantage the massive data centers with the best infrastructure/internet Infrastructures money could buy/develop, They would have to have the best so it can handle everything on their services like their famous Google Search to Youtube, Maybe Face Book and other services connected to Google. So if The Stadia version is being routed by google for the Stadia players then its going to be clearly better when it comes to being routed and thus better having better latency for its players. Out of all the areas Google is Proficient at covering it would have to be the internet itself.
Google does have the means/experience to actually properly route the game and I think that is what they are doing with it. Routing it better then Zenimax's typical routing standards.

According to the Wikipedia on Google Stadia the service is doing this. Put under Spoiler so its not to much of a wall of text.

Stadia is a cloud gaming service,[3] and does not require additional computer hardware, only requiring the device to have an Internet connection and support for Google Chrome. Stadia works atop YouTube's functionality in streaming media to the user, as game streaming is seen as an extension of watching video game live streams, according to Google's Phil Harrison; the name "Stadia", the Latin plural of "stadium", is meant to reflect that it is a collection of entertainment, which the viewer can choose to sit back and watch, or take an active part in.[4] As Google had built out a large number of data centers across the globe, the company believes that Stadia is in a better position for cloud gaming compared to past endeavours like OnLive, PlayStation Now, and Gaikai, as most players would be geographically close to a data center. Stadia supports the streaming of games in HDR at 60 frames per second with 4K resolution, and anticipates eventually reaching 120 frames per second at 8K resolution.[4] Players can start games without having to download new content to their personal device. Players can opt to record or stream their sessions onto YouTube through Stadia. Viewers of such streams can launch the games directly from the stream with the same save state that they were just watching.[4]
As for its Hardware.
Upon launch, Stadia's cloud hardware initially uses a custom Intel[14] x86 processor clocked at 2.7 GHz, with AVX2 and 9.5 megabytes of L2+L3 cache.[15] It also uses a custom AMD GPU based on the Vega architecture with HBM2 memory, 56 compute units, and 10.7 teraFLOPS.[15][16] The service also has solid-state drive storage, and 16 GB of RAM (supporting up to 484 GB/s bandwidth) shared between the GPU and the CPU.[15]

Google developed the controller for Stadia. The controller includes two thumbsticks, a directional pad, four main face buttons, two sets of shoulder buttons, and five additional controller face buttons. The controller has the capability of connection over a wireless network, rather than through the device that the user is playing on, as to reduce the latency of controller communication with Stadia services.

The Software
Stadia is built on Debian Linux servers and Vulkan is their graphics API.[19][20]

"This [Stadia] starts with our platform foundations of Linux and Vulkan and shows in our selection of GPUs that have open-source drivers and tools. We’re integrating LLVM and DirectX Shader Compiler to ensure you get great features and performance from our compilers and debuggers."[19]

— Dov Zimring, Stadia Developer Platform Lead

zergbase_ESO · June 2020

Eifleber wrote: »

ESO Stadia .. If I understand correctly it's some kinmd of Citrix version of ESO?

I laughed. I hate Citrix... God I hate that application in my early years in IT; It was made by sick person to torment the work force.

Bradyfjord · June 2020

@Thevampirenight Thanks for sharing all the info. Still not completely sold on the Stadia service. I'll keep an eye on it though, and watch how things develop.

zammo · June 2020

Bradyfjord wrote: »

@Thevampirenight Thanks for sharing all the info. Still not completely sold on the Stadia service. I'll keep an eye on it though, and watch how things develop.

No harm in trying it for yourself, they give you a month trial with the ability to cancel any time. There's so much misinformation in the Stadia threads i've read (not just here) being spoken by people who have not even used it.

I will say, as far as ESO goes, there's little Stadia offers to anyone with a PC cable of running the game well other than the ability to play somewhere other than your desk.

Because it works (and works well) for me, doesn't mean it will work everyone, but it might work for you...

Elsonso · June 2020

.

zammo wrote: »

Bradyfjord wrote: »

@Thevampirenight Thanks for sharing all the info. Still not completely sold on the Stadia service. I'll keep an eye on it though, and watch how things develop.

No harm in trying it for yourself, they give you a month trial with the ability to cancel any time. There's so much misinformation in the Stadia threads i've read (not just here) being spoken by people who have not even used it.

I will say, as far as ESO goes, there's little Stadia offers to anyone with a PC cable of running the game well other than the ability to play somewhere other than your desk.

Because it works (and works well) for me, doesn't mean it will work everyone, but it might work for you...

From the looks of it, you have to buy it on Stadia (US$20) before you get to try it for free. What am I missing?

Env_t · June 2020

most important question - you have shared account with stadia+zenimax and can anytime play with Stadia, and without?
or its two separate accounts

Thevampirenight · June 2020

Env_t wrote: »

most important question - you have shared account with stadia+zenimax and can anytime play with Stadia, and without?
or its two separate accounts

Its crossplay so you can log into steam version, log out of it go to stadia log in to that and vice versa. So its one account accessing your characters on either your steam, non steam version and stadia versions of the pc client.

zammo · June 2020

Elsonso wrote: »

.

zammo wrote: »

Bradyfjord wrote: »

@Thevampirenight Thanks for sharing all the info. Still not completely sold on the Stadia service. I'll keep an eye on it though, and watch how things develop.

No harm in trying it for yourself, they give you a month trial with the ability to cancel any time. There's so much misinformation in the Stadia threads i've read (not just here) being spoken by people who have not even used it.

I will say, as far as ESO goes, there's little Stadia offers to anyone with a PC cable of running the game well other than the ability to play somewhere other than your desk.

Because it works (and works well) for me, doesn't mean it will work everyone, but it might work for you...

From the looks of it, you have to buy it on Stadia (US$20) before you get to try it for free. What am I missing?

You register for the service and get a 1 month trial of Stadia Pro. ESO including Morrowind is included with Stadia Pro.

Elsonso · June 2020

zammo wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

.

zammo wrote: »

Bradyfjord wrote: »

@Thevampirenight Thanks for sharing all the info. Still not completely sold on the Stadia service. I'll keep an eye on it though, and watch how things develop.

No harm in trying it for yourself, they give you a month trial with the ability to cancel any time. There's so much misinformation in the Stadia threads i've read (not just here) being spoken by people who have not even used it.

I will say, as far as ESO goes, there's little Stadia offers to anyone with a PC cable of running the game well other than the ability to play somewhere other than your desk.

Because it works (and works well) for me, doesn't mean it will work everyone, but it might work for you...

From the looks of it, you have to buy it on Stadia (US$20) before you get to try it for free. What am I missing?

You register for the service and get a 1 month trial of Stadia Pro. ESO including Morrowind is included with Stadia Pro.

Ah. Marketing dept.

So... to try Stadia, with no commitment...
1. Start Stadia trial
2. Link ESO account to Stadia
3. Play on Stadia
4. End of month, unlink ESO from Stadia?
5. Play as normal, without Stadia?

Blackgem · June 2020

My opinion. I can continue playing on PC as always ... but ...

I can go to the living room and continue playing with everything I had in PC
I can play on the phone either in bed, on the go or in transport.
I can pay a fixed price for the base game and not have to pay a monthly fee if I don't play other games in the PRO service.

If you do not like any of it and you always play on your PC that is in the same place, or you have a special configuration to not need other services ... because you do not use Stadia.