What do the media who first tested it say about Stadia
The day before yesterday, Google introduced the cloud gaming platform Stadia to the world. A number of media outlets were able to test the future novelty and find out if it has flaws and what they are. Their reviews App2Top collected in this material.
How does Stadia work
- The platform will allow you to run games in ultra-quality on PC, smartphones, tablets and screens of other devices without downloading and installing.
- It will be enough for the user to simply click on the link to the game from any Internet page to immediately start playing. This includes banners in social networks, YouTube streams, and messages in messengers.
- Google recommends using a special gamepad to play through Stadia. But the platform will also support third-party controllers.
- The performance of Stadia is 10.7 teraflops. It will support 4K resolution and 60 FPS. Moreover, all calculations will be performed in remote data centers.
GameInformer
At GDC 2019, Google demonstrated the capabilities of Stadia by launching DOOM: Eternal and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on it. According to GameInformer journalists, in the case of the first game, the site was saved. When playing DOOM: Eternal, a shooter where reaction speed is very important, Stadia showed a significant response delay.
For Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, this factor was not so critical. Playing it on the Google platform felt about the same as on consoles. The publication notes that Odyssey itself is not able to immediately respond to the player’s actions. This compensates for the delay on Stadia.
Eurogamer
The verdict of Eurogamer journalists, who compared Stadia with the previous version of the service — Project Stream, is disappointing. They stated that Stadia, as before, supports 30 frames per second and 1080p quality. Recall that the site should be opened this year. Google promises 4K and HDR support for the launch.
Eurogamer has not found any claimed integration with YouTube, nor other cloud features. However, the chances that Stadia will “shoot”, in their opinion, are still high. All conditions have been created for the new Google product: the company’s data centers are already located all over the world, and its streaming experience (via YouTube) is estimated at ten years.
Digital Foundry
The technical department of Eurogamer Digital Foundry was able to measure the performance of Stadia and was satisfied. According to the expert, the CPU and GPU of the service are higher than those of modern consoles. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey launched on Stadia 18 seconds faster than on Xbox One X. Perhaps even the next generation devices will not be able to boast of such a speed of loading games.
However, the tests showed a high response delay: 166ms. It is lower than Project Stream (179ms), but significantly higher than on modern PCs (79ms with 60 FPS) and Xbox One X (145ms). With a weak Internet connection of 15 Mbit/s, the Stadia delay grows to 188ms, and the resolution drops to 720p. This creates difficulties when playing shooters, racing simulators and some other genres. However, Google promises to continue working on Stadia and gradually minimize the delay.
TechRadar
For some journalists, Stadia has given out a higher number of frames per second than Eurogamer writes.
TechRadar employees were able to play Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on a laptop connected to the IP network of the conference center. The game was played in 1080p resolution and with 60 FPS, which still sank several times. As journalists admitted, the performance of Stadia allows you to forget that all calculations are performed on remote servers, and not on the device itself.
Nevertheless, the power of Google servers is not as important as the connection speed of the player himself. As TechRadar notes, Google will be able to change the streaming services market “only if its platform works for everyone and its price is acceptable.”
The Verge
It is worth mentioning the controller that Google has developed specifically for Stadia. Its use is optional, because Stadia can also work with third-party input devices.
The Verge notes that Google’s gamepad is not only very high—quality and convenient, but also has a Google Assistant voice activation button. DualShock 4 controllers and others, of course, do not have such a feature. Google Assistant will allow you to quickly find a guide for passing difficult moments. It is also used to launch games via YouTube streams.
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