Not op, but I think the biggest miss in cloud gaming is no one developing cloud first multiplayer games.

Currently in any kind of client-server multiplayer game out there you face n+1 game states (n is the number of players) and a lot of the art is in how to reconcile these. The n+1 is due to most games implementing some degree of client autonomy (e.g. in movement), and the reality of network round trips from each client causing everyone to be slightly out of sync. A concrete example of how this affects players is the experience of being shot after narrowly escaping behind cover in an FPS.

Cloud gaming substitutes reconciling these n+1 simulations with some input latency for each player. I think this could produce some qualitatively better experiences for certain games. In particular, Fall Guys is a recent game that I think would play better as a cloud first experience.

The interaction between players in Fall Guys is grabbing other players who are near to you. Due to the network latency many players have the experience of being grabbed by folks nowhere near them. A cloud first version of the game would eliminate this problem that simply can’t be solved otherwise.

The thing you're missing is that the point of client-side simulation and lag compensation is simply one of UX. It makes the game playable.

> Cloud gaming substitutes reconciling these n+1 simulations with some input latency for each player.

You're just pitching the naive networking model that every developer starts with (because it's trivial) until they realize how horrendous it is to wait 100ms on every single input.

Also, it's not "some input latency", it's the full latency of the entire round trip. From input to server (40ms) and then video to client (40ms) just to see how an action you did 80ms ago panned out.

You've eliminated none of the trade-offs, just exchanged one frustration (dying even though you shot someone before they shot you) with another (watching a delayed video feed of them shooting you while you wait for your input to cross the network).

There's a reason why client simulation is ubiquitous. Btw, lag compensation is really hard and nobody would want to do it if they could get away with the naive networking model.

A lot of people have a much better latency than 40ms.

There is more to latency than just the ping to the server.

The raw controller input latency / controller polling rate.

The time it takes for your packet to get to the server.

The number of packets per second you're sending to the serve (e.g. 100pps).

The server processing time per frame.

The server frame rate.

The time it takes for the packet to get back.

The frame rate of the client machine.

Whether Vsync is enabled (more latency).

The time it takes to transfer a frame of rgb data to the monitor.

The monitor frame rate and processing time per frame.

The pixel response time of the pixels on the monitor.

If we're doing cloud gaming. we also need to add latency stages for encoding and decoding video and how long it takes to download each frame of video.

By simulating everything client side you remove a ton of stages in this latency pipeline.

This is actually one of the selling points Google brought up at the original Stadia announcement: you can't pirate or cheat in Stadia games since it's just an interactive video feed.

Of course, most people who play games don't like that - including myself.

You definitely can cheat with Stadia, the earliest public Overwatch aimbots were just AutoHotKey scripts that detected pixels on screen and would adjust your aim so as to not make you look like an obvious cheater.

The MMO programmer in me fantasizes about making yet another MAG-like (ps3-era shooter with upto 128 players) game. That kind of thing would be so much cleaner to do on a completely server-side platform.

However, a large game like that would need a large budget to back it. Without Stadia being more popular I don't see anyone throwing all their eggs in that basket. Because it could only run on Stadia and nowhere else.

One way to mitigate risk would have been to build for both Luna (Amazon) and Stadia. But neither are very popular, and one is Windows-only while the other is Linux-only. So my risk would actually double, not mitigate since I have to develop for two platforms.

I'm ignoring xCloud since it's just a bunch of Xboxes and no thanks.

For smaller, mid-size/indie studios which are not building a massively multiplayer game, I just don't see the up side of making a Stadia-only game. They wouldn't be trivially portable to other platforms and players have learnt to live with network latencies.

So, unless a Google-owned studio does it, I don't see truly cloud-first multiplayer game happening. Assuming that's what you meant by "cloud first".

OTOH Ubisoft does ship their games on Stadia and I'd be curious to know if the experience in, for example, The Division 2 is any better. Even if the game doesn't scale the number of players in an instance, they should still get some benefit of being on Stadia. It doesn't seem to be a very popular mode in the game's subreddit though.

You know that PlanetSide still exist right? It's has it's flaws, but it quite playable even while being heavily client-sided. Also hardest issue for FPS games are aimbots and not even Stadia can solve this.

The recently released 'Outcasters' is the closest thing we've got to what you describe so far. I read an interview [0] recently by the devs describing their experience making the game on Stadia.

[0] https://www.thegamer.com/outcasters-interview/

How is this functionally different than any other game server dealing with player game states? Players would get even more warping and inexplicable behaviour as their state differed from the server state. You would just as likely get the same warping in Among Us as the game arbitrates the various players' states.

The conceit here is that rendering happens server-side, so visible game-state latency is replaced by input latency.

Many RTS games have already done this in a traditional client rendered setup with deterministic lockstep (e.g. [1]). The basic idea is to have an input at time t which has a fixed delay until t + x. During [t, t+x] everyone syncs what actions they will take, and so everyone renders the exact same state. Of course, if this sync fails then the game will stutter for everyone, unlike in the stadia case, and it has pros and cons for various types of game. It was largely rejected for action games in the past. The trick is you need to specify the minimum latency that everyone must get under for it to run smooth. In the server-rendering case you would be locked to the renderer's region and would have people with better internet having a strong advantage.

If you're interesting in this sort of thing, check out [2] which goes into depth on how to synchronise game simulations in a bunch of different ways.

[1] https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131503/1500_archers_o...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9X4lysFr64

PC gaming is like the last bastion of quasi-mainstream general compute at home, so I seriously hope it doesn't go away.

I never bought another game on my girlfriend's console after considering the fact that I have games in my Steam library that I bought 10+ years ago while the $60 game I buy on her console just lasts until the hardware breaks and they shut down the eShop.

That's such a bad deal I'm surprised that I ever made it.

Aside, I wonder how much the jumbo-sized ATX / tower PC case market has sold consoles by making people think they have to pick between a stupidly big server-sized PC tower vs. a cute little console that fits under the TV. I think the ATX/tower form-factor has played a nontrivial hand in preventing culture of having a small but powerful PC at the center of the home entertainment system.

The small-form factor trend is finally picking up steam (https://old.reddit.com/r/sffpc/) and it amazes me that this isn't yet the standard.

SFFPC is still too much hassle for an average builder, plus "ITX tax" is not very attractive too. I have built my first SFF last winter and I had to read that sub for a long time to find out all compatibility issues, and even then I ran into incompatible cooler mount and MB, I had to use a bit of force to set CPU cooler on a crooked mount. And latest trend of AIB GPU manufacturers to abandon 2-slot format is also not good for SFF.

Another issue are thermals. I can find out that my SSD is overheating to 105* in the nice looking ITX case and mitigate that a little (I have to hope now that 82-83* on a working SSD won't kill it too fast). Average user will see this by a blue smoke coming out of the case :)

I wish there was more initiative from big manufacturers in that area.

Not OP but anything that mentions Chrome is an instant loud no for me these days if I can avoid it somehow.

Just like MS 15 years ago.

It's not Chrome specific though.

afaik Stadia is chrome specific. try visiting http://stadia.google.com/ on another browser. I can't even login and view my previous screenshots, let alone play a game.

Most every cloud gaming is Chrome specific. Heck the Amazon cloud gaming doesn't even work on Chrome on Linux....

You're right, I only checked with Edge forgetting that is just Chrome too.

For what little it's worth, Stadia is opening to play through Safari (on iOS) soon.

Cloud gaming is just not really good enough for me for fast paced games.

I've tried GeForce Now, Stadia, and Shadow. So far GFN is my favorite and Shadow is my least favorite but tbf I'm not in the proper region for Shadow.

Haven't tried Stadia, but I can certainly vouch for GFN. The lag is comparable to consoles on TV (and in some games, better), so while it would be a handicap in PC-centric fast-paced games, I was damn impressed with it. If I had a reason to pay the $5/month premium for unlimited gameplay away from home, I certainly would.

Stadia is really sensitive to lag. In my urban home, with a reliable high-speed broadband connection, it works pretty well when physically connected by Ethernet, but the stuttering is intolerable on wifi.

I tried GeForce Now with a high speed internet connection (Comcast) with Counter-Strike and I found the game to be unplayable from the lag. I double checked my speed test and router settings, it should’ve been fine.

Ultimately I believe these services represent the future of gaming, but without net neutrality or alternative ISPs it’s going to be awhile before that future is realized.

My experience with GFN has been MUCH better than I expected. I've also come across similar sentiments as yours, which leads me to think it's a proximity to the DC issue.

E.g., my RTT to my ISP's gateway, on average, fluctuates between 8-11 ms (currently ~14 according to pfSense) and a ping to google's closest response is usually about the same. I'm sure others have it better, but I am quite impressed, given a little bit of this latency would probably be eliminated by not having a virtualized router as is the case with my setup.

Twitchy MP shooters and twitchy platformers are the 2 subgenres that aren't suited for this arrangement. Most everything else is perfectly fine (under the aforementioned ideal conditions).

Did you use wifi or wired ethernet?

I have a super stable 1 Gb/s fiber connection with like 5-7 ms to a close by AWS data center where I ran Parsec on a VM. I got ≈ 400 Mb/s to the VM, with < 10 ms ping over my 5 Ghz wifi. But I could still never get a stable setup. As soon as I went wired everything worked great. I think jitter is a big problem.

With a wired setup I could also move to further away DC's (like 20 ms) without any issue.

It was wifi, my connection speed with speedtest over wifi was 100Mb down and 30Mb up.

I should probably note I was also sitting next to my wifi router, so I’m not sure that a wired connection would’ve made a noticeable difference.

Even right next to the antenna, wires will have less latency and packet loss than wireless.

Sure but it shouldn’t be noticeable. For example, I can play Counter-Strike on my computer itself just fine over wireless without the latency issues.

From my experience, I think it is. A non-small part of multiplayer game engineering is to handle latency. With streaming you have none of that, and even if the connection just stutters for a few 10's of ms you will get a horrible playback experience.

Game streaming is most comparable to live video streaming with a frighteningly small buffer (< 10 ms).

The GeForce Now client itself told me my connection was good enough for gaming... I’m not arguing that wired cables aren’t faster, but these streaming services aren’t advertising based off of that and their own clients aren’t requiring that level of performance either.

I've tried GeForce Now also, the client told me everything was fine over Wifi (but it wasn't). Switched to wired, and again everything worked perfectly. I'm in the same room as my router.

I'm just saying that my guess is that this probably has nothing to do with your ISP or net neutrality, and more with technical limits of wireless connections. But I could of course be wrong... Try it with ethernet and see how it goes, I just have a long cable I temporarily run through the room when I wanna play :-)

(And yeah, I think it's kinda fishy that they don't make it clearer if/that wired connections can make big improvements. Look around the subreddits about these services, or their support pages and you'll see that people recommend ethernet, and the vendors first recommendation when having trouble is to use wired ethernet [0], [1])

[0]: https://support.google.com/stadia/answer/9595943?hl=en&ref_t... [1]: https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4504/

I have Ubiquiti home networking, and sometimes play GFN or Steamlink over wifi a few feet from an AP, but just trust me that wired is always better than wifi, regardless of what a rudimentary connection test tells you. If you have the option of trying wired, just do it and see for yourself.

Not OP.

I can't wait to see Google dump Stadia.

Curious why you care about this?

I don't like the concept of not owning anything anymore. I don't like paying subscriptions for everything to big companies.

It's detrimental to consumers.

So why aren't you complaining about Steam then? At least that's somewhat tangentially related to this article.