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Google have now finally unveiled their new cloud gaming service named Stadia, offering instant access to play games in Google Chrome.

What they joked was the worst-kept secret in the industry (no kidding), sounds like quite an interesting service. Certainly one that could eventually end up redefining what gaming is. A little hyperbolic maybe? I'm not so sure considering how easy this should be to jump into a game. On top of that, they very clearly talked about how it's built on Linux (Debian specifically) and Vulkan with custom GPUs from AMD.

Something they showed off, was how you could be watching a game trailer with a button to play it on Stadia and (supposedly within a few seconds) you would jump right into it. That's quite en exciting idea, one that would easily pull in quite a lot of people I've no doubt.

As for resolution, they said it will support 1080p and 4K around 60FPS at release with 8K being worked on as well but that sounds further out if anyone even cares about 8K right now.

They also showed off their new controller, with a dedicated Google Assistant button and a button to capture video immediately for YouTube:


While Google are making their own dedicated gamepad, they did say it will be compatible with other devices too.

They also announced partnerships with both Unity and Unreal Engine and Stadia will "embrace full cross-platform play" including "game saves and progression". They also had id Software, talk about how it didn't take long to bring the new Doom Eternal to Stadia, thanks to how they made the previous Doom game with Vulkan.

This means, that development for Linux is suddenly going to become a priority for a lot more developers and publishers. I don't want to overstate how important that is, but it's a very exciting prospect. This doesn't suddenly mean we're going to see a lot more Linux games on the desktop, but it's entirely possible after they go through all the work to get the games working on Linux with Vulkan for Stadia.

Stream Connect is another service they talked about. They mentioned how developers have pushed the boundaries of gaming but often local co-op is left out, as doing it multiple times in top-end games can require really beefy hardware. With Stadia, each instance would be powered by their servers so it wouldn't be such an issue. They also talked about how if you're playing some sort of squad-based game, how you could bring up their screen to see what they're doing which sounds very cool.

Google also announced the formation of their own game studio, Stadia Games and Entertainment, to work on exclusive games for their new service.

As for support from more external game developers, they mentioned how they've shipped "development hardware" to over 100 developers. From what they said, it should be open to smaller developers as well as the usual AAA bunch.

Stadia is confirmed to be launching this year and it will be first available in the US, Canada, UK and "most of Europe". One thing wasn't mentioned at all—price, but they said more details will be available in the summer. The official site is also now up on stadia.com and developers have their own website to look over.

Google also posted up some extra information on their developer blog:

Google believes that open source is good for everyone. It enables and encourages collaboration and the development of technology, solving real-world problems. This is especially true on Stadia, as we believe the game development community has a strong history of collaboration, innovation and shared gains as techniques and technology continually improve. We’re investing in open-source technology to create the best platform for developers, in partnership with the people that use it. This 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. State-of-the-art graphics tools are critical to game developers, and we’re excited to leverage and contribute to RenderDoc, GAPID and Radeon GPU Profiler — best of breed open-source graphics debugging and profiling tools that are continually improving.

There's probably plenty I missed, you can see their video on YouTube here.

As exciting and flashy as it sounds, it's obviously not Linux "desktop" gaming which is what the majority of our audience is likely interested in. However, things change and if it does become a huge hit we will cover it more often if readers request it. Linux gaming can mean all sorts of things from native games to emulators, Wine and Steam Play and now perhaps some cloud gaming so I don't want to rule it out. However, I can't see this replacing Steam, Humble, GOG, itch.io and so on for me personally.

Obviously there’s still a lot of drawbacks to such a service, especially since you will likely have zero ownership of the actual games so they could get taken away at any time when licensing vanishes. At least with stores like Steam, you still get to access those games because you purchased them. Although, this does depend on what kind of licensing Google do with developers and publishers, it might not be an issue at all but it’s still a concern of mine. Latency and input lag, are also two other major concerns but given Google's power with their vast networks, it might not be so bad.

Also, good luck monitoring your bandwidth use with this, it's likely going to eat up a lot all of it. YouTube and Netflix use up quite a bit just for watching a 30-minute episode of something in good quality, how about a few hours per day gaming across Stadia? Ouch.

That doesn't even address the real elephant in the room, you're going to be giving Google even more of your data if you use this service, a lot more. This is the company that failed to promptly disclose a pretty huge data leak in Google+ after all. I don't want to be some sort of scaremongering crazy-person but it's something to think about.

As always, the comments are open for you to voice your opinion on it. Please remain respectful to those with a different opinion on the matter.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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285 comments
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Ketil Mar 20, 2019
If you don't know if you will like a game, I think streaming is a great option. I definitely won't download a 50GB game for a free weekend, but I would be willing to stream it. You will obviously need audio and video codecs suited for real time, and I expect you will want a smaller buffer than most live video today use. This will probably cost something in terms of graphical glitches during playback, but I do believe it can be done. A new video codec might be required for a great experience though. You will obviously never be able to reduce the input lag to below the ping, but assuming your uplink is reliable enough, and has enough capacity I don't think you will have to multiply your ping by much.

As others have mentioned, this could bring great games to low-performance laptops. Additionally, I do think it will be more efficient to have high-quality hardware for a fraction of the users, rather than regular quality for all users. Say I play 2 hours a day and that I use a GTX 1060 today. I would expect there would be benefits sharing a single RTX 2080 with 11 other people, rather than giving each their own 1060 that is idling most of the time. If the company is global, and people from all over the world are using it, then you can reduce the idling quite a bit without compromising the quality of service. Taking into account that not all games require the best hardware, you could share hardware for the less demanding games without degrading the service too much, reducing the total costs even more.

All in all, I don't think this service will be good enough for hardcore gamers who are willing to spend a lot of money on new hardware, but it could bring more games to the casual gamer growing the gaming industry.
Shmerl Mar 20, 2019
Some details on Stadia's hardware: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/google-amd-custom-gpu-stadia-gaming,38865.html

They are using Vega based GPUs.


Last edited by Shmerl on 21 March 2019 at 3:14 pm UTC
Sir_Diealot Mar 20, 2019
Quoting: KetilIf you don't know if you will like a game, I think streaming is a great option. I definitely won't download a 50GB game for a free weekend, but I would be willing to stream it. You will obviously need audio and video codecs suited for real time, and I expect you will want a smaller buffer than most live video today use. This will probably cost something in terms of graphical glitches during playback, but I do believe it can be done. A new video codec might be required for a great experience though. You will obviously never be able to reduce the input lag to below the ping, but assuming your uplink is reliable enough, and has enough capacity I don't think you will have to multiply your ping by much.

So you are not willing to download 50 GB for a weekend but to download 50 GB for two hours of streaming?

Oh and don't worry guys, I'm sure Google has more plans than just data collection, oh no.
This is going to be an entirely new advertisement platform. Your games will become billboards, just like web pages are today.
Klaas Mar 20, 2019
Quoting: Sir_DiealotSo you are not willing to download 50 GB for a weekend but to download 50 GB for two hours of streaming?

If we consider the 25 Mbit/s estimate from a few pages back and 8 hours playing time, you would require approximately 88 GB of traffic. That's insane.
silmeth Mar 20, 2019
Quoting: Sir_DiealotSo you are not willing to download 50 GB for a weekend but to download 50 GB for two hours of streaming?

Oh and don't worry guys, I'm sure Google has more plans than just data collection, oh no.
This is going to be an entirely new advertisement platform. Your games will become billboards, just like web pages are today.

I would. Cause that’s 50 GB (well, more like 20 GB for two hours, if 25 Mb/s is true) during playing, without waiting for 50 GB to download up front. That’s just more convenient.

If Steam provided a game streaming service, then I would totally use it for the free-weekend games to try them before buying. Now, even though I have somehow OK-ish transfer (~120 Mb/s down) I mostly ignore them – because of the download wait and needed cleaning afterwards if I decide I don’t like them.

I like very much the idea of streaming-as-a-demo and streaming to allow one to play on less powerful hardware. I did enjoy OnLive because of that when it launched.

(On the other hand I’m not sure if I’m ever gonna use Stadia – I don’t game enough to pay regular subscription, I’m against exclusives which it will supposedly have, and it seems at least initially it won’t be available in Poland – seems I’m not in the most of Europe ;-).)


Last edited by silmeth on 20 March 2019 at 10:00 pm UTC
Sir_Diealot Mar 20, 2019
Quoting: silmeth
Quoting: Sir_DiealotSo you are not willing to download 50 GB for a weekend but to download 50 GB for two hours of streaming?

Oh and don't worry guys, I'm sure Google has more plans than just data collection, oh no.
This is going to be an entirely new advertisement platform. Your games will become billboards, just like web pages are today.

I would. Cause that’s 50 GB (well, more like 20 GB for two hours, if 25 Mb/s is true) during playing, without waiting for 50 GB to download up front. That’s just more convenient.

Yeah I didn't do the math before, it should be about 11 GB per hour. That's still plenty, way more than you'd need for a regular online multiplayer game and it will be needed even for single player games. The longer you play, the worse it gets, 5 hours and you've used up more bandwidth than the 50 GB download.
Other services like Steam are also wasting huge amounts of bandwidth (always update everything by default), but this is something else.

And then you'll have to ask yourself what for?
I see a lot of benefits for Google (total control, data collection platform, ad delivery platform).
I see mostly drawbacks for the user.
Purple Library Guy Mar 20, 2019
Quoting: Klaas
Quoting: Sir_DiealotSo you are not willing to download 50 GB for a weekend but to download 50 GB for two hours of streaming?

If we consider the 25 Mbit/s estimate from a few pages back and 8 hours playing time, you would require approximately 88 GB of traffic. That's insane.
I'd be starting to pay my ISP extra awfully fast.
Ketil Mar 20, 2019
Quoting: Sir_Diealot
Quoting: silmeth
Quoting: Sir_DiealotSo you are not willing to download 50 GB for a weekend but to download 50 GB for two hours of streaming?

Oh and don't worry guys, I'm sure Google has more plans than just data collection, oh no.
This is going to be an entirely new advertisement platform. Your games will become billboards, just like web pages are today.

I would. Cause that’s 50 GB (well, more like 20 GB for two hours, if 25 Mb/s is true) during playing, without waiting for 50 GB to download up front. That’s just more convenient.

Yeah I didn't do the math before, it should be about 11 GB per hour. That's still plenty, way more than you'd need for a regular online multiplayer game and it will be needed even for single player games. The longer you play, the worse it gets, 5 hours and you've used up more bandwidth than the 50 GB download.
Other services like Steam are also wasting huge amounts of bandwidth (always update everything by default), but this is something else.

And then you'll have to ask yourself what for?
I see a lot of benefits for Google (total control, data collection platform, ad delivery platform).
I see mostly drawbacks for the user.
I have multiple games I have bought with less than 2 hours of playtime. I'd say 15-30 minutes is enough to decide if I want to download it.

I don't know which video codec they are using, but I wouldn't be surprised if they choose AV1. The 25Mb/s figure is slightly higher than what the Wikipedia page of AV1 codec says 1920x1080@60 on main profile should be, but if you are bandwidth limited, then you should be able to reduce to a lower resolution and rate to reduce it significantly.

According to those AV1 figures it actually looks like their 4K alternative at 30 Mb/s is 3840x2160@30fps, while their 25Mb/s figure is for 1920x1080@60, or possibly an older version of it. AV1 can scale down the resolution quite a bit if you are bandwidth limited, although I suppose most games are unplayable before you reach the lowest resolutions.
vector Mar 20, 2019
Quoting: please_use_plain_text
Quoting: elmapul
Quoting: please_use_plain_text"Streaming is the worst DRM ever made, you don't own your games and you're screwed if a publisher want to remove a game (music licensing issue for example)

they can replace the soundtrack, but i would hate that option too

Not sure publishers bother to spend money to replace a soundtrack on an old game which doesn't bring in much money anymore. I don't remember which games but it has happened before.
The only instance that readily comes to mind of a game being re-released which previously had licensing (expiration) issues is Mafia (aka Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven). The music that played on the car radio (https://youtu.be/HMVPexp77uk?t=182 was at issue, and the game was re-released without it.

Usually when games run into licensing issues (e.g. Blade Runner*, The Godfather saga, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth** saga, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions***, etc.), they are lost forever in terms of being able to be acquired legally, outside of the boxed copy, merchant reseller market.

That doesn't even begin to address all the games that didn't have licensing issues, but which were abandoned without having source code escrows, and therefore also can't be obtained legally (beyond old retail copies floating around, which can have scratched discs or be overpriced, if they are available at all).

---
*Westwood Studios' Blade Runner was never was available via digital distribution, and likely never will be due to licensing issues. Excluding completed wishes, it's currently the ninth most requested title on GOG.com's community wishlist.
**Only The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II: The Rise of the Witch-king was ever available via digital distribution, but again, licensing issues will likely keep any Battle for Middle-earth games from being re-released.
***Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions was re-released on Steam, but it was pulled again after a period of two years.


Last edited by vector on 21 March 2019 at 12:25 am UTC
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