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Today Google did a new Stadia Connect video for their gaming service, which was pre-recorded due to the ongoing Coronavirus situation. Google confirmed a bunch more games coming including from EA, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is out now and more.

What is Stadia? Stadia is Google's game streaming service powered by Linux and Vulkan. You can play games in a Chromium browser on a Linux desktop. It's now open to everyone in the 14 supported countries, with two months of Stadia Pro free when you sign up.

That's right, as of now you can play PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds on Linux in a web browser, and the icing on that particular cake is it's playable free with Stadia Pro - so uh, basically everyone who can access it has it. I've had a quick blast on it as soon as it was announced, and it works well. The graphical quality is clearly on the lower side though. Also, it's cross-platform online play too with consoles!

Also available now on Stadia are

  • OCTOPATH TRAVELER
  • Get Packed

Google also announced the games coming to Stadia Pro (free to claim) in May which will be:

  • SteamWorld Heist
  • The Turing Test
  • Zombie Army 4

One of the bigger announcements today was also Crayta, a collaborative game-creation platform that will be an exclusive First on Stadia title - releasing this Summer. Check out the trailer:

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I think my kid is going to love that.

More confirmed upcoming games:

  • Embr - an Early Access title - releasing May 21st.
  • Orcs Must Die! 3 - releasing this Summer.
  • Rock of Ages 3: Make & Break - releasing this June.
  • Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - sometime this Autumn.
  • Wavebreak - an exclusive First on Stadia title - releasing this Summer.

Plus multiple EA sports titles later in Winter 2020.

You can see the Stadia Connect video below:

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Google are really starting to bring in the big games now. I've long wanted to play PUBG, and now thanks to Stadia I can do so on all my Linux machines. Being able to play some huge games, right in a browser with no downloading needed is certainly a selling point and Stadia has become a regular platform for me because of the ease of use. As more big games appear, perhaps even more people will be won over by it.

If you wish to play games on Stadia, simply head over to the official site. They're also now using a feature they talked about before releasing, with an instant link (for PUBG) to send you into a game.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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x_wing Apr 28, 2020
Quoting: silmeth
Quoting: CorbenWhat? PUPG natively on Linux? Without Easy Anticheat, as you cannot cheat on Stadia? Or how does that work? I mean if you connect to the PUPG servers, they are checking if the client runs EAC, aren't they? Maybe the Linux native EAC client.
But the PUBP devs already said, no native Linux support, at least not for end users... so I guess they won't release it on Steam.

They probably just exempt all the clients connecting from Google servers’ network from the anticheat check. Or all clients with some secret key that is present only in the Stadia builds. Or something like that. Anyway, I would guess that the Stadia clients don’t have any client-side anticheat software and the PUBG servers just let Stadia clients, and only Stadia clients, connect without it.

As Stadia has crossplay with consoles I suspect that those servers doesn't have easy anticheat check as they are "console only" servers.


Last edited by x_wing on 28 April 2020 at 7:43 pm UTC
silmeth Apr 28, 2020
Quoting: x_wing
Quoting: silmeth
Quoting: CorbenWhat? PUPG natively on Linux? Without Easy Anticheat, as you cannot cheat on Stadia? Or how does that work? I mean if you connect to the PUPG servers, they are checking if the client runs EAC, aren't they? Maybe the Linux native EAC client.
But the PUBP devs already said, no native Linux support, at least not for end users... so I guess they won't release it on Steam.

They probably just exempt all the clients connecting from Google servers’ network from the anticheat check. Or all clients with some secret key that is present only in the Stadia builds. Or something like that. Anyway, I would guess that the Stadia clients don’t have any client-side anticheat software and the PUBG servers just let Stadia clients, and only Stadia clients, connect without it.

As Stadia has crossplay with consoles I suspect that those servers doesn't have easy anticheat check as they are "console only" servers.

True, if they don’t have any cross-play with PCs, then that’s the most obvious solution.
SuperTux Apr 28, 2020
Quoting: RafiLinuxWhat is required to get up and running with Stadia for this? I do not own credit cards and I don't put my payment information online. Can I sign up with a gift card that some $ on it?

It uses Google Pay, so it looks like any valid credit card/ maybe bank account should work, if your gift card is Visa then it should be OK I'd imagine until it runs out, or gets refilled. I am not 100% on this, might be worth a shot, worst case it just won't work lol.
dubigrasu Apr 28, 2020
Couple of things I've observed while I tested Stadia on various systems around the house (PCs and laptops). These might be true for my hardware, so don't take this as a guide or anything.

There is this assumption that Stadia will run on everything, everywhere. No, it won't.
You need a system beefy enough to decode the video stream as fast as possible, just throwing Stadia on a shitty PC/laptop won't work with good results. At best you'll get stutter and a weird lag (that can be measured in seconds) and you might be tempted to put the blame on Google's servers or a bad connection. So basically, don't confuse the video decoding lag (for which your system is to blame) with Google's servers/connection lag. Of course, you still need a good connection to begin with.

The ideal option would be actual GPU hardware acceleration for video decoding, and I say actual because that hardware acceleration setting in Chrome is useless. There is an old guide (I'll post below the link) that details how to achieve that. Note that for Google's default VP9 stream the decoding is problematic and you'll need to force it (with the Stadia+ extension) to H264, which looks a bit worse.

The alternative option is CPU video decoding, but again, the CPU still needs to be powerful enough to decode the stream with no hiccups. Also, you might need to put it in performance mode if you still notice stutter. If the CPU is not strong enough you can try to force the stream to H264, which is less demanding to decode. Don't even think at 4K.

As for the video quality, the incoming stream from Stadia looks a bit washed up and less detailed compared with a local instance. To partially remedy that you can enable Vulkan for your browser and add the vkBasalt layer on top of it, with whatever features you find necessary.
I have added here cas for sharpening and curves (you can also try fakehdr) to bring back some color and contrast. Look at the dam in the background (use the slider):

https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=ec0e0aea-898b-11ea-a879-0edaf8f81e27

Hardware acceleration guide


Last edited by dubigrasu on 29 April 2020 at 7:15 pm UTC
Liam Dawe Apr 28, 2020
Hot damn, didn't even think to try vkBasalt, clever :)
Liam Dawe Apr 28, 2020
Quoting: Mohandevir
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: Mohandevir
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: scaineIt absolutely kills me that games like Destiny 2 and PUBG can now run on Linux, but I can't play them, except through Google's proprietary bandwidth hog.

Kills. Me.

I mean, great that people can benefit and play it. Especially until the end of May while it's still free. But I have zero interest in this model of gaming. And it hurts. It really hurts! :)
To each their own. I've paid a flat fee each month, got a bunch of big games to play and now PUBG too and I can play them all basically anywhere and on Linux. It's pretty nice.

Does it work with a Steam Controller?
Yes. Any gamepad Chromium/Chrome picks up correctly should work.

Nice... I was in doubt since outside of Steam the SC defaults to K+M emulation. I was wondering if you need something like Kozec's driver?
Yeah, using SC Controller makes the Steam Controller work with Stadia.

Quoting: vector
Quoting: MohandevirDoes it work with a Steam Controller?
leillo1975 recently reported the Steam Controller did not work for him using Chrome on Linux. A post earlier in that thread listed all the peripherals that should be supported.
See above, works.

No different than a lot of games outside of Steam also needing SC Controller for the Steam Controller.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 28 April 2020 at 9:32 pm UTC
Comandante Ñoñardo Apr 28, 2020
EA porting games to Linux? Nah!
I bet EA use some compatibility layer like Proton.... Even Proton itself.
SuperTux Apr 29, 2020
Anyone using Stadia + Chrome extension?I found it made a big difference to me.
elmapul Apr 29, 2020
Quoting: dubigrasu
Quoting: GuestWhen Google introduces a option to Download the games not just streaming i might consider using it.
Not sure how this would work. Since they have and use Linux builds, the option to download the game would mean nothing to the vast majority of their users. And even for us, those exact Linux builds might not work at all.
i think he is afraid of cloud lock-in, so even an windows build is better than nothing
Ehvis Apr 29, 2020
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Quoting: elmapul
Quoting: dubigrasu
Quoting: GuestWhen Google introduces a option to Download the games not just streaming i might consider using it.
Not sure how this would work. Since they have and use Linux builds, the option to download the game would mean nothing to the vast majority of their users. And even for us, those exact Linux builds might not work at all.
i think he is afraid of cloud lock-in, so even an windows build is better than nothing

So basically if Valve implements streaming for your Steam library, you'd have what you want. The ability to install locally for the best quality and offline play and the ability to stream when you want to. Alternatively Google could start an online store with regular builds as an added option. I think the first one is probably more likely.
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