Stadia - Google's game streaming service

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LewisD wrote:I've been trying this out this evening. Used the free trial to see how it ran before deciding whether or not to get Cyberpunk on it.

I'm using Stadia on my laptop browser and then sending the video/audio to the telly Via HDMI.
Laptop is wired to the router, so it's getting 300 down and 300 up.
And Dual shock 4 connected to laptop via Bluetooth.

It's very good if I'm honest! Much better than I anticipated.

Well, well, well! Who would have thought it? After all the jokes and memes about it being dead Stadia has now got itself a legitimate use-case scenario.

No need for a poor quality last-gen version.
No need to wait for the next-gen console version
No need for long download or installs.
No need for patches.
No need for a PS5 or Series X.
No need for an expensive PC and graphics card.

It's just one game, but this really could be a turning point in demonstrating the value of streaming. When Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer launches you will be able to watch a streamer on YouTube and jump into their game, this could be the next big shift in online streaming multiplayer (once it launches).

Yeah I have been very impressed with how Cyberpunk is running on Stadia and it's 100% filled my need. I definitely wouldn't have gone for it if not for the "£40 for Cyberpunk plus chromecast and controller" deal, but could see myself getting one or two more games in future if there's a good deal (although there hasn't really been much precedent for good deals thus far).

Hopefully Lewis has stopped reading this thread as I don't want to make him feel worse but I have just gotten my promotion email so should get my chromecast and controller by Friday.

Feel bad that so many people missed out as Google ended the deal early, but £40 for Cyberpunk and the controller and a new chromecast (that we needed anyway) is a stonking deal.

aayl1 wrote:Hopefully Lewis has stopped reading this thread as I don't want to make him feel worse but I have just gotten my promotion email so should get my chromecast and controller by Friday..

(There's LOADS on eBay, going for £50 or so. But strawberry float paying for something I could have got for free :lol:

my stubbornness will beat their greed! )

LewisD wrote:
aayl1 wrote:Hopefully Lewis has stopped reading this thread as I don't want to make him feel worse but I have just gotten my promotion email so should get my chromecast and controller by Friday..

(There's LOADS on eBay, going for £50 or so. But strawberry float paying for something I could have got for free my stubbornness will beat their greed! )

Hold strong Lewis. You were only going to use it for one game and never again (and tbh I have noticed a chunk of blurriness on the stadia Cyberpunk).

LewisD wrote:

It's about time Stadia got some decent press. Google's promotion of it has been pretty dire. Most people expected a Netflix of games but Google launched a console in the cloud.

Being able to jump between a phone, TV and laptop with the same game is pretty awesome. My usage case has been Destiny 2 theseast few months. Given its internet requirements I'm amazed Google don't make it a home for games that require an internet connection. World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Fortnite, PSO2, League of Legends and Final Fantasy XIV would Al find a good home on the service.

I always wondered why they don't licence Sega's back catalog for the Pro subscription. Many of those games are so small you could temporarily download them and play the whole thing from RAM rather than streaming so there would be zero latency issues.

Carlos wrote:It's about time Stadia got some decent press...

It is interesting how perception has changed. If you look back at this thread quite a few folk were slating the system - and with good reason in many cases!

A bit of cost-changing, a rise in awareness, the arrival of a few more games... and we're now seeing way more positive comments. I do like the sound of Stadia myself and would like to try it - I may even have grabbed that Cyberpunk offer had it not been so brief!

Oh, and as for MMOs - I believe that The Elder Scrolls Online is available on Stadia. I agree that it'd be lovely to see more such games arrive, too.

So I had a Stadia Premiere Edition evening with Cyberpunk:

Very easy to get it all set up, just switched out my old Chromecast (which has found a home in my bedroom tv, result) and set the Ultra up, as well as synching up the Stadia controller. Very straightforward as you'd expect from Google.

The controller itself is very nice, slightly fatter than a DS4, looks more like a Switch Pro in terms of size and thickness. Played for maybe 2.5 hours this evening and it was very comfortable and worked well, no issues at all. It's got a headphone jack which I used so as not to disturb the mrs, bonus points there. There's also a microphone on the controller which I guess you'd use for streaming? I dunno.

The Stadia via Chromecast was cool, you just turn the controller on and the TV loads up Stadia and you can either dive right into the game, browse your library or browse the store. As with other devices, the game loads up nice and quickly.

Cyberpunk loaded up and played nice and smooth, I haven't had a single crash in almost 15 hours of game time yet. Image quality was decent if ever-so-slightly lower-res than when playing on my Chromebook, but I guess jumping from a 15" to a 55" tests my internet a bit more.

It's funny, I just started playing and was immediately into the game and immersed in all of that jazz, and you forget that its being streamed, it's just all so seamless and easy.

I've also "claimed" Sniper Elite 4 and Hitman 2 as part of the Pro trial, just in case I fancy trying something different in the next couple of weeks, but even if I don't pay the monthly fee I've still got a Chromecast Ultra and the controller out of it, so I'll always have the Stadia option available to me.

Preezy wrote:So I had a Stadia Premiere Edition evening with Cyberpunk...

Great to hear these kinds of experiences! Stadia is something that a year ago I wouldn't have considered... but now it feels more like a decent option. It'd be great if Google could bring back the Cyberpunk offer - or something similar - as it has undoubtedly brought in many more customers and got people talking about it.

Preezy wrote:I've also "claimed" Sniper Elite 4 and Hitman 2 as part of the Pro trial, just in case I fancy trying something different in the next couple of weeks, but even if I don't pay the monthly fee I've still got a Chromecast Ultra and the controller out of it, so I'll always have the Stadia option available to me.

Hitman 1 was one of my favourite gaming experiences ever and by all accounts Hitman 2 is even better so deffo check that out. Thanks for you impressions - looking forward to getting the ccu and controller myself. I'll be hooking up via the ethernet I reckon.

jawa2 wrote:
Preezy wrote:So I had a Stadia Premiere Edition evening with Cyberpunk...

Great to hear these kinds of experiences! Stadia is something that a year ago I wouldn't have considered... but now it feels more like a decent option. It'd be great if Google could bring back the Cyberpunk offer - or something similar - as it has undoubtedly brought in many more customers and got people talking about it.

As has been mentioned, cyberpunk feels like the perfect use case for this. I'm not ready to splash out on upgrading hardware myself yet, and the seamless Ness of just playing with the latest patches no fuss is very handy an impressive.

That said I'm not sure I'll get too many more games beyond CP2077. For a start I feel a bit icky about having purchases on a cloud with a company that has a history of axing their products. Secondly I'm not sure it presents great value - there hasn't been any great deals on the games themselves (obviously this CCU+Controller deal was very good but that isn't really software, more just shifting a warehouse full of stock that wouldn't sell while growing their user base.)

I'm also a little disappointed that the hardware stadia is running isn't top of the line. It really should be all the bells and whistles with Ray tracing etc. to really hammer home its advantage. By most accounts CP2077 on Stadia is the 3rd best experience you can have (tied with PS5, after top end PCs then Xbox SX) and I'm not sure that's good enough to make its case. I have noticed blurriness while walking around, especially in dark areas and after fiddling with all the (limited!) graphics options.

All in all I'm happy and impressed with the experience. I think it says a LOT that I haven't mentioned latency once - it is nonexistent. We'll see if I stick with it long term, though!

Ummm.

I only got this because of the Cyberpunk deal and I'm really surprised by how good it is. Having to eat my hat so far.

Really, the controller is so much better than I expected. Feels really good. You also set it up in about 15 minutes, really easily, along with the Chromecast thingummy. Then you're ready to go.

Most other consoles take ages to update when you switch them on: not this. I'm guessing there therefore won't also be those tedious console updates for the same reason.

Bought another game, Figment, for a quid or so after the discount, intend to blast through Hitman 2 and a few others before going back to the stuff I own. Again, no downloads, just straight into the game.

The games cupboard is a bit barren, but you know what - I definitely see the point now.

Got my chromecast and the controller - the controller is nice, a bit like a Switch Pro controller.

Had some issues setting my chromecast up and I was about to go all "so much for seamless gaming" on you but it's because I didn't plug it directly into a wall plug and into an extension cord instead.

Similar experience to abacus and Preezy once it was done - super easy to set up. Cyberpunk was really blurry on my telly - I had ghosting images when turning like when you get flashbanged in a game, but I think it might have been my telly - seem to have fixed that.

Genuinely didn't notice any latency even before I got the Stadia controller which apparently reduces that even more.

I'm definitely not getting the next gen consoles/a gaming pc for a year as I'll be moving to America - theoretically this is the perfect use case for stadia. Let's see if they have any decent sales as I'm loathe to pay full price for anything which I reckon has a risk of being taken from me in a few years.

Coulple of deals like you get in a PS sale (if Jedi Fallen order dropped to £20 I'd get it in a hearbeat) and I could see myself getting a few more games.

I will just air my slight dissapointment one last time that stadia isn't running on top of the line hardware. I really think having the "best possible gaming experience instantly" would be a much better sell to me than what's on offer. Don't get me wrong, it's still great, I am very impressed but I want Ray tracing dammit.

awaayl1 in a manger wrote:...I'm definitely not getting the next gen consoles/a gaming pc for a year as I'll be moving to America - theoretically this is the perfect use case for stadia...

It'll be interesting to see how useable and affordable Stadia is in the US. I'm not too knowledgeable about internet supply in America but I believe it's a virtually monopolised service for most states with high costs and, often, tough download limits. I'd imagine that Stadia would be an expensive option but it'll be great to hear experiences from folk trying Stadia out there.

jawa2 wrote:
awaayl1 in a manger wrote:...I'm definitely not getting the next gen consoles/a gaming pc for a year as I'll be moving to America - theoretically this is the perfect use case for stadia...

It'll be interesting to see how useable and affordable Stadia is in the US. I'm not too knowledgeable about internet supply in America but I believe it's a virtually monopolised service for most states with high costs and, often, tough download limits. I'd imagine that Stadia would be an expensive option but it'll be great to hear experiences from folk trying Stadia out there.

I think that sums up the state of US Internet pretty much perfectly!

Ill be going to Illinois (Chicago) so not 100% what it looks like there (my partner who is from there doesn't pay too much attention to it). By all accounts even their "Unlimited" plans are actually "Unlimited*". Not looking forward to navigating that minefield (or pretty much anything to do with the piss poor consumer rights of which that is a symptom. Man we needed the EU here.).

Anywho it'll be likely that when I do get over there I'll use Stadia as a brief interim solution and will post back here, but that'll be a year away.

I've been checking out the stadia subreddit and you don't hear much about Internet limits, but they all seem like a bunch of deluded fanboys over there anyway (and I guess the clientele of a subreddit is subject to selection bias anyway).

Well looks like I have a faulty chromecast ultra. I can't get a signal from it to the TV and the fault light blinks constantly. This happened yesterday but after fiddling (and plugging directly into the wall not an extension lead) it worked, but after changing nothing it was not working when I went to use it earlier.

After 90 minutes on with Google support chat (telling them multiple times that yes my TV is turned to the correct AV channel for the HDMI port) looks like they're sending me another one but will take 2 business days for the correct team to contact me by email.

Ho hum. Guess I'll play on the laptop for now. If I somehow end up with 2 stadia controllers Lewis can have one for free (May need to send it back though even though its working fine.).

I played a bit of Hitman 2 last night. I've got a really good superfast internet service here, though I'm playing through WiFi not an ethernet cable. My router is too far away for that.

It was generally fine but felt a bit glitchy to me. Sudden distracting pauses or jumps as you're playing.

Yes it's easy to just get straight into a game and it hasn't cost me anything, but this was a bit jarring. I think I'll hold back and see if it carries on like this before considering renewing or buying new stuff on it. It's nothing too drastic, but I was all ready to admit I was wrong about this.

I'm currently thinking I might have to admit that I was wrong about admitting to having been wrong about it, though hopefully I'll have to admit to being wrong about that too.

Tonight, I had no issues whatever playing Hitman. It then took me a few goes to connect my controller to my phone, but once that was done, played a couple of games on there with no bother. In fact, it was really impressive.

And then I played Cyberpunk and it was pretty darn great. Actually really fun, no issues whatever like I've read about.

I'd also say that the controller is much better than I was expecting. I'm quite a fan, so far.

Abacus wrote:...And then I played Cyberpunk and it was pretty darn great. Actually really fun, no issues whatever like I've read about.

I'd also say that the controller is much better than I was expecting. I'm quite a fan, so far.

Nice to hear that you've had a good experience with Stadia, Abacus. I was a little unsure about the service but, over the past month, reading about experiences like yours is changing my mind and making me think that it could be a decent option for when I decide to go "new gen". I love the idea of no downloads, storage requirements or updates!

Stadia - Google's game streaming service

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