My experiences with Stadia

I see so much negativity towards Stadia out there and just wanted to give my two cents. I'm in a situation where I love gaming but haven't had the ability to play newer games due to not having a great PC and my only console is the Switch so I've had to standby and watch other people play with the new shinies while my gaming consists of indie titles or older games and mobile. Well I heard that Stadia was out for free now and even gives 2 months free so I said what the heck what do I have to lose. I made an account and claimed the 8 or 9 free games available to Pro accounts this month but none of them were really that interesting honestly and I thought about maybe firing up Destiny 2. But then I see FFXV on the store on sale for Pro members and that's perfect for me as I have been super jealous of everyone playing FF7 remake when I can't and this will scratch that itch. I purchase the game and then 1 minute later I'm in the game and my mind is blown. Like no download no install I'm just playing with my Chrome browser. No having to worry if I have enough harddrive space on my PC. At first though it is rather laggy and choppy and I think that maybe it isn't all its cracked up to be. But a quick google search tells me a few tips that I might need to adjust on my settings first. I download the Stadia app on my phone and with that I can set the data usage to medium which is the 1080p setting. I also saw that the suggestions say that my router might need updating which I did order a new one because mine is a 6 year old ISP provided one which is probably not great for game streaming. But it hasn't arrived yet. In the meantime after changing that setting the game runs beautifully for me and I can't really tell any noticeable input lag or anything and I feel like I can finally enjoy the triple A games again. I also got the Division 2 on sale and it runs just as well and I'm having a blast. And it has this cool feature in the Stadia version where if playing coop in the corner of your screen you can see the window for your teammates view so it's a lot easier to coordinate which is nice.

I hope Google continues to support Stadia, I know it was a rough launch but I just wanted to tell people if anyone else is in a similar situation as me that maybe give it a try. Obviously if you have a powerful PC or all the consoles it doesn't hold much value for you but I just don't want to see so many people down on it.

Oh and as far as how much bandwidth do you need, currently I have 50mb speeds though Im supposed to get up to 100mb which is where hopefully the new router comes in handy but at 50 I'm able to play 1080p 60fps with all the bells and whistles.

That's nice to hear duder. I hope they keep it going for the folk that use it, some of the features sound cool but my internet is especially dog-shit and I like to have local copies of things I buy so it's not for me.

Hopefully this free trial push brings in some other folk that can get the benefit of it and we won't have to see it get abandoned after people have put time and money into it.

Yea I hope it does well too. Just wanted to make a quick update. I got a new router in and it made me realize I'm getting ripped off on internet so I'm switching providers to get 4 times faster internet for the same price I'm paying now so I'm really looking forward to that happening later this week. I'm still enjoying Stadia a ton and one thing that is really huge and I haven't thought about before is not having to download and install games is HUGE for just trying them out. The free Stadia Pro games you unlock while I wouldn't normally be interested in some of them, at least not interested enough to download and install them to play. Just clicking a button and instantly trying them out is wonderful and has actually gotten me to find some games I would of passed over that are actually really good. Not having to worry about making room on my hard drive also got me to buy Assassin Creed Odyssey and finally try out my first Assassin Creed game. Other then that I'm plugging away on FFXV and I'm 15 hours in and the game is beautiful and really fun.

Also the Stadia Pro though right now is free for me would have already paid for itself way more then the cost of it so it seems like a no brainer as long as you actually plan on buying any games as the Pro deals in the store are heavily discounted and all the games I've bought have been on sale.

My feelings on Stadia have mellowed over the last few months. From, OMG no!, to well, maybe it will bring more people into traditional , non-mobile gaming. This hobby could always use fresh blood.

@berfunkle: Yea for sure. I was thinking about telling my stepdad to give it a try. He's an older guy and doesn't have the patience to figure out a console or PC but if I tell him he can just click a couple web pages and play a game then he would be up for it I think. I however am in no way new to gaming. I've been doing it 25+ years and before I joined the military I had a super nice gaming PC rig with all the high end specs needed for gaming. But I sold most my stuff after joining and then while I was in I got married and never been able to get back to the point I was at before and now Stadia has helped me regain some of that former glory for a fraction of the cost.

I wanted to try it but I have data caps with comcast so it's a no go. I mean I could probably right now as they have suspended them do to the pandemic but it wouldn't really make sense long term.

@oursin_360: I have comcast too and for me its a 1TB data cap with additional charges after that but it would take a LOT of gaming to hit that cap. Is your cap different? If it's the same it isnt that much to worry about unless you are doing some other intensive streaming as well. We watch streaming video services too and it hasn't been a problem.