Destiny 2 on Stadia Apparently Runs in 1080p, Medium Settings

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nivomi

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According to The Verge (https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/18/20970297/google-stadia-review-gaming-streaming-cloud-price-specs-features-chrome-pixel), the Stadia version of Destiny 2 runs at 1080p (upscaled for 4k users) and 'at the PC equivalent of medium settings'. There's a comparison view in the article - you can tell that Stadia can't even really compare with a One X, let alone a high-end PC.

So, uh, so much for Vinny's hopes of "it'll have to be top of its class, right?" from the most recent podcast, unfortunately.

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ThePanzini

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A proof of concept platform with zero install base has gotten half arsed ports, I'm shocked. Though tbh I doubt the folks Stadia is for would notice or even care to.

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nutter

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#3  Edited By nutter

That’s unfortunate. Their pitch earlier this year seemed promising, but the launch picture is pretty mediocre.

Hopefully it turns the corner and becomes the original promise, because a lot of what was initially announced sounded pretty interesting.

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FacelessVixen

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Welp, it'll be interesting to see where Phil Harrison will pop up next.

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haneybd87

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So you pay extra for 4k and don’t even get 4k. Cool.

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Brackstone

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I'm wondering why it's so bad. Are the costs of the hardware necessary to run it competitively with PC and consoles (or even to surpass them) too expensive given google's monetization plan? Is porting to stadia way more complicated than anticipated, as evidenced by the MK krypt? Was stadia rushed out the door and devs didn't have enough time? All of the above?

I've been down on stadia since the beginning, I'll admit it, but that was cause of input lag and such. I never believed the latency would be low enough for most people, but I believed they'd be able to pump out good looking games and push the hardware a little further. But they can't even equal an Xbox One X? What are they even thinking? What's the deal with their messaging, launch lineup, everything, if they can't even be at par with current consoles?

Another thought. If Doom Eternal was supposed to be their big heavy hitter for launch, and they had some kind of deal with Bethesda, is porting to stadia enough of an issue that Doom Eternal was delayed because of it?

If it's just a matter of complex porting, there's a chance for things to get better as people get more familiar with the tech. But if Google was rushing this out the door and/or not investing enough on quality hardware to run the games as promised, then how much faith do they even have in their own product?

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shorap

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Next gen is launching in a year and a pc that runs games of Destiny’s fidelity at Pro/X levels won’t cut it for a lot of upcoming games. Did google actually not consider the next console generation looming on the horizon when deciding on their specs or did they not think it would matter?

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Onemanarmyy

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#8  Edited By Onemanarmyy

Haven't they spoken a big game about how these games will be coming to us at the best quality you can get? . Why are we not seeing this? Or did i just make that up and listened to people that were painting me a future where that could be the case. Are they upgrading their hardware on a yearly basis in the datacenters around the world & combining GPU's to keep up with competing tech? Like naturally they invest in upgrading hardware all the time, but staying at the bleeding edge of 4k gaming around the world is quite a recurring & costly affair. Right now they're boasting about their 10.4 Tflops GPU, but the 2080 TI is already at 13.4 tflops and they're unable to run 4k Destiny 2 at higher than medium settings. Naturally tflops isn't the best way to compare gaming performance, but it seems all we have to compare. Are they stuck with this custom GPU for over a year? Are they magically able to put 3 of these GPU's power towards a game in the future? Why is this not the case yet? Will Stadia being linux-based hamper the game performance of these GPU's? Especially when the new consoles provide a higher base-line for developers, and as Ray tracing matures, PC games will boost it's max requirements further ahead as well. I've seen some comparison shots of Red Dead 2 already that were not too kind to Stadia, i can't imagine that comparison getting any more flattering when Cyberpunk rolls around.

Their messaging feels so scattershot as well. Like it feels like they are focusing a lot of time to convince the hardcore gamers with their talk about latency and showcasing fighting games and timing-sensitive games to work. But at the same time, they are not able to compete with PC-performance or on pricing without any subscription services tied to it. And naturally, that audience is probably a whole lot more averse to the streaming future than those that don't give a fuck about having a gaming collection for the next 10 years or wonder whether google is committed enough to last in this market and just take what is most convenient at the time. Wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense to focus all that attention on the mainstream-side of the business who is less likely to care about the best graphics & will take a jitter here and there as long as they won't have to pay for a PC / console? The ones that have to start with a fresh slate of gaming no matter what they pick?

'Buy a controller, buy Madden & subscribe to play it on your phone, PC & TV!' would go over a whole lot better i feel like. (Even if that's still near 150$) But i guess that EA is not giving them their sportsgames. Like that seems to be the message they should aim for. 'play the latest games at a decent performance level while saving hundreds of dollars that you would've put towards a console otherwise'. ('And please don't read up on the existance of game subscriptions, Xcloud or Humble Monthly')

I'm just dumbfounded why they made it sound like the quality of the performance would be quite spectacular. Like how is Jade Raymond's studio providing us a crazy technological marvel that can only exist on Stadia when we're working with tech that can't display 4k Destiny 2 at max settings?

And why are we having this launch when that studio has just staffed up? Shouldn't they provide the big selling point? Is this a super important time in gaming where people are deciding in which ecosystem they want to be and Stadia wants to be there for it?

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gerrid

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It seems to me like Google has launched Stadia in the way they launch a lot of their software products - a soft launch, with a limited user base, where they will use the data to ramp up features and fine tune it for a wider release and improve it over time.

Except that in the video games business first impressions are everything, and if the public & enthusiast perception is set early that your product is shoddy, bad value, or incomplete it will be very, very difficult to shake. You still encounter people who think you can't trade games on the Xbox One or that it has to be always online and connected to your cable box.

Perhaps its different when the product is mostly software based, but in terms of a 'console' launch, it's not great. Upscaled 1080p is a joke when the whole point of the premium sub is you get 4k.

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spacegg

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#10  Edited By spacegg

It sounds a very good and promising start to me. Most importantly it has been great to see people playing these AAA games on their OSX and phones which wasn't possible before.

I look forward to see games which actually uses the capacity of cloud computing.

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Onemanarmyy

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#11  Edited By Onemanarmyy

I was just thinking, what will the upgrade process for Stadia look like? Like i imagine they want Cyberpunk to look as best as possible when it's out on Stadia somewhere halfway / end of 2020. So it would make sense to perform the first upgrade to their datacenter hardware at that time given that these things can't run Destiny 2 at 4k max and will not impress in Cyberpunk neither. Will we end up in a situation where the key servers in San Fran, Chicago & New York are prioritized while some server up in Finland has to wait an additional 6 months before their data centre makes the move to gen 2 stadia equipment because that's simply not a key territory for Google? Will the equipment all get the same upgrades at the same time? Has google mentioned how these upgrade cycles will take place? Will we have to construct data center tier-lists to know when the upgrade cycles happen to the datacenter we're connected to?

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haneybd87

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@spacegg: What’s so good and promising about getting 1080p when people paid for 4k?

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ThePanzini

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#13  Edited By ThePanzini

@onemanarmyy: I doubt its entirely a hardware issue or even one at all.

Stadia uses Linux/Vulkan which isn't widley used. Its probably more a combination lack of faith from developers resulting in limited support not enough time/money being spent and using poor tools.

I doubt Google wants to use DX12 or windows because of licence fees etc, but Google should have a porting studio or at least one to support the process.

Google is in a bind its very difficult to reach mass market without spending a ton of money and Stadia clearly isn't ready, but next gen is a year away nobody will care by them or more importantly the press.

It's not unrealistic thinking Sony would have a reveal event around March with its plan to expand PSNow once that starts Stadia is going to have a much harder time getting attention, it has the room to itself until then.

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spacegg

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@thepanzini: It would be interesting hear more about SDK and how developers are using it. Do you have article to share which would explain why the tools are poor?

Personally I find it hard to believe Linux+Vulkan would cause any issues if at all.

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spacegg

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@haneybd87: It works better on launch than I expected but of course 4K need to work ASAP. Also, I do find it great that people with Linux, OSX, Android, etc. are able to play games they couldn't play otherwise.

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ThePanzini

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#16  Edited By ThePanzini

@spacegg: No just an assumption on my part but games ported using DirectX often perform worse on Vulkan, and the reverse being true with Red Dead Redemption 2.

Destiny 2 with Stadia specs it should be able to do near 4K using high settings but on PC Destiny 2 doesn't have Vulkan support it could very easily explain the modest settings.

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MobiusFun

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Imagine paying extra to use a 4k stream's worth of bandwidth for a 1080p video game stream. What an excessive way to kill data. Silicon valley is at it again!

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cloudymusic

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#18  Edited By cloudymusic

This is really wild. I thought, for sure, that one of the big selling points of Stadia was "games can all run on the equivalent of max settings because it's on a server farm where we have endless compute power!" I'm not just dreaming that, right?

Between that and the various other selling points that they've backpedaled on (streaming to any Chromecast Ultra, the Wi-Fi controller, etc etc) it seems like a shocking amount of their initial sales pitch has basically gone up in smoke. Enough that I would be extremely pissed if I had put down money for a pre-order based on their promises.

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OurSin_360

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#19  Edited By OurSin_360

I don't understand their business model.

On one hand I could see them going after the mobile market but on the other they are making you purchase a google chromecast for 130 dollars to use it? So technically I guess it's cheaper than any other platform, but then it is dependent on your internet and you have to pay extra just to play at a high resolution on top of buying a full priced game that you don't even get an install to own.

I can already max out destiny at close to 4k on pc and i didn't have to actually pay money for the game since it's f2p.

Who is this for?

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gerrid

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@oursin_360: Well the chromecast purchase is only necessary to get into this part of the launch. Purely a way for them to limit takeup and maximise income at the first part I suppose, although it's obviously creating confusion.

After that it's just a streaming service you can run from any chrome browser, no subscription required, you just need to buy the game to play it.

At which point the appeal is obvious, if it works. Think of Alex's friend who bought consoles just to play Kingdom Hearts games. All the people who play second life or the Sims or Fifa only.

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spacegg

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@oursin_360: It is worth to remember that we have not seen yet what cloud computing is really capable of. It can be enormous improvement what comes to multiplayer games.

"But with the new cloud power, we’re gonna be able to do this thing we call “server meshing” which allows a whole bunch of servers to run in the cloud and talk to each other. So instead of having 400 servers and each server has 100 or 200 people on it, and those people can’t see [players on other servers], if they all mesh together you could have all 4,000 people or 40,000 people in the same world at the same time. We’re not the only people that are working on that." - source

Stadia (and other similar services) makes it possible to play games on mobile phones and tablets which wasn't possible before. For example grand strategy games, manager games and many other genres could be excellent on a tablet.

Also it is really nice that people who are not willing to buy consoles or use Windows, can play the same games.

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spacegg

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@thepanzini: It would be very interesting to read technical articles and interviews about this topic. Unfortunately there seems to not be such game sites / media these days who are interested to publish articles like that.

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Onemanarmyy

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@gerrid: You still need the chromecast + subscription if you're interested in playing games on your 4k TV. And while i def agree with you that this would be quite a great option for the people that play 1 or 2 games each year, it seems like these kind of games are either sportsgames or Call of Duty. Which are series that the publishers want to keep close to themselves apparently. If you want to play Fifa, you have to go through origin, and that's exactly what they want.

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OurSin_360

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#24  Edited By OurSin_360

@gerrid said:

@oursin_360: Well the chromecast purchase is only necessary to get into this part of the launch. Purely a way for them to limit takeup and maximise income at the first part I suppose, although it's obviously creating confusion.

After that it's just a streaming service you can run from any chrome browser, no subscription required, you just need to buy the game to play it.

At which point the appeal is obvious, if it works. Think of Alex's friend who bought consoles just to play Kingdom Hearts games. All the people who play second life or the Sims or Fifa only.

I believe you have to have a subscription to play in 4k plus the price of the games (which you will never actually own since it will forever be tied to their service). And 4k/1440p upscaled will probably be the standard resolution after next year.

@spacegg said:

@oursin_360: It is worth to remember that we have not seen yet what cloud computing is really capable of. It can be enormous improvement what comes to multiplayer games.

"But with the new cloud power, we’re gonna be able to do this thing we call “server meshing” which allows a whole bunch of servers to run in the cloud and talk to each other. So instead of having 400 servers and each server has 100 or 200 people on it, and those people can’t see [players on other servers], if they all mesh together you could have all 4,000 people or 40,000 people in the same world at the same time. We’re not the only people that are working on that." - source

Stadia (and other similar services) makes it possible to play games on mobile phones and tablets which wasn't possible before. For example grand strategy games, manager games and many other genres could be excellent on a tablet.

Also it is really nice that people who are not willing to buy consoles or use Windows, can play the same games.

Yeah the technology is cool, i remember playing the onlive(I think it was called) beta way back and was surprised at how well that worked. But I don't know, maybe it's just not for me but I don't see the practical application outside of cell phones, which makes their focus on the 130$ chromecast think perplexing for me. Now having a library of games I could stream for a monthly or yearly fee is more palatable as I can cancel at any time and only pay when I want to play. (like a netflix for games)

But maybe it's just my concept of ownership when I pay full price, if my games will be tied to a service I would much rather just pay for monthly here and there on a rental bases like gamepass, or even psnow(if it actually worked) etc.

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Nethlem

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#25  Edited By Nethlem

This ain't really a surprise.

The allure of "A whole cloud just rendering the game for you!" sounds great in theory, but simply ain't economical in reality.

Just because the hardware is sitting in a server rack doesn't mean that games suddenly become less demanding, but it very likely will mean that several players will end up sharing the same hardware instance because spinning up separate hardware, for each individual player, would simply not be economical for Google.

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ghost_cat

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If there is one thing as a consumer to gain from all of this, it's that I/we get to see cloud gaming work. Someone down the line will create a better overall experience, but it's great knowing that streaming is the future for video games because of convenience. I'm in the same boat as Patrick Klepeck when it came to what he said about Stadia in a recent Waypoint podcast when it comes to priorities. Ultimately I'm the kind of consumer who will gladly take high-ish quality gaming experiences over max settings if it means I get the convenience of play-anywhere gaming with only a screen and controller.

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spacegg

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#27  Edited By spacegg

@oursin_360: Yeah, streaming is not optimal solution for many but it is a good addition todays gaming options.

Cloud computing could really make a big leap in MMO / open world games and actually make them feel living, instead of dead/lifeless ones as we have today. AI, simulation, etc. can make wonders.

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I assume this has more to do with the port of Destiny 2 than it does the Stadia hardware. Adapting graphics APIs can cause huge overhead. Games built on Vulkan will probably look about as good as a gaming PC (hence the earlier emphasis on Doom Eternal) with a frame rate capped at 60.

Granted, that excuse probably won't help when they're competing against Microsoft's xCloud.

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haneybd87

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@nethlem said:

This ain't really a surprise.

The allure of "A whole cloud just rendering the game for you!" sounds great in theory, but simply ain't economical in reality.

Just because the hardware is sitting in a server rack doesn't mean that games suddenly become less demanding, but it very likely will mean that several players will end up sharing the same hardware instance because spinning up separate hardware, for each individual player, would simply not be economical for Google.

Well the pitch was that every subscriber gets something like 10teraflops of computing power, so theoretically they should be able to run these games at 4k. What we’re seeing is that isn’t the case. So what went wrong? Do users not get the compute power promised? Are devs having trouble porting to Stadia? Both?

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ThePanzini

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#30  Edited By ThePanzini

@skald said:

I assume this has more to do with the port of Destiny 2 than it does the Stadia hardware. Adapting graphics APIs can cause huge overhead. Games built on Vulkan will probably look about as good as a gaming PC (hence the earlier emphasis on Doom Eternal) with a frame rate capped at 60.

Granted, that excuse probably won't help when they're competing against Microsoft's xCloud.

TBF xCloud is streaming Xbox One S games not their X equivalent, Stadia should be better until the next Xbox releases.