[Digital Foundry] Red Dead Redemption 2 Stadia vs Xbox One X vs PC Analysis!
Posted Nov 22, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC
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Less input lag than Xbox?
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Consoles are 30fps cap, so stadia on a PC rendering 60fps can make up for the difference
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One thing muddying those numbers is that he’s using Stadia on PC, so that means using a monitor (which generally have better latency than TVs). Would be better to compare Xbox with Chromecast Stadia.
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or you can connect both to a tv or a monitor
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There’s a disclaimer in the video saying that the total latency doesn’t include the latency introduced by the monitor or tv.
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Far as I could tell, they didn't specify they were running Xbox on a TV. I might've missed that, though?
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There is a disclaimer in the video saying that the display latency isn’t taken into account.
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Xbox consoles are typically played on televisions, so I would think that their test (assuming it was actually done on a TV) would be the most representative of the typical use case for console play. Stadia can be played on a variety of different devices of course, so if there's a flaw with their methodology, it's that they didn't do more tests across multiple device types.
And for what it's worth, there are high end 4K televisions that have relatively low input lag, like the LG C9 (~13.5 ms). Did they talk about what equipment they actually tested on?
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Wait so this guy gets 340mb/s down and thats what he gets ?
Crazy of Google to think this was ready for the public.
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Bandwidth is far less important than latency for this. It seems many people are conflating the two.
But yes, the vast majority of the US will not experience reasonable latency.
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Well unless they are planning to have data centers across the world (or wherever they are launching Stadia) i feel like thats always going to be a pretty big problem.
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Latency is important for some type of games and not very important for others.
Bandwidth is always important.
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I'll at least get you back up to 0, it's a reasonable comment, people are weird.
I'd posit that far more people have sufficient bandwidth (>10Mbps consistently) than have good latency. There's probably some handwavey things you can say that games that don't need quick reactions play more slowly and so are easier to compress and require less bandwidth anyway, but that's not important. Any notable latency feels awful, even for a slight delay in moving a camera or effecting a button press.
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So, how's the gameplay? I hate when people spout numbers at me. I used to play Space Invaders on the Atari...I have no idea what resolution or fps that was. I just want to know if it's still fun to play RDR2 on Stadia.
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Don't go into threads like this then. You're just wasting time.
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Yes, it's very fun to play RDR2 on Stadia. Had some compression artifacts in the first snowstorm segment, but it cleared up quickly and didn't impact the gameplay. Kinda wild to open a chrome tab and play a AAA game.
Source: played RDR2 on Stadia.
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You purchased a product and had a good experience as is backed up by the video that is the thread you are on?
Get downvoted dude, who do you think you are - having a provably good time with a technology r/Games doesn’t like!
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The character is about as nimble as a dump truck, so if there was any extra lag introduced by Stadia, you wouldn't feel it.
The only issue I could foresee is that compression artifacting might make seeing stuff difficult. Combat can take place at pretty long range and the amount of postprocessing and visual effects going on makes stuff hard to see from a distance. I have to play pretty close to my TV to see what's going on, which is something I don't have to do for most games.
But it's probably a perfectly fine way to play the game.
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This kills one of the biggest arguments against Stadia. It is still clearly not for everyone but it showing that what will soon be a free console can stand toe to toe with an XB1X in the most important aspects is a huge win for Google.
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It just wins because the other versions have absurd input lag.
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If you followed the hysteria leading up to Stadia's launch you would believe that this result breaks the laws of physics though.
A cloud console being latency competitive with a local console is a breakthrough, full stop.
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Look at any other other game tested with Stadia and you’ll find that it introduces 40-60ms of lag compared to XBO or PS4 (or PC) at a minimum. RDR2 is apparently a special case because it has so much frame lag to begin with that the bump to 60fps makes up for it. So it’s not exactly the silver bullet you’re saying it is.
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you’ll find that it introduces 40-60ms of lag compared to XBO or PS4 (or PC) at a minimum
But in this case it only had 29ms more latency than 60fps triple buffered on PC. That's just 2 frames.
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The latency isn’t a dealbreaker, though, which is the main aspect regarding viability. It’s similar with fidelity — a streamed movie isn’t going to look as good as a 4K HDR BluRay, but it’s popular because it’s convenient and accessible.
I’m imagining the free tier of Stadia could be really popular with people who only play a couple games a year, or a bridge to all the mobile gaming users who never play on consoles.
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The fact remains that so many people have insisted it was impossible and they have been proven wrong.
There is no silver bullet in solving the issues that cloud gaming presents but there are definite cracks in the armor showing now.
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This says alot about the quality of latency for the game when the Cloud based version is beating the console in terms of latency. Also holy shit at almost half a second in input lag.
Well, the stadia version (at the 1080p quality) runs at 60 fps. So it makes sense that it beats the console version latency which is 30 fps. They did a video earlier which included destiny 2 and it was a similiar result, the stadia with 60 fps in Destiny 2 beat the local consoles because they are capped at 30 fps.
RDR 2 is basically animation priority so the long time to complete each action makes sense. Some of it is negated by using first person or higher framerate but it is a design choice and cannot really be compared to a fast paced shooter.
It was the opposite, Destiny 2 at 30FPS on One X had lower latency than the 60FPS Stadia version,
The RDR2 one is semi misleading too, the test he's using is 'Test C' from this video as his test. He's testing the full length from pressing the trigger to the gun actually discharging in first person, which is all down to how long the animations are/the programmed time it takes to fully fire a gun.
'Test A' shows pressing the trigger to seeing a response on the screen which is 185ms on One X @ 30FPS and 181ms on PC @ 60FPS Triple Buffered. We should obviously remember that RDR2 is a game with heavy input latency anyway.
Not to mention Destiny 2's peer 2 peer networking could fuck with results. I play that game on PC at 100+ fps and the network shittiness alone can cause high variance in how responsive the game feels, even in pve content. Input latency should be tested on a consistent, non-network based single player game with snappy animations.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe that the response time / input lag has very little to do with the refresh rate / fps.
E.g., 30Hz could theoretically give a response time of 16ms, while 60Hz gives 8ms.
So the different refresh rate would only explain 8ms of the 50ms difference that was measured.
The PC version at 30fps would probably still have lower latency than the Stadia version at 60fps.
No, the frame rate has a huge impact on the latency.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider has its input latency close to halved when playing on One X's 60FPS mode opposed to the high res 30FPS mode. This is running locally on the same console.
This likewise translates into the Stadia version of SotTR which offers a 30 & 60FPS mode just like One X/Pro
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The huge difference in SotTR isn't explained just by the 60/30 fps difference though. If nothing else in the game changes, the difference in input lag between both modes should be 16 ms at most, since that's how much faster a frame is presented at 60 fps compared to 30. Clearly there's something else going on with that game between the two settings, not just a difference in framerate.
More frames means there are more visual frames for you to react to and put an input on, as well as more frames on which the game can output an animation or action.
And what you wrote has nothing to do with input lag.
Walking in RDR2 feels like steering a boat. I get what they were going for but goddamn it makes everything feel awful.
I remember jumping into Hitman 2 after finishing RDR2 and feeling like Piccolo after taking off his weighted clothes. I'd almost forgotten what responsive movement felt like.
I only got to the first camp in RDR2 before I said fuck it. I just couldn’t be bothered to meander around.
Same point I stopped the game at, it never felt like I was in control but merely giving suggestions to the character. I still can't believe that this is supposedly the highest rated game of all time.
I went to Odyssey directly after RDR2 and yeah I was flying all over that map lol.
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Yeah it's wild especially when Max Payne 3 did super tight movement and aiming while not sacrificing detailed animations for the character.
People describe RDR2's movement as "realistic" when it really isn't. Your average halfway fit 35 year old man is way more agile than Arthur Morgan is
Except the crouch walking part, he has the standard video game superpower of crouch walking without tiring quickly.
But....cowboy boots
I guess I have magic fingers, I didn't have any issue getting him to do what I wanted him to do.
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yeah same after I messed with a few controls.
Rockstar clearly wanted you taking your time. As soon as you start acting like a moron in a shop and the owner starts getting pissed with you it seemed pretty obvious for what they where going for.
I probably would have acted like a moron less if the devs just implemented a speed between running and the slowest imaginable turtle movement. You either take five minutes to walk twenty feet, or bash through shop doors like an insane football player running full speed ahead. This is a speed in camp, I don’t understand why it’s not an option in the rest of the game.
I thought this was just a PC issue, but apparently console players had to deal with it too. Why would they make a game that goes to such lengths for immersion but only give you three movement speeds?
I like rdr2 slow pace gameplay. It really make me appreciate the details and the world around the game.
Every rockstar game has had shit tier movement. I’m praying for the day they realize it.
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I’m talking about all their games. Every game has shitty movement that makes them infuriating to play at times. Realism is not a fucking excuse when it’s been a huge issue in every game they’ve made outside of the Max Payne series.
A majority of these tests seem to be coming out of the silicon valley. I guess my question would be how accurate is a test like this if the average person doesnt have access to the same quality internet connection?
A few of the reviews outside of california I had seen said it was unplayable because the service wasn't there.
Digital foundry based in uk?
John and (I think) Alex are in Germany, but the actual office is part of Eurogamer in the UK.
I have no idea honestly but I'm sure they still have a better infrastructure for there internet than most of the US.
Bro you're just hating on Stadia. First it's that their too close to Google servers and now they have better infrastructure. Smh pathetic.