Google Stadia's E3 Event Reveals New Details For This Linux+Vulkan Gaming Service

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Google Stadia's E3 Event Reveals New Details For This Linux+Vulkan Gaming Service

Back at GDC 2019 Google unveiled Stadia as their cloud gaming service powered by Linux, AMD graphics, and using the Vulkan API. More details were just revealed at their live broadcast event prior to next week's E3 gaming conference in Los Angeles...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Google-Stadia-More-Details

[Jumbotron]

What's the price for "normal" 1080p stream if it's 10 bucks a month for 4K? Most Americans do NOT have a 4K capable internet stream.

[Blahblah]

With how powerful sub-$300 systems are getting, the justifications for game-streaming services like Stadia get looser everyday. The pessimist in me says that this is a thinly-veiled attempt at getting people to buy games without allowing them to exert normal property rights over their copies.

[Deavir]

What's the price for "normal" 1080p stream if it's 10 bucks a month for 4K? Most Americans do NOT have a 4K capable internet stream.

I read in an article that 1080p is free but you have to buy the games.

[OpenSourceAnarchist]

Deavir Yes, in this article (https://www.polygon.com/2019/6/6/186...-canada-europe) at the end they state 1080p and stereo sound is free. As a soon-to-be college student I am very interested in the free tier option in 2020!

More info on the price tiers here: https://www.polygon.com/2019/6/6/186...ia-pro-vs-base

[stormcrow]

Deavir Yes, in this article (https://www.polygon.com/2019/6/6/186...-canada-europe) at the end they state 1080p and stereo sound is free. As a soon-to-be college student I am very interested in the free tier option in 2020!

More info on the price tiers here: https://www.polygon.com/2019/6/6/186...ia-pro-vs-base

If you're going to be living on campus, it's almost a certainty such a service is going to be against the campus network terms of service and likely to be blocked. The reason being even 10 mb/s let alone 35 mb/s per room in constant use quickly adds up when you have thousands of rooms, even if only a fraction of them are using such a service. Campus networks are shared between all users. While the internal network may remain uncongested, the link to the outside world can quickly become so. Be prepared to pay for your own ISP connection if you want luxuries services like Netflix and Stadia.

Back in the early days of the Internet, the university I attended ended up having to block streaming audio because those actually needing the external gateway couldn't get work done for all the students and administration trying out the new & shiny streaming Shoutcast sites. Seems quaint now, but there's always some new bandwidth hog that needs to be blocked or throttled on such communal networks so people can actually get work done.

[sarmad]

Well, if I can "buy" the game, then I should theoretically be able to download the game and run it on my own Linux machine.

[kon14]

With how powerful sub-$300 systems are getting, the justifications for game-streaming services like Stadia get looser everyday. The pessimist in me says that this is a thinly-veiled attempt at getting people to buy games without allowing them to exert normal property rights over their copies.

You won't be playing any modern graphics intense games at 1440p, let alone 4K, on a sub-$300 system any time soon and by the time you do chances are the latest games will require even more juice to perform decently anyway.

I'm not advocating for streaming, nor do I fail to realize just how bad things could potentially turn out in case it somehow does manage to sway the majority of casual players towards gaming as a service, though I can see why some would consider it over the conventional approach while pricing is right.

First things first, it's convenient and that's by bar the most important factor for the majority of the player base that may not care enough about ownership rights or modding and whatnot. We've already axed serial keys and installation disks in favor of user accounts and digital downloads. Why stop there when you can do away with downloads and local updates?

There's also the case of portability. sticking to a lightweight rig and low/mid end gaming so as not to have to carry around your good old full tower while away from home is one thing, but why bother when you can just stream 4K games using a tiny dongle attached to your monitor?

In the end it all comes down to how many advantages these services are going to provide and how much the majority of users is willing to sacrifice at a given price.

[mumar1]

Well, if I can "buy" the game, then I should theoretically be able to download the game and run it on my own Linux machine.

I´m quiet sure the games will depend on googles drivers, I don´t expect them to work with the standard Radeon VULKAN drivers

[TheOne]

I guess this service will be appealing for people with the bandwidth but without the hardware, also is interesting that you will be able to use a basic chromecast for gaming, after all, games are trash software to burn time on things that doesn't matter and doesn't make you grow in life. Why would I care if I don't have a local copy? Look how most people prefers streaming videos with netflix over buying expensive DVD's for 1-2 hours of trashing your time/life. Think about how many freaking games exists... as a gamer if I wanted to play them all I need to keep investing in expensive hardware (cpu/gpu) and buying expensive games which is a lot of money for what? Maybe to stay addicted to that feeling of accomplishing something that isn't even real...