Project Stream

Games
1

Project Stream is Google’s new streaming gameplay platform that runs on Chrome. Testing keys for AC: Odyssey went out today.

Initial thoughts: Given that my graphics card apparently can’t run this game (I’ve tried five or six times and never made it all the way to choosing a horse), it’s amazing that it just works in my browser. You’re not allowed to change the graphics settings, but it looks good to me. It runs in fullscreen mode. There’s a tiny bit of input lag but it’s not bad enough to affect the game much.

I know this probably won’t be available to the mass market anytime soon, but it’s good enough that it’s making me rethink the new PC I was about to buy because my seven-year-old machine couldn’t run Odyssey.

2

So do you think you could run this on a good Chromebook? Or does it have to be a PC?

3

The idea is to let it run in any chrome browser. I can’t imagine why that wouldn’t include Chromebooks.

4

Delighted to hear it. I would love a streaming platform , sadly all the other services have appeared flawed to me in some way or another.I dont put it past google to have innovated somehow here.

5

Info here:

Beta sign-up here: https://projectstream.google.com/aco/invite

6

So does Google render the game on their high-end servers and stream the video? And then the player makes inputs and those gets uploaded to Google? Is that sort of how it works? I guess it requires a fast connection.

7

There is no connection that is fast enough.

8

So that means I am wrong in my assumption, or that Project Stream is doomed to failure?

9

C. It’s a YakAttack post.

10

A couple things could happen:

  1. the types and genres of games could skew in a certain direction, just like how they skew toward touch-friendly puzzle games on mobile

or

  1. people will just accept things and make do, just like how people ultimately accepted gamepads for playing shooters on consoles

or

  1. people won’t notice or care as long as it’s more convenient/costs less

Plenty of opportunity here for Google to make some money.

I still wonder if interface lag could be reduced somewhat by having at least part of the game (the GUI) run locally on the player’s system. This would need to be taken into account from Day 1 when designing a new game, however.

11

I understand these theories, but I’m actually playing it and it’s good enough. I don’t know if it’ll be good enough for high level esports, but it works for me.

12

Yeah, I think it will be good enough for a lot of people. Just not the 144hz GSync, liquid cooled, overclocking, $1200 GPU crowd. But 99.9998% of the population with Internet access is still a pretty good target market.

13

There are impressions out there already, from what I read is pretty ‘run of the mill’. Like PS Now basically. Limited to 30fps, a bit of extra lag sometimes, the details doesn’t seem as the game is running at maximum.

14

Christian Spicer was pretty enthusiastic on DLC.

15

US sign-ups only.

16

The comparison that comes to mind is MP3s/iTunes quality compared to CDs. It’s obvious you’ll get much better sound quality if you buy the CD and rip your own high bitrate music, but most people don’t give a rat’s ass about that as long as it sounds “good enough” to their ears.

Ultimately, this streaming crap will probably ruin gaming for the rest of us one day.

17

Yeah, streaming is like a 160kbps MP3 file. Good analogy.

Except for twitchy games like Street Fighter and Super Meat Boy. If you need split-second controls, you shouldn’t stream the game.

18

Not the best comparison, as you can stream music of any quality. With the speeds we have now, you can stream FLAC if you want.

(also you don’t get ‘much better quality’ by ripping your own cds.)

19

Played it a bit yesterday and it’s pretty good for what it is. I’m actually pretty impressed. Didn’t really notice any lag. The system is supposed to figure out via your connection what the res/graphics should be I suppose, but it looks alright to me (probably 1080 I’m guessing). Maybe a wee bit of artifacting.

But yeah so far so good.

— Alan

20

I couldn’t get it to work at all on my gaming PC (blank screen) but works fine on my ancient Mac mini. Go figure. I connected an XB1 controller via Bluetooth and was playing AC:Odyssey on a six year old Mac via Chrome. We live in amazing times.

Then I took it too far… I switched on Airplay and tried to play the game on my 65" OLED TV via Apple TV. It almost worked! Unfortunately I don’t think Airplay is meant for low latency gaming. Way too stuttery. Oh well, it was a fun experiment.