Amazon's Luna Gaming Service Available on Mac and iOS as Part of Early Access Rollout

[ohio.emt]

“Amazon is not able to develop a native app for the iPhone because of Apple's restrictions that would require each cloud-based streaming game to be submitted to the App Store separately,...”

wait wait wait.This cannot mean what it says literally. Is Apple really suggesting that a game streaming app, which by definition abstracts away the concept of keeping a game library, has to submit EACH individual game they offer to the app store? For what purpose? This is nonsensical. This has to be a typo or some other error. Can you imagine if they asked Netflix to submit every movie they offer before they can put their app in?

i hope Amazon does exactly that an uploads a few petabytes of data just to clog their servers. Good luck with the app review.

That’s exactly what Apple wants. They say they need to be able to review every game made available, so they have to be individual apps.

 

[topdrawer]

i just got access. don't remember asking for it. in fact i thought this article was the first time i've ever heard about it. i think i'm going senile.

 

[PickUrPoison]

You’re fighting physics. Even if you have perfect 8G internet (whatever that is), you’ll still have propagation delay from your phone to the router to the data center. That’s limited by the speed of light.

There’s also a delay from the data center to the multiplayer server which must connect to different data centers and/or clients that are also playing the game.

that’s not even including other delays like bluetooth controller delay/touch screen delay/frame render delay/encoding and decoding delay/ etc...

competitive multiplayer games will never happen via streaming. maybe single player games will get better.

Apple has IP that will enable some key efficiency optimizations for the 5G network. It includes carrier-based solutions like how to accomplish cell-to-cell handoffs without compromising playability, as well as cloud/data center optimizations like keeping connections to the same compute and rendering resources, which are distributed more toward the network edge (and therefore closer to the end user).

These optimizations are platform agnostic, and will help all the cloud-based gaming services including Apple’s, should they decide to enter the market.

 

[Reason077]

Amazon, please roll out Luna in the UK!! I’m looking to ditch Stadia after they completely broke PUBG by dropping mouse & keyboard support.

Google are a joke, but I have a feeling that Amazon have what it takes to run a successful streaming gaming service.

 

[Reason077]

You’re fighting physics. Even if you have perfect 8G internet (whatever that is), you’ll still have propagation delay from your phone to the router to the data center. That’s limited by the speed of light.

For what it’s worth, I’ve been running Stadia over 5G for months on my Mac. It’s super smooth and works brilliantly, albeit only at 1080p on Mac (other devices support 4K). Almost never any noticeable lag.

Will it satisfy twitchy pro gamers looking to eliminate absolutely every millisecond of ping? No.

But for casual gaming it works brilliantly, and has many advantages over rendering games locally (no downloads, fast startup, less heat and battery drain, don’t need a high end device to play the latest games, etc etc)

 

[farewelwilliams]

For what it’s worth, I’ve been running Stadia over 5G for months on my Mac. It’s super smooth and works brilliantly, albeit only at 1080p on Mac (other devices support 4K). Almost never any noticeable lag.

Will it satisfy twitchy pro gamers looking to eliminate absolutely every millisecond of ping? No.

But for casual gaming it works brilliantly, and has many advantages over rendering games locally (no downloads, fast startup, less heat and battery drain, don’t need a high end device to play the latest games, etc etc)

I've used many services over hardwired home internet for about a decade now. It's just not good enough for multiplayer games.

Maybe slow paced single player games. That's all.

Specifically Stadia over 5G:
You are still launching the app in order to launch the game, which upon tapping the game, there's a few moments where it checks for your internet connection and THEN it launches your game. It's not quite exactly a "fast startup".
You're paying $9.99/mo
You're limited to Stadia's game library
It does use *less* battery compared to a full blown on device 3d game but it's not perfectly conservative. 5G radios + realtime streaming/decoding of 60fps video is going to eat up plenty of battery.
No need for high end device, but you do need a high end connection which currently most of USA does not have.
You are at the mercy of Google keeping Stadia alive. Given Google's track record of axing many projects, it's entirely possible Stadia could shutdown if not enough people use it. I certainly was one of the early customers of OnLive buying some games. OnLive shut down a few years later and I lost my games forever.

 

[nylonsteel]

sounds good
i'll beta if amzn sends all the upscale hardware to test it out
so far steam has been ok

 

[friedmud]

Cloud-based streaming is not good for most games. Latency will always be an issue and it'll be a while before anyone trusts it for competitive multiplayer games.

Most people just use it as a reason to bash Apple for App Store restrictions even though they'll likely never use it (or find very little use for it)

Have you tried it? I've had Google Stadia for ~9 months now... and it's pretty awesome. No discernable lag... even playing online shooters like PUBG. If someone were to come to my house and not know what's up - there is absolutely no way they could tell that it's not running on a physical machine under the TV. Plus: gaming at 4k/60/HDR with 5.1 surround sound is absolutely awesome!

Of course, that will depend somewhat on your connection... but I can tell you that with a good connection it is a thing of beauty.

 

[friedmud]

I've used many services over hardwired home internet for about a decade now. It's just not good enough for multiplayer games.

Maybe slow paced single player games. That's all.

Specifically Stadia over 5G:
You are still launching the app in order to launch the game, which upon tapping the game, there's a few moments where it checks for your internet connection and THEN it launches your game. It's not quite exactly a "fast startup".
You're paying $9.99/mo
You're limited to Stadia's game library
It does use *less* battery compared to a full blown on device 3d game but it's not perfectly conservative. 5G radios + realtime streaming/decoding of 60fps video is going to eat up plenty of battery.
No need for high end device, but you do need a high end connection which currently most of USA does not have.
You are at the mercy of Google keeping Stadia alive. Given Google's track record of axing many projects, it's entirely possible Stadia could shutdown if not enough people use it. I certainly was one of the early customers of OnLive buying some games. OnLive shut down a few years later and I lost my games forever.

No way - can confirm that Stadia is great - even for online shooters like PUBG. But, that is admittedly on 1Gbps fiber - can't say anything about cell-based gaming. However, if you have the connection, nothing beats gaming at buttery smooth 4k/60/HDR with 5.1 surround sound!

You're definitely wrong about fast startup though. Stadia launching is WAY faster... for every part of a game. Playing PUBG with people on XBOX it's hilarious how I'm in the game around a full minute before they can load the level.

Not too mention that there is never any patching. This is critical for me. As a dad who only gets to play a couple of times a week for an hour or two at a time... patching is absolutely a HUGE killjoy. With Stadia I know that I can sit down and within 1 minute I can be _in_ a game, playing... no matter what.

You are absolutely right that using Stadia is dependent on Google keeping it going - and, especially with Google, there are absolutely no guarantees! But - ultimately it's not that much money (spent more on coffee this morning than the monthly subscription costs)... so gotta keep things in perspective.

 

[friedmud]

You’re fighting physics. Even if you have perfect 8G internet (whatever that is), you’ll still have propagation delay from your phone to the router to the data center. That’s limited by the speed of light.

There’s also a delay from the data center to the multiplayer server which must connect to different data centers and/or clients that are also playing the game.

that’s not even including other delays like bluetooth controller delay/touch screen delay/frame render delay/encoding and decoding delay/ etc...

competitive multiplayer games will never happen via streaming. maybe single player games will get better.

The speed of light is really fast BTW. It would only take 13ms for light to travel from LA to NY. That's less than the input lag for any Xbox/PS controller hooked to your computer.... either wired or wireless (averages around 20ms). For reference, I get a 22 ms ping (that's round trip) to most Google services on my fiber.

Using that - it is absolutely possible for the one-way Stadia input to reach Google's server, be processed and sent to the multiplayer server (like PUBG, etc.) in about the same amount of time an XBox does it. Google can achieve this because their controller is not Bluetooth or going through a computer... it hooks directly to wifi and sends signals _directly_ to Google... cutting out the middle-man.

So: yes, it is definitely possible for Stadia to work well for multiplayer games... and I can tell you that it does. BUT: you do have to have good internet (not just "speed" but also high "quality"... low pings and low jitter).

 

[friedmud]

No it doesn’t.

It does to me. I fully think they are within their right to deny whatever they want from the appstore - but that doesn't mean it doesn't _look_ anticompetitive. I'm not going to argue for the government getting involved, yada, yada... but I still think Apple are dicks for not allowing this.

Note: this is coming from one of the largest Apple fanboys on the planet that is fully steeped in their ecosystem... just because I like their stuff doesn't mean I can't criticize them when they do something stupid!

 

[cmaier]

It does to me. I fully think they are within their right to deny whatever they want from the appstore - but that doesn't mean it doesn't _look_ anticompetitive. I'm not going to argue for the government getting involved, yada, yada... but I still think Apple are dicks for not allowing this.

Note: this is coming from one of the largest Apple fanboys on the planet that is fully steeped in their ecosystem... just because I like their stuff doesn't mean I can't criticize them when they do something stupid!

But they aren’t competing in that product category so how can it be anticompetitive?

 

[friedmud]

But they aren’t competing in that product category so how can it be anticompetitive?

They aren't competing in selling games?

In 2019 Apple sold $37B worth of games in the App Store. That nets Apple ~$11B.

You don't think that they may be trying to protect that by keeping game streaming off the platform?!? What are you even talking about?

 

[farewelwilliams]

Have you tried it? I've had Google Stadia for ~9 months now... and it's pretty awesome. No discernable lag... even playing online shooters like PUBG. If someone were to come to my house and not know what's up - there is absolutely no way they could tell that it's not running on a physical machine under the TV. Plus: gaming at 4k/60/HDR with 5.1 surround sound is absolutely awesome!

Of course, that will depend somewhat on your connection... but I can tell you that with a good connection it is a thing of beauty.

Have used it yes. Played Destiny and Hitman 2. Input lag is noticeable for me. I have 100mbit down on my internet and 12ms ping.

 

[farewelwilliams]

No way - can confirm that Stadia is great - even for online shooters like PUBG. But, that is admittedly on 1Gbps fiber - can't say anything about cell-based gaming. However, if you have the connection, nothing beats gaming at buttery smooth 4k/60/HDR with 5.1 surround sound!

5G was with respect to his example, not me.

144hz beats 60 any time IMO. Once you go 144hz, you can't go back.

You're definitely wrong about fast startup though. Stadia launching is WAY faster... for every part of a game. Playing PUBG with people on XBOX it's hilarious how I'm in the game around a full minute before they can load the level.

Nope. I did a launch test between my PC and Stadia to launch into Destiny. My PC blew it out of the water. You're wrong.

Not too mention that there is never any patching. This is critical for me. As a dad who only gets to play a couple of times a week for an hour or two at a time... patching is absolutely a HUGE killjoy. With Stadia I know that I can sit down and within 1 minute I can be _in_ a game, playing... no matter what.

I have 100mbit down. My games patch automatically in the background. Weird that you have gigabit and have issues with patching.

 

[farewelwilliams]

The speed of light is really fast BTW. It would only take 13ms for light to travel from LA to NY. That's less than the input lag for any Xbox/PS controller hooked to your computer.... either wired or wireless (averages around 20ms). For reference, I get a 22 ms ping (that's round trip) to most Google services on my fiber.

That's not how the internet works. Your connection doesn't travel in a straight line from one point to the other. Your connection makes many stops from LA to NY.

Using that - it is absolutely possible for the one-way Stadia input to reach Google's server, be processed and sent to the multiplayer server (like PUBG, etc.) in about the same amount of time an XBox does it. Google can achieve this because their controller is not Bluetooth or going through a computer... it hooks directly to wifi and sends signals _directly_ to Google... cutting out the middle-man.

So: yes, it is definitely possible for Stadia to work well for multiplayer games... and I can tell you that it does. BUT: you do have to have good internet (not just "speed" but also high "quality"... low pings and low jitter).

No

Let's calculate:
Touchscreen delay (55ms) or Playstation controller (20ms wireless)
Wifi propagation delay (best case scenario 3ms)
Propagation delay (depends on location between you and server, best case 15ms)
Server acts on input, and renders one frame on the GPU (at 60fps, that's 16.6ms)
Compress frame (5ms using hardware encoder, assuming on the same machine)
Propagation delay from server back to your router (best case 15ms, assuming the same machine is sending back data to you, not even including the router propagation on the serverside)
Wifi propagation delay (best case 3ms)
Device decoding of frame (5ms using a hardware decoder)


That's best case of 117.6ms of delay using a touchscreen to play or 82.6ms of delay using a wireless controller.

And that's not even including the delay from Stadia's server to the multiplayer server of Destiny for example which must also add the delay from Destiny's servers to other player devices. You're adding 82.6ms on top of connecting to Destiny's server (another 15ms) on top of players that average about 50ms ping (that's being generous). That's 142.5ms of delay in a multiplayer game if you are shooting another player in the head (best case scenario). We all know it doesn't run perfectly at all times.

Only way to play competitive multiplayer on Stadia is if Google sets up their own Destiny servers and limit players to play with other Stadia players

 

[Reason077]

Touchscreen delay (55ms) or Playstation controller (20ms wireless)

Interesting. Obviously Bluetooth has a bit of a delay, but I'm surprised touchscreen delay is so high. Do you have a reference for this? In any case, as the other poster mentioned, you can avoid this by using the Stadia controller which bypasses Bluetooth and connects directly to Stadia.

And that's not even including the delay from Stadia's server to the multiplayer server of Destiny for example which must also add the delay from Destiny's servers to other player devices.

I'm pretty sure Google ensures that the Stadia servers are very well connected to the game servers. PUBG reports extremely low in-game ping times on Stadia.

 

[farewelwilliams]

Interesting. Obviously Bluetooth has a bit of a delay, but I'm surprised touchscreen delay is so high. Do you have a reference for this? In any case, as the other poster mentioned, you can avoid this by using the Stadia controller which bypasses Bluetooth and connects directly to Stadia.



I'm pretty sure Google ensures that the Stadia servers are very well connected to the game servers. PUBG reports extremely low in-game ping times on Stadia.

Don't know if it has changed over the years, but I suspect as long as the screens aren't "promotion", they probably are the same.

iPhone 5 touchscreen latency measured, found to be 2.5x faster than closest Android rival

The touchscreen on the iPhone 5 is 2.5 faster than Android devices when responding to touch input. The iPhone 5 registers touches in 55 milliseconds, compared to 85 milliseconds on the iPhone 4. These

www.imore.com

You can check Google data center locations:

Locations of Google Data Centers

Discover the different Google data center communities located around the world.

www.google.com

Blizzard has servers in Irvine and Chicago which aren't close by any of Google data centers.

 

[Reason077]

Blizzard has servers in Irvine and Chicago which aren't close by any of Google data centers.

Thankfully, PUBG has nothing to do with Blizzard 😂... and there are certainly no Blizzard games on Stadia.

I suspect it’s more likely Blizzard will launch their own streaming service some day. It would be great to finally play Overwatch on Mac!

 

[farewelwilliams]

Thankfully, PUBG has nothing to do with Blizzard 😂... and there are certainly no Blizzard games on Stadia.

I suspect it’s more likely Blizzard will launch their own streaming service some day. It would be great to finally play Overwatch on Mac!

If you look at other games like The Division 2, Ubisoft has servers in San Francisco. Looks like Google doesn't have a data center in California. Even PUBG has a server in California.

 

[friedmud]

5G was with respect to his example, not me.

144hz beats 60 any time IMO. Once you go 144hz, you can't go back.



Nope. I did a launch test between my PC and Stadia to launch into Destiny. My PC blew it out of the water. You're wrong.



I have 100mbit down. My games patch automatically in the background. Weird that you have gigabit and have issues with patching.

I wasn't comparing to a PC... so 144hz, your blazing fast load times, and background patching doesn't apply. I specifically mentioned XBOX in the post. That said: next-gen consoles are definitely going to have faster load times and 120hz 4k with VRR... so it will be interesting to see how they stack up against Stadia at that point.

I am not the only person that finds patching to be a pain with modern consoles...

 

[farewelwilliams]

I wasn't comparing to a PC... so 144hz, your blazing fast load times, and background patching doesn't apply. I specifically mentioned XBOX in the post. That said: next-gen consoles are definitely going to have faster load times and 120hz 4k with VRR... so it will be interesting to see how they stack up against Stadia at that point.

I am not the only person that finds patching to be a pain with modern consoles...

Your specific quote was "nothing beats gaming at buttery smooth 4k/60/HDR with 5.1 surround sound!"

I specifically mentioned gaming at 144hz beats that.

 

[friedmud]

That's not how the internet works. Your connection doesn't travel in a straight line from one point to the other. Your connection makes many stops from LA to NY.



No

Let's calculate:
Touchscreen delay (55ms) or Playstation controller (20ms wireless)
Wifi propagation delay (best case scenario 3ms)
Propagation delay (depends on location between you and server, best case 15ms)
Server acts on input, and renders one frame on the GPU (at 60fps, that's 16.6ms)
Compress frame (5ms using hardware encoder, assuming on the same machine)
Propagation delay from server back to your router (best case 15ms, assuming the same machine is sending back data to you, not even including the router propagation on the serverside)
Wifi propagation delay (best case 3ms)
Device decoding of frame (5ms using a hardware decoder)


That's best case of 117.6ms of delay using a touchscreen to play or 82.6ms of delay using a wireless controller.

And that's not even including the delay from Stadia's server to the multiplayer server of Destiny for example which must also add the delay from Destiny's servers to other player devices. You're adding 82.6ms on top of connecting to Destiny's server (another 15ms) on top of players that average about 50ms ping (that's being generous). That's 142.5ms of delay in a multiplayer game if you are shooting another player in the head (best case scenario). We all know it doesn't run perfectly at all times.

Only way to play competitive multiplayer on Stadia is if Google sets up their own Destiny servers and limit players to play with other Stadia players

The Stadia controllers are direct wireless to Google's server. We don't know how much inherent lag they have before they send their signal out, but I suspect they put a fair bit of effort into engineering it. Let's say they did well and there is an inherent 7ms + 3ms for the wifi transmission.

Then +10ms for internet transmission (I get stable 20ms roundtrip pings to Google infrastructure... and that's from the middle of nowhere Idaho). Now we're at 20ms.

NOW: this is where it gets interesting. The server does NOT need to render before acting on the input. PUBG can receive a button press... and "fire" instantly... pushing packets to the PUBG server before even rendering the frame showing it happening. If the PUBG server is 10ms away from the Stadia server... that means that the PUBG server can receive the packets for a firing weapon within ~30ms +/- a few for processing here or there. There is not going to be demonstrably much difference between that and an XBOX running locally.

Now - on the video end of things, let's go with your numbers of 16ms (worst case) for rednering + 5ms for compressing... then 10ms to send it back to you (my Chromecast ultras are on Ethernet, so there is no wifi in the way) + 5ms to decode (I'm just going with your numbers because it sounds reasonable)... and we're at 56ms total for you to view the results of pressing your trigger button. That is not much at all... and I can attest that it works well.

~50ms or so is a fine trade off to play in 4k/60fps/HDR with 5.1 surround sound. Also: keep in mind that the multiplayer server is getting your activity much faster than that - so it "feels" even faster. Also: those 60fps are _solid_... which also helps the game feel more responsive as well.
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Your specific quote was "nothing beats gaming at buttery smooth 4k/60/HDR with 5.1 surround sound!"

I specifically mentioned gaming at 144hz beats that.

Hah - fair enough. I was viewing from the console side of the equation. I don't think much about PC gaming since I'm a Mac user ;-)

 

[friedmud]

However - what kind of rig do you have that allows you to play 4k at 144hz? As far as I know - that's still pretty much fantasy land - even on PC...

 

[farewelwilliams]

The Stadia controllers are direct wireless to Google's server. We don't know how much inherent lag they have before they send their signal out, but I suspect they put a fair bit of effort into engineering it. Let's say they did well and there is an inherent 7ms + 3ms for the wifi transmission.

Then +10ms for internet transmission (I get stable 20ms roundtrip pings to Google infrastructure... and that's from the middle of nowhere Idaho). Now we're at 20ms.

NOW: this is where it gets interesting. The server does NOT need to render before acting on the input. PUBG can receive a button press... and "fire" instantly... pushing packets to the PUBG server before even rendering the frame showing it happening. If the PUBG server is 10ms away from the Stadia server... that means that the PUBG server can receive the packets for a firing weapon within ~30ms +/- a few for processing here or there. There is not going to be demonstrably much difference between that and an XBOX running locally.

Now - on the video end of things, let's go with your numbers of 16ms (worst case) for rednering + 5ms for compressing... then 10ms to send it back to you (my Chromecast ultras are on Ethernet, so there is no wifi in the way) + 5ms to decode (I'm just going with your numbers because it sounds reasonable)... and we're at 56ms total for you to view the results of pressing your trigger button. That is not much at all... and I can attest that it works well.

~50ms or so is a fine trade off to play in 4k/60fps/HDR with 5.1 surround sound. Also: keep in mind that the multiplayer server is getting your activity much faster than that - so it "feels" even faster. Also: those 60fps are _solid_... which also helps the game feel more responsive as well.
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Hah - fair enough. I was viewing from the console side of the equation. I don't think much about PC gaming since I'm a Mac user ;-)

plug in 56ms into https://www.skytopia.com/stuff/lag.html

sure pressing a jump button feels like nothing with that lag, but moving your mouse/controller stick around for an FPS game at that latency drives me nuts. and 56ms is *best* case scenario. maybe you're fine with it, but i'm not.

also you are essentially adding a minimum of 30 ms while playing against 150ms ping players. from my experience of several hundred hours on counter-strike beta 5.2 on a junky 384k DSL line, there's a big difference between 150-170ms and 170-200ms ping. one is annoying but playable and the other is completely unplayable.