Google Stadia Cloud Gaming Platform Now Available on iPhone and iPad Through Safari

[BuffaloTF]

Cloud gaming is such a joke. Nothing beats on device. I tried rainway and steamlink. What a joke. How could anyone play with such latency and loss of quality?

The latency is rather minimal - not any worse than playing any online game. The true issues are when the video codec chokes and leaves you with artifacts (takes a few seconds to sharpen back up) or pauses momentarily (then you go warp speed until that catches up).

It's a rather brilliant entry point. I had better experience with GeForce Now than Stadia myself, though I'm sure you can find people that state the opposite. XCloud will be an interesting competitor once they leave Beta after their Series X upgrades.

 

[hovscorpion12]

I got it working.

1. Turn on Private Browser.
2. Sign in
3. Add to home screen.
4. Sign in one more time
5. Play your games!!!

 

[BMox81]

Stadia has seen tremendous improvements over the last few months. Cyberpunk plays fantastic on there.

Don’t be so cynical towards. The tech works and I’m glad more people are beginning to see that.

 

[archer75]

Actually... Nvidia's GeForce Now figured this out first in November... seems like Google just copied their workaround.

GeForce NOW Streaming Comes to iOS Safari

I much prefer their model because it doesn't force you to buy games again, that will only be tied to the Stadia store. Nvidia let you link up to existing stores (like steam, epic) and play your existing purchases, platform agnostic. and they have a free tier. That's very consumer friendly.

I like that as well. Though this is why NVidia lost so many developers.

I also found that with GeForce now, when I was testing, I couldn't tell it was streaming. It played as if it were local. I tested on my Nvidia shield and on my mac mini. Though my primary method of playing is locally on my PC.
I can't stand controllers and so I prefer a keyboard/mouse.

But comparing the two services, Nvidia feels like a PC copy of the game and Stadia feels like a console copy in terms of settings and options. It feels like on stadia a keyboard and mouse are secondary to the controller. Not every game supports them. But in those that do people say they mostly work well.
Keyboard/mouse seems primary on GeForce now though in my testing I used the shield controller but the game seems to favor kb/mouse.

Nvidia has a free tier that can have a wait. It streams at 1080 and I was able to max all settings and it played smoothly. Their $5 paid tier eliminates the wait and adds ray tracing. If you have the 2019 shield with it's AI upscaling this will come pretty close to looking like 4k with no performance hit.

Stadia streams 1080 for free, as long as you buy the game from them, and their $10 paid tier ups that to 4k. Though no ray tracing. I've read a review that said it wasn't true 4k but I don't know if that's correct.

Neither service supports non standard resolutions which is a deal breaker for me. As all my monitors are non standard resulting in a smaller image.

I'd love to test on xbox series X but then I'd have to buy another copy of the game.

Another downside is stadia has now gone down 2 days in a row. If that happens when you want to play you're SOL.

 

[MikeKlump]

I like that as well. Though this is why NVidia lost so many developers.

I also found that with GeForce now, when I was testing, I couldn't tell it was streaming. It played as if it were local. I tested on my Nvidia shield and on my mac mini. Though my primary method of playing is locally on my PC.
I can't stand controllers and so I prefer a keyboard/mouse.

But comparing the two services, Nvidia feels like a PC copy of the game and Stadia feels like a console copy in terms of settings and options. It feels like on stadia a keyboard and mouse are secondary to the controller. Not every game supports them. But in those that do people say they mostly work well.
Keyboard/mouse seems primary on GeForce now though in my testing I used the shield controller but the game seems to favor kb/mouse.

Nvidia has a free tier that can have a wait. It streams at 1080 and I was able to max all settings. Their $5 paid tier eliminates the wait and adds ray tracing. If you have the 2019 shield with it's AI upscaling this will come pretty close to looking like 4k with no performance hit.

Stadia streams 1080 for free, as long as you buy the game from them, and their $10 paid tier ups that to 4k. Though no ray tracing. I've read a review that said it wasn't true 4k but I don't know if that's correct.

Neither service supports non standard resolutions which is a deal breaker for me. As all my monitors are non standard resulting in a smaller image.

Does GeForce now run in Chrome or is it it's own app?

 

[GruberHans]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯View attachment 1695599

+1 - doesn’t load up in Safari. Even if you have the app - which I’m pretty sure has nothing to do with being able to / not being able to play via Safari.

 

[archer75]

Does GeForce now run in Chrome or is it it's own app?

It's own app on shield and desktop.

 

[GruberHans]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯View attachment 1695599

Got tip - I just refreshed the page like 6 times and now I see it.

 

[cfj2222]

“Yay!” - The two people who GAF about Stadia.

 

[mikeb13]

I got it working.

1. Turn on Private Browser.
2. Sign in
3. Add to home screen.
4. Sign in one more time
5. Play your games!!!

These steps did not work for me. Still getting the Download Chrome message.

 

[Deliro]

Google? Ah I refuse to use any of their services if possible. My DNS servers also don’t route through their widely used ones.

But cloud gaming has lots of potential. Of course local is better but I am awaiting Microsoft’s offering on iOS. I have game pass and it’s awesome.

 

[hot-gril]

And I’ve been playing it on my 16” with medium high settings on 1200p. Let’s do a comparison View attachment 1695559

Skipping over the fact that you had to install Windows via Boot Camp and download the game, and now you have to reboot and then probably install a fat update every time just to play that.

Meanwhile a Stadia user could just open up any old laptop and play the game without any setup.

 

[hot-gril]

Cloud gaming is such a joke. Nothing beats on device. I tried rainway and steamlink. What a joke. How could anyone play with such latency and loss of quality?

I can play Stadia without noticeable lag on my cheap home internet. Haven't tried the rest, but GFN definitely didn't work as well, so maybe Stadia did something to improve the experience. Though, for a precise game like csgo, I'd probably need it to be local.

 

[archer75]

Skipping over the fact that you had to install Windows via Boot Camp and download the game, and now you have to reboot and then probably install a fat update every time just to play that.

That's ok.
There's also only been one update. Hell, I downloaded the entire game on steam in 25 minutes. It was done before I finished cooking dinner. So personally I don't care about downloads or updates.
Though stadia has had outages the last two days. Most of googles services have.

 

[hot-gril]

That's ok.
There's also only been one update. Hell, I downloaded the entire game on steam in 25 minutes. It was done before I finished cooking dinner. So personally I don't care about downloads or updates.
Though stadia has had outages the last two days. Most of googles services have.

There's already been an update? The game just came out! You're probably going to see one every week, and you're not going to see that many Google outages.

 

[archer75]

There's already been an update? The game just came out! You're probably going to see one every week, and you're not going to see that many Google outages.

The game has a lot of bugs on any platform so lots of updates on the way. But with steam it auto downloads so you don't even notice. Not that it matters. The download would be done before I finished adjusting my chair.
Hopefully not that many outages, but still outages. On any streaming platform. It happens. Annoying if it happens at a time you want to play and that's your only option.

 

[yeahtyeaht]

This is awesome ive been waiting for this to use on my iPad. Works great with the stadia controller.
I’m also using it on my 12 Pro max and for some reason it doesn’t go completely full screen in landscape. Can’t really play it like this when there’s a giant banner stuck in the middle of the screen.

You need to add stadia.com to your Home Screen. Press the share button and then "Add to Home Screen"

 

[hot-gril]

The game has a lot of bugs on any platform so lots of updates on the way. But with steam it auto downloads so you don't even notice. Not that it matters. The download would be done before I finished adjusting my chair.
Hopefully not that many outages, but still outages. On any streaming platform. It happens. Annoying if it happens at a time you want to play and that's your only option.

If you have really fast internet and leave your PC on all the time just to update games, and have a gaming PC in the first place, you'll be fine, but that's not most people. 60GiB downloaded in 20 minutes means you must have 400mbit/s down. I have 30.

 

[archer75]

If you have really fast internet and leave your PC on all the time just to update games, you'll be fine, but that's not most people. 60GiB downloaded in 20 minutes means you must have 400mbit/s down. I have 30.

It's fine. Even with slow internet i'd just download when I go to bed. Or to work. Or while i'm working on something else. I always have things I need to be doing. It's really a non issue.

I have gigabit internet at my new house. At my previous house it was 100 down/up. Yes, I do tend to leave my computers on 24/7. One I run a plex server on amongst other things. And the other gets used for video encoding so much that I just leave it on. Though I don't often leave steam open. My PC is rather dated now but it works well enough for the time being.

It's not like if I can't play at that very moment i'm going to have a meltdown. I simply move on to things that need doing.

Stadia strikes me as a console replacement. But consoles are realtively cheap seeing as they last for 7-8 years before the next gen comes out. So i'd rather just buy a console, and I have.
What I could use is a high end gaming PC replacement(which is more expensive and requires more frequent updating) that lets you bring your own games rather than locking you in to their service. The only option i'm aware of is Shadow. Though it's listed specs really aren't much faster than my current PC.
Most of the games stadia and geforce now have don't interest me. And not supporting non standard resolutions is a deal breaker.

 

[A MacBook lover]

Skipping over the fact that you had to install Windows via Boot Camp and download the game, and now you have to reboot and then probably install a fat update every time just to play that.

Meanwhile a Stadia user could just open up any old laptop and play the game without any setup

Windows was already installed. The install took 3 minutes in a NVME drive.
Nothing beats the crispness and responsiveness of on device. Full 10 bit uncompressed HDR.

 

[mikosk]

Nice to see companies moving past the App Store restrictions. A native app would always be preferred but no need to stand still while Apple protects Apple Arcade and hides behind their absurd policies. Streaming is streaming, Netflix or games. They will have to relent at some point as cloud gaming will only grow in popularity.

 

[archer75]

Nice to see companies moving past the App Store restrictions. A native app would always be preferred but no need to stand still while Apple protects Apple Arcade and hides behind their absurd policies. Streaming is streaming, Netflix or games. They will have to relent at some point as cloud gaming will only grow in popularity.

It has nothing to do with arcade. It's not even a competing service. Apple is even working with these companies to help with their PWA game streaming. Hell, it was apples suggestion they go that route and they made sure they had the tools in safari for them to do it!

 

[mikosk]

It has nothing to do with arcade. It's not even a competing service. Apple is even working with these companies to help with their PWA game streaming. Hell, it was apples suggestion!

So what gives then? The native Xbox android app supports game streaming but Apple blocked this functionality on the iOS version. They said it was a content rating issue but every game is rated by the ESRB just like movies via the MPAA. How come I can watch Doom on the Netflix app but I can't play Doom on the Xbox app on iOS?

 

[hot-gril]

Windows was already installed. The install took 3 minutes in a NVME drive.
Nothing beats the crispness and responsiveness of on device. Full 10 bit uncompressed HDR.

I don't care about the full crispness, I just want to play the game with decent visuals. And I'm not going to bother with Boot Camp, nor are most people. This must be the majority view. The graphics are an upgrade for anyone used to playing on a console, which tends to run graphics-intensive games at medium settings.

3min on an NVMe drive, that doesn't include the hours it'd take for me to download the game. And worst of all is when the game isn't on Steam but on some stupid exclusive store, like Valorant is.

Edit: The one real problem with Stadia is you buy full-price games there that can't be played anywhere else. Seems simply too expensive for that kind of restricted access.

 

[archer75]

So what gives then? The native Xbox android app supports game streaming but Apple blocked this functionality on the iOS version. They said it was a content rating issue but every game is rated by the ESRB just like movies via the MPAA. How come I can watch Doom on the Netflix app but I can't play Doom on the Xbox app on iOS?

Each game in the service needs to be approved. So any company, microsoft, google, nvidia and others can all put their games on the app store if they wish to. Apple didn't block anything. They decided they didn't want to go that route. But they do have the option to. So apple suggested they go through the web.
Every service has their own store, microsoft, sony, nintendo, and to get your game/app on their store you have to abide by their rules. It's no different.

I would guess, and I don't know for certain, it's because each game could run it's own store within it that perhaps each needs it's own approval? Again, I don't know for certain. It doubt is has anything to do with ratings.

You can, in the ios xbox app, game stream from your console right now. Just not via their online xcloud game streaming service. I'm at work now and opened the xbox app and connected right up to my series X at home.