Hands-On With Microsoft's Browser-Based Xbox Cloud Gaming Service on an iPhone

[BulkSlash]

I’ve been trying this out and the lag makes stuff unplayable- Forza Horizon 4 I was lurching about the road because I kept overcompensating for the delay in steering and in Gears 2 the delay in ducking after releasing the trigger meant many unnecessary deaths.

My fibre connection is showing low latency to the servers, I haven’t tried a wired connection, but then what’s the point of this if you have to be wired? I might as well boot up the Xbox if that’s the case.

If this is the future of gaming I’ll stick to my old consoles.

 

[ScottishDuck]

Hi, ordinary civilian here. Doesn’t fast Internet speed mean low latency?

how can I have stable and low latency internet?
I also find it ridiclous to say that 200ms is slow latency...like literally thats 1/5 of a second...a second...

Think of it like this:

A highway with a 100mph speed limit but a ton of potholes. The cars can go really fast, but they will crash.

That's what your data is doing on a fast, but unstable, line. The throughput can be as high as you like, but every time a bad packet comes through due to a line fault, your stream will buffer, your game will lag, your webpage will take just that little bit longer to load.

As for "how do I get a stable and low latency line"? If FTTP internet is available, it's basically a guarantee on that. If you rely on copper services you're going to have to get lucky in having a competent technician install your line and ensure the copper is in good condition. There's steps that can be taken to remove a lot of common faults that exist inside the home wiring (there's a lot) but I'm not going to pass on information that could lead to people making costly mistakes by ripping wires out.

 

[Krizoitz]

A very valid point. But I would add that it may be mistake to assume cloud-rendered gaming (GeForce now, Xbox cloud, Stadia, etc.) is an acceptable substitute in every situation. I still think the type of game you play will make a huge difference for the foreseeable future. Most single player games and even multiplayer turn based games should work fine.

Sure, its definitely not best for everyone or every situation. My objection was to the idea that simply to the idea that an xbox being cheaper than an Apple device was relevant for the situation described.

 

[Krizoitz]

I also find it ridiclous to say that 200ms is slow latency...like literally thats 1/5 of a second...a second...

A second is quite a long time in terms of reaction. Human reaction time between seeing something and reacting to it is about 200~250ms, so you are talking about a delay in the same range. Plus, depending on how its measured/reported that might be only the delay in one direction. You might need to double it (or more!) to account for the total round trip latency. Thats going to lead to perceptible and meaningful pauses in interactions. For games that depending on timing (action games, fighting games, etc.) thats going to have an impact even though it seems like a second is very quick.

 

[MacBH928]

Think of it like this:

A highway with a 100mph speed limit but a ton of potholes. The cars can go really fast, but they will crash.

That's what your data is doing on a fast, but unstable, line. The throughput can be as high as you like, but every time a bad packet comes through due to a line fault, your stream will buffer, your game will lag, your webpage will take just that little bit longer to load.

As for "how do I get a stable and low latency line"? If FTTP internet is available, it's basically a guarantee on that. If you rely on copper services you're going to have to get lucky in having a competent technician install your line and ensure the copper is in good condition. There's steps that can be taken to remove a lot of common faults that exist inside the home wiring (there's a lot) but I'm not going to pass on information that could lead to people making costly mistakes by ripping wires out.

Is it safe to assume that if my ISP bring in a fiber line directly to my router at home I have FTTP?
I heard of people who had fiber lines but complain of slow speeds so I don't know whats going on.

A second is quite a long time in terms of reaction. Human reaction time between seeing something and reacting to it is about 200~250ms, so you are talking about a delay in the same range. Plus, depending on how its measured/reported that might be only the delay in one direction. You might need to double it (or more!) to account for the total round trip latency. Thats going to lead to perceptible and meaningful pauses in interactions. For games that depending on timing (action games, fighting games, etc.) thats going to have an impact even though it seems like a second is very quick.

I understand what you are saying but... 1/5th of a second to travel across countries or under the ocean...mind boggilng, absolutely mind boggling.

 

[noSpeed]

He said he played Call of Duty Warzone. I can't find that on the xbox streaming service. Where do I get it? I can only play that on my console.

 

[One2Grift]

They don’t want to. It’s in Tim and Apples best interest for this to work, it demonstrates there is an alternative to the App Store for gaming services like this and helps them in their case against Epic. Don’t want to pay for putting your stuff on the AppStore? Fine, serve it up on the web. The Web is where Apple doesn’t control the content on the iPhone.

True.
For better or worse the future is probably web based. Microsoft (and many others) see better revenue growth and profit growth opportunity through having as much on its servers in the cloud.
It's not to say Microsoft will be giving up xbox consoles anytime soon. Absolutely they won't. The gaming experience will first have to be similar. But they'd love people to start out/move to all cloud based where some of the sweetest revenue, recurring revenue, is coupled with a smaller cost of doing business. That just is what it is.

 

[apparatchik]

He said he played Call of Duty Warzone. I can't find that on the xbox streaming service. Where do I get it? I can only play that on my console.

It was all a fabrication...

 

[Krevnik]

I understand what you are saying but... 1/5th of a second to travel across countries or under the ocean...mind boggilng, absolutely mind boggling.

Sure. But the interesting thing is that the human brain frequently can detect even smaller gaps than that, even if we don’t necessarily have the ability to articulate what we are seeing conciously. When it comes to input lag, 30ms or so is where folks who are very sensitive to it start noticing things feeling “off”. When you start hitting 100ms or so, a lot of people start noticing it. But people don’t always register it as “lag”. Instead feeling the effects of lag: inputs not registering the way we expect them to, having more difficulty handling more complicated, timing-sensitive inputs when comparing to low input lag, and generally higher frustration with the controls/timing of the game.

It gets kinda crazy when you start looking at research which suggests the human brain can not only see, but identify what it is seeing incredibly quickly, and suggests that it’s even a skill that can be improved with practice. Very relevant to the above. https://news.mit.edu/2014/in-the-blink-of-an-eye-0116

But it gets even weirder when the person doesn’t even need to identify something, just see it. PWM flicker being an example. A lot can see 48Hz flicker, and many people can see 60Hz flicker. Fewer can see it up into the 96Hz range. But depending on the type of motion of an object, higher flicker frequencies become visible to the human vision system. An example of this effect is bubbles from an aquarium airstone. I run my aquarium lights at >480Hz, but add an airstone and I can see the flicker in the bubbles themselves, due to the fast movement of the bubbles. I mean, we’re talking about an on/off cycle happening in around 2ms, and yet it is still visible in certain specific conditions.

 

[Hessel89]

Kinda sad seeing Halo being played through xbox cloud gaming now while 21 years ago this was supposed to be a Mac exclusive. If a Powermac could run it, an iPad Pro m1 could certainly run it. I hate microsoft for monopolizing the gaming industry.

 

[Mr_Ed]

Kinda sad seeing Halo being played through xbox cloud gaming now while 21 years ago this was supposed to be a Mac exclusive. If a Powermac could run it, an iPad Pro m1 could certainly run it. I hate microsoft for monopolizing the gaming industry.

Well, blame MS if you want, but it’s not like Apple prioritized gaming in any way.

 

[Krizoitz]

Kinda sad seeing Halo being played through xbox cloud gaming now while 21 years ago this was supposed to be a Mac exclusive. If a Powermac could run it, an iPad Pro m1 could certainly run it. I hate microsoft for monopolizing the gaming industry.

The gaming industry has not even remotely been monopolized by Microsoft. You may want to check in to some companies named Nintendo and Sony for a start….

 

[noSpeed]

It was all a fabrication...

Sorry. Not following you here.

 

[ScottishDuck]

Is it safe to assume that if my ISP bring in a fiber line directly to my router at home I have FTTP?
I heard of people who had fiber lines but complain of slow speeds so I don't know whats going on.

If you definitely have a glass fibre to your router then yes. Assuming that the person who installed it cleaned the terminations and checked the light levels (which they are required to) then any observed speed issues would most likely be due to wider infrastructure pressures or even CDN problems.

It’s entirely possible (particularly in the US) that they’re overselling services without improving infrastructure so they’ve got too many customers.

 

[notabadname]

How is this different than remote play?

It is far more playable. I have been using Remote Play with the XBox App, and games such as Outriders are almost unplayable, with poor frame rates and screen tearing. The cloud service plays quite smoothly and Outriders is very playable. We did a side-by-side comparison, on the same Xfunity WiFi, ping of about 9ms, 300 mb/sec download, two 12.9 inch iPad pros playing Outriders in the same coop game together. The iPad on Remote Play was really suffering, with significant lag, 10 FPS i would say at times, with digital blocking/compression issues and screen tearing. The cloud iPad played a consistent 30-60 fps. It never had screen tearing, and while lag was there, it was consistent and playable. I’d guess the lag was 30-50 ms. So very playable, as long as you are not playing PvP 1st person shooters - in that case, the lag would definitely have you missing headshots and leave you at the bottom of the leader board. But coop games like Outriders, Skyrim, etc - def a surprisingly good experience. The difference was so substantial, i bought the Ultimate Pass.

 

[Paperdrop]

It terrible. Input lag, audio skips. The worst.

 

[MacBH928]

If you definitely have a glass fibre to your router then yes. Assuming that the person who installed it cleaned the terminations and checked the light levels (which they are required to) then any observed speed issues would most likely be due to wider infrastructure pressures or even CDN problems.

It’s entirely possible (particularly in the US) that they’re overselling services without improving infrastructure so they’ve got too many customers.

thanks this was informative