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0 points1_player5y ago0 comments

I do not understand how people say there's virtually no latency. There is, and it's _huge_, because light is actually quite slow and no tech can improve on that.

Makes me think people that say this have never played on a high end PC, which in turn has lower latency compared to a last gen console. And that's considering the fact that even modern PC have a TON of latency. NVIDIA seems to be working towards that, thankfully.

I bet playing Quake 3 Arena multiplayer on Stadia would be noticeably worse that on a PC from 20 years ago.

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8 comments · 3 top-level

nailer5y ago· 3 in thread

Why do you think light is actually quite slow?

1_playerOP5y ago

Because sending a light beam 10 miles away is slower than not doing so, obviously. Light isn't instantaneous in this universe.

It's surprising people still don't get this. Operating a computer miles away will always be slower than operating a computer centimetres away. You can be smart about it and optimise as much as possible, but Google isn't running alien tech that magically is orders of magnitude better than consumer hardware so that it overcomes the distance issue.

HanShotFirst5y ago

Light takes about a millisecond to travel 200 miles. Compared to the latency introduced by computation, it is pretty insignificant, unless you are connected to a server very far away.

nailer5y ago

My ping is 2. As the other responder notes there are more significant sources of latency on a local gaming rig.

neolog5y ago· 2 in thread

Doesn't it depend on the person's network setup?

1_playerOP5y ago

No. However fast is your Internet, it is still slower to send data out on the Internet pipes and back again than doing local computation.

5ms ping to your local Stadia server is at least 5ms of additional latency compared to a high end PC. Add virtualisation costs, CPU steal time, packet loss, video compression and decompression etc for another measurable increase.

neolog5y ago

How long is the rest of the latency chain? For example, keyboard input over usb is gonna be ~15 ms, processing time is gonna be >5ms, and display time like 12ms. Adding those comes to a minimum of around 32ms. [1]

I'm not sure if I can tell the difference between 32 ms and 37 ms.

[1] https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/

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starclerk5y ago

I'd say there's effectively no latency, since most games don't need or benefit from <10 ms response times.

I mainly play twitchy shooters on a fairly high-end PC (CSGO, Tarkov, Q3A back in the day) and was super impressed with Stadia to play games like Assassin's Creed. It felt like I had my PC anywhere, but I attribute that to the forgiving latency requirements for the game.

I wouldn't expect CSGO to work as well (though I'd definitely try it).

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8 comments · 3 top-level

nailer5y ago· 3 in thread

Why do you think light is actually quite slow?

1_playerOP5y ago

Because sending a light beam 10 miles away is slower than not doing so, obviously. Light isn't instantaneous in this universe.

HanShotFirst5y ago

Light takes about a millisecond to travel 200 miles. Compared to the latency introduced by computation, it is pretty insignificant, unless you are connected to a server very far away.

nailer5y ago

My ping is 2. As the other responder notes there are more significant sources of latency on a local gaming rig.

neolog5y ago· 2 in thread

Doesn't it depend on the person's network setup?

1_playerOP5y ago

No. However fast is your Internet, it is still slower to send data out on the Internet pipes and back again than doing local computation.

neolog5y ago

I'm not sure if I can tell the difference between 32 ms and 37 ms.

[1] https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/

1 more reply

starclerk5y ago

I'd say there's effectively no latency, since most games don't need or benefit from <10 ms response times.

I wouldn't expect CSGO to work as well (though I'd definitely try it).

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse