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Comment by falcolas | Hacker News Reader

Anyone know of a "how will Stadia perform on my ISP" check (all I see is a bandwidth check, which is not the same)? I'm not expecting anything (I'm on average 50ms ping to servers, 120ms ping if you include processing on the remote end), but it would be good to have confirmation.

I'm also disappointed by the dramatic extension of the "you don't own the games you buy", since there's not even an option to download the titles and play offline. It gets more worrisome based on Google's demonstrated "go to HN" form of customer support.

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They have an official speed test - https://projectstream.google.com/speedtest

Does anyone have any numbers on how well they perform on average to above-average connections? I'm on Google Fiber now so obviously the test passes with flying colors, but I'm thinking about going back to moving often (between big cities) that probably won't have as accessible fiber, and a "portable console" like this sounds perfect -- as long as it still works well on first-mile, average connections.

Check out Fast.com. If your loaded latency numbers are high, it's possible you won't do well with Stadia.

The best test is going to be using it. There are too many factors to have a good predictive test.

Last mile times are always going to cause lag. 5g won't be rolled out for years, then you'll need a phone to take advantage of it so that's not going to help. Last mile in US performance is really poor unless you're on full fiber which isn't offered in most of the US. Even with direct peering to the ISPs, which they don't have, this isn't likely to be a superior experience compared to a local machine. They'll have to push the entire video stream along with the intelligence. That's a lot of data that can't be lagged.

> which they don't have,

Can't directly refute this, but wouldn't you think GCP is peered with the vast majority of local ISPs (in America and maybe the EU)?

No. I don't not believe they've done this. They don't peer easily or often and peering with local partners is not something most people want to do, even Google. It takes trust on the part of the local service provider, which Google hasn't built as Google is often a direct competitor to their local products. Peering at the ISP level is really hard because it's all relationship management. Google couldn't manage their own fiber and built up a good deal of animosity with other networks in doing so, especially in the US.

https://peering.google.com/#/infrastructure send to say otherwise. It's in the best interest of both parties, so not sure why they wouldn't have done this.

Interesting information. There's definitely a bit of marketing going on there, but it seems that they have at least some peering. Without concrete public evidence otherwise I'll concede that Google must have great peering.

Google/AS15169 has an open peering policy.

From a network administrator's point of view, they're an absolute joy to work with too.

If you're share any IXes with them at all, they'll peer with you. Private / appliance based peering has additional requirements, but that's par for course.

Most of the pushback is on the ISP end.

What's high? Mine is 36ms loaded according to that site.

They link to https://projectstream.google.com/speedtest

Doesn't look like latency is taken into account, which is probably more important than bandwidth (when bandwidth is >10mbps).

I’m in Australia, so precluding anything else, our terrible internet means this product is more or less dead in the water for me.

... Does Google not have any data centers in Australia? (Granted, it isn't a given that Stadia might run out of those DCs, but with Borg, I don't see why they couldn't.)

That won't help. The connection to your house in Australia is using ancient copper lines that is all rotted out and stops working in the rain. In absolute best case conditions you could use this service but most of the country would struggle to stream 1080p reliably.

The internet upgrade in Australia (NBN) is well known as the biggest government fuck up in the last 20 years.

> and stops working in the rain

For anyone who thinks this is hyperbole, I assure you it's not, my internet quite literally grinds to a halt when it rains too much.

This is not a joke or an exaggeration, thanks to the NBN being switched from fibre to copper, my parents now have no internet when it rains, is windy, or there is lightning in the area.

All to upgrade them from 13Mbps to 17Mbps. Yes, I'm being serious.

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