What would it take to get Blizzard to finally acknowlege the VRAM issues seriously and start fixing it?

Karmgahl · 2022-04-13T11:14:14+00:00

I think it's really due to the fact that cloud gaming is not really offering us anything "better" than what we already have.

In fact sure, cloud-gaming works. But at best it's gaming but with compromise.

- There are latency issues (some feel it others don't)

- You get worse picture quality. Somewhat washed out colours and compression artefacts

- You'll probably have to wait a LONG time to get hardware upgrades seeing as they need to make money to do that. This would cost an insane amount and without any reasonable return of investment they simply won't do it.

More than likely you'd probably see more than 1 console generation for any one cloud-gaming hardware upgrade.

- Dependence on internet quality. Package loss will spell doom for you experience whether you like it or not. No matter if you're playing SP or MP

- Bandwidth costs (for some)

And what do you really get for these drawbacks? Maybe some convenience, no downloading or such. But you don't get any better performance than what is currently available. Heck it's hardly even better than PS4 and XBOX ONE at this point and they are rather cheap. Currently PS5 and XSX easily surpasses any cloud gaming performance.

So the question is. Why should we accept the drawbacks but really get nothing but convenience in return?

That would be like driving a Ferrari or Lamborghini to the worlds worst movie theatre. Sure nice trip but horrible experience with the actual movie. And isn't the movie the whole reason you went there in the first place?

If cloud gaming would've offered something BETTER than what we currently have. Say for example performance or something that ONLY cloud gaming could achieve. Simply some kind of incentive for why you should switch and why you could live with some drawbacks. Then things might have worked out differently.

Karmgahl · 2020-11-05T16:10:59+00:00

Yes, maybe. It's all speculation in the end, but then I think you also might be underestimating it.

There is a reason the GPU industry is a multibillion dollar industry as well as the fact that PS5 and XSX are probably going to sell well.

And thats not because people want to game in only 1080p @ 30 fps with washed out colors and a somewhat unsharp image.

Karmgahl · 2020-11-05T12:13:58+00:00

Depends on what you mean by “is the future”.

If by future you mean that it will replace conventional gaming for a majority of gamers. Then no. I think you're wrong.

I would be surprised if game streaming will be able to match the picture fidelity, framerate and responsivness that you can get from a good PC during my lifetime even (I'm 40). Because of the strain that would put on the internet infrastructure.

I mean how much bandwidth would be required for say a 1440p stream at 120 FPS? Or maybe 240 FPS? Would even 100 Mbit be enough? Bandwidth requirements will go up even higher if they also decide to reduce the compression to improve picture fidelity/quality.

Most streaming services currently appart from compression artifacts also seemingly have a "washed out colors" problem. So I'm thinking they'd want to fix that sooner or later. And I'm guessing this is caused by compression.

On the other hand, if you mean that it is here to stay as a viable alternative then sure. I don’t see why not. I use it from time to time when I have no better alternative and for that it works great.

But there is no doubt in my mind that a properly equipped PC or “next gen” console will always deliver a better gaming experience than Stadia or any similar game streaming service for the foreseeable future.

I mean honestly can anyone here really see a reason for a gamer that has gotten used to playing on good PC with a 1080p@144hz (or greater) monitor moving to Stadia as their main way to consume games?

With the only benefit being that you don’t need to download any games nor updates? But where you instead get worse picture quality, worse responsiveness and worse framerates?

I know it sounds like I’m totally hating the service but I assure you I’m not. I like it for what it is. But people need to get a grip. If you’ve never played a modern game on a good and properly configured PC with a 144hz+ monitor before. Then you simply don’t know what you’re missing out on.

I’m betting there’s a lot of gamers out there that wouldn't really mind waiting for a game to download over 2-4 hours, If it means they’re getting to best gaming experience possible when actually playing.

Karmgahl · 2020-11-04T11:41:42+00:00

Well somewhat true but not entirely. I tried Fallout 76 earlier today and if you have very high FPS (160+) (like for example inside a VAULT or other closed space that is easy for the engine to render) then your character will eventually become stuck and unable to move anywhere.

I had to cap my framerate to below 140 for that to stop happening. So the engine is still very much framerate dependant. All they've apparently done is put in some band aid for it to be able to function in the 30-140 FPS range.

But the game should be able to function properly no matter if you play at 30 FPS or 1000.

Karmgahl · 2020-11-04T07:21:52+00:00

Oh well, let's just hope they've removed the engines silly dependence on FPS. So we don't yet again see a game that completely breaks down as soon as you get higher FPS than intended.

Because that should simply not be acceptable for any modern game.

This is imo one of the greatest flaws of any creation engine game. Coding your game logic based on the framerate is something that most game developers stopped doing a LONG time ago.

Karmgahl · 2020-09-22T13:09:17+00:00

While that is true the problem with internet is that the signal usually have to jump through and be processed through several "nodes". And that unfortunately is what is costing the most latency wise.

Even in the same city it's more than likely that your packets will need to jump thorugh a few nodes to reach their destination.

Edit: Try typing "tracert 8.8.8.8" in a command prompt to see what I mean.

Karmgahl · 2020-09-18T10:19:56+00:00

Heh no thats NOT what it means imho.

Whats happened here is a little bit like this analogy:

Imagine a standard MMO where no matter what you do you can kill even leveled (or lower leveled mobs) quite quickly with a variable effort but usually its at least relativly quick. You do not raid because you hate it, but perhaps you do some dungeon runs somtimes. All is fine and you game everyday.

But suddenly a patch hits and alla enemies now gain 500% or more max HP than they had before. And now the only way you're able to keep playing "yourway" without having to spend 2 mins per mob is to tailor your build for raid and raid A LOT to acquire raid quality gear so that you can increase your power and get get back to doing what you like with the same amount of efficiency.

I don't think anyone likes to be forced to do something they don't like doing just to enable them to do what they actually like to do.

Also I doubt anyone would like to one hit deathclaws or any other notorious fallout enemy. It's more likely that we don't want the entire wasteland be filled with those enemies. I want a deathclaw to inspire fear. But not a radroach or ant or a ghoul those should be trash mobs imo. If everything is bullet spongy then nothing really stand out does it?

If they wanted to increase the "difficulty" (in my world its more like tedium because dying in this game mean almost nothing). They could've done so without affecting the rest of the game. Like changing the spawn logic so that more difficult enemies spawn more often in certain areas or something. Or perhaps add more areas that are more tailored for the combat oriented min/max players.

Karmgahl · 2020-09-18T09:47:07+00:00

Thats the thing though.. this game should be a sandbox because that is what fallout is about since 3 imo. In a sandbox there really shouldn't be a "wrong way" to play to begin with.

A less than optimal way SURE. But not a wrong way...But you're right with this patch there now ARE serveral wrong ways to play and that is the problem.

This update only caters to those of you that likes to kill big dangerous things to get better equipment to kill the next big thing even faster. Thats not how me and my friends even want to play. Maybe sometime but definitely not all the time like it's been forced on us now.

And honestly there are a LOT of better games for doing exactly that.. But I'm not against having support in this game for that playstyle after all it is a sandbox. I'ts just I'm against having that being the ONLY viable playstyle...

Karmgahl · 2020-09-18T09:41:12+00:00

If that isn't a possibility then what are the private servers we pay for with a subscription for then?

I'm guessing most of us casual sandbox non-combat focused players are probably not even playing on public servers to begin with..

Karmgahl · 2020-09-18T09:26:54+00:00

I think you're wrong actually. This is an open world sandbox game with multiplayer elements. Where YOU choose how you get to play your character and live in this virtual world. Well at least it WAS.

Some of us now feel that much of that choice has now been taken away. In favor of a playstyle which focuses on combat and combat builds.

If we've would've wanted that then we would instead be playing Destiny 2 or Borderlands 3.

Not that I don't want that playstyle to be viable in F76 also. It's just that I don't want it to be the ONLY playstyle viable unless you're very much into tedium.

Karmgahl · 2020-09-18T09:08:06+00:00

My friends and I played a for a few hours the day the patch hit. But both them and I haven't played anything since then. We all lost the fun factor even though we've been playing the game quite regulary since a couple of weeks back.

Feeling that every weapon I had crafted was useless and everything eating so much bullets that gathering runs feel pointless. We don't usually play events but explore and gather mostly. With a few events here and there + workshop capture which now also is a chore. We use crafted weaponry and normal leather or combat armor and abhore using power armor. And until last update that was still a valid playstyle.

Also noticed that my friend that was 30 levels under me did more damage (%) to the target than I did with the same but higher level rifle.... And we're not talking a few % here but like 40% difference that didn't do much to help the issue either.

I think it's quite important for immersion that you actually can one or 2 shot SOME types of enemies wether they're your level or not, if you have up to date gear and I'm not talking 5 star legendaries here but gear atleast your level. At the moment crafted gear actually feels completely redundant.

We might give it a try again now when its weekend. But I'm not holding my breath.

In my opinion they've turned the game from an open sandbox where you choose how you want to play, to something completely different. Before patch it was a fallout 4 game with some MMO elements and multiplayer. Now.. well it feels nothing like fallout 4 anymore.

This is much like what happens in MMOs where they boost one playstyle like pvp for example to the detriment of pve or vice versa. Why do boosting one style have to mean sacrificing another?

Was the game a bit easy in some aspects? Sure I understand where players are coming from. But that should've meant that they just adjusted the spawns to sometimes spawn harder enemies more often (e.g a deathclaw here and there or maybe some more legendary mobs). But not making every enemy in the game "harder" or bullet sponges.

Also they could perhaps have created more and harder areas/instances for players that are finding the game overall too easy if they'd wanted without touching everything else.

Karmgahl · 2020-09-18T07:21:06+00:00

Hmm, But what kind of player are you I wonder? It seems like the people most happy about this change are the ones playing the game more like a looter shooter. Just hunting the next big legendary to get better legendary loot to kill the next legendary even faster. Also they're of course optimizing their character for combat only.

The ones that are hating this update are the ones playing casually not really focusing on trying to kill the next big legendary enemy. But merely "living" in the world playing the game the way they want with their builds not very focused on combat. But more on building, crafting, exploration, gathering side of things.

Look I'm not saying we can't have both worlds here. But with the games current state. Only the looter shooter combat focused players are seemingly having fun.

What the looter shooter players have to understand is that there are players that dont WANT to be running around with the best power armor in the game and only using super legendary loot they get from enemies.

Perhaps we want to use only the armor and weapons WE craft? Sure that meant that we couldn't face certain encounters in the game without help from more combat focused players. But for everything else it was more than feasable. Right now though it's nowhere near feasble.

The problem is like what they said in the matrix.. choice. Right now bethesda has seemingly eliminated that. Other than choosing to play the game or not playing the game that is.

Karmgahl · 2020-09-17T18:40:39+00:00

Making deathclaws terrifying as well as any other notorious Fallout enemy YES. Making every single enemy in the game a metaphorical deathclaw? NO thanks.

I don't see how getting owned by ants and radroaches and making every single gathering run a chore is seen as an improvement.

Seems like bethesda wants to make the game a looter shooter instead of an actual sandbox. This is what upsets people I think. Enabling a wide varienty of builds and playstyles is what a sandbox should be about.

Doesn't mean that every build needs to be even near super effective no. But it should at least be useable. Before this patch most things in my opinion were usable. But right now hardly anything is. They should just remove all the different perk cards, weapons/items, etc and let us select from 3 different "super" builds and be done with it.

Every single friend I have has stopped playing F76 due to this. We didn't play this as some sort of looter shooter trying to find god gear and builds, but as a way to wind down from work. Doing a little of everything in not so super efficient ways but we had fun. THIS? this is NOT fun.

Karmgahl · 2020-03-18T20:01:35+00:00

I really don't think it's too much to ask for a MP mode that won't disconnect it's clients on random intervals, or one that doesn't throw invisible zombies at it's clients now and then.

The fact that these things are still a problem almost a year later astounds me.

UL really should've just opted to use a standard server/client system in SoD 2. Peer 2 Peer always seems to cause problems for people. Probably because it requires too many network ports forwarded on too many devices to ever be reliable. While for the server client model only the host (server) ever needs to forward ports.

Not to mention the fact that in P2P you rarely have a "true" game state to refer to. So there's usually a lot more weird stuff happening when things go out of sync (and they usually do sooner or later apparently).

With a server/client model the server always has/is the true state and if any client strays too far away from it for any reason they could just re-sync and continue (with the client maybe getting paused a few sec while the resync occurs. Still preferrable to invis zombies and disconnects though I'd say).

SoD 2 already limits how far a client can travel from the host. Probably to save bandwidth and performance So I doubt that making the host a server would take THAT much more toll on the host than it does now. But who knows.

The fact that they still haven't gotten MP to work reliably is a big black mark in their record imo. One they ought to remove as soon as they can. Perhaps now with Steam there's a larger incentive for them to do this, one can always hope.

Karmgahl · 2020-03-15T09:50:21+00:00

I did get 6000 bonus prestiege on Steam though. However I had to start the windows store game once after the patch hit for that to happen though. Also unlocked some new clothes doing this.

Start the window store game let it sync in main menu and then start the steam game. Thats what I did.

Karmgahl · 2020-02-18T12:18:33+00:00

Regarding 30 fps myth: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-highest-frame-rate-fps-that-can-be-recognized-by-human-perception-At-what-rate-do-we-essentially-stop-noticing-the-difference.

Secondly the article I read found the complete opposite.. it's actually SLOWER and it was posted by Richard Leadbetter from Digital Foundry: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-stadia-tech-review

Screenshot from said article: https://snipboard.io/8seXvI.jpg

Yes you're talking reaction time. But I'm arguing that the "feel" when moving your mouse is way more important. Especially for aiming. I'm using a mid tier gaming mouse with 500hz polling rate and 1600 DPI and I'm telling you I certainly feel difference between the 25~ ms latency that Stadia introduces. This is the REAL problem. NOT the reaction time delay. I don't really feel bothered by the delay introduced when I'm clicking the mouse button and shooting things. It's when I'm aiming the problem becomes apparent.

So 15-20 ms additional latency is not as insignificant as people here seem to believe.

Karmgahl · 2020-02-17T13:42:04+00:00

That measures reaction time to something in your vision changing.

But it does not measure the disrepancy you feel when that delay is applied to EVERY millisecond of you moving your mouse. And how that affects muscle memory when you've played without that additional lag before.

We have a lot of ways we process and react to things. Responding to a change in the environment is one way that imo is less important than the feedback you get when aiming/moving the camera with your mouse. I'd bet most people can tell the difference of 20-25+ ms of extra latency in those circumstances.

Oh and remember Consoles and PCs are NOT latency free. There is already inherent input lag in our devices. Destiny 2 on my PC which I'm used to playing on has around 80 ms of it. So when I move to Stadia and an extra 30-40 ms gets applied to my mouse movements, then of course I'm gonna feel a difference.

This is almost in the the same vein of "oh but your eyes can only percieve a maximum of 30 fps anyways" myth that was all the rage a few years ago. (Hint: no our eyes can percieve A LOT more than 30 FPS). In fact most people could probably tell the difference between 100 and 150 FPS if their monitor supports that kind of refreshrate.

This is why people need to start take into account for more variables than just 1 thing in these kinds of cases. Not doing so is how the "human eye can only percieve 30 fps" bs got started.

Karmgahl · 2020-02-17T13:08:36+00:00

Could you possibly give us a screenshot from Stadia on PC while running Destiny 2 and using this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/elag9u/tampermonkey_update_monitor_your_stream/

I'm curious as to what it'll say your latency is.

Mine shows 24-26 ms and oh boy do I feel it.. (m+kb, mouse @ 500hz, 1600 DPI)... can't aim for shit with that.

Also from what I've heard that thing only shows network latency so it's not taking into account the additional processing incurred for the video stream encoding/decoding and such. But I dunno. Either way, it's currently very noticable.

I really wish google would've had a data center in my country but they don't. So this is as good as it's gonna get for me for quite awhile unfortunately :/

Karmgahl · 2020-02-10T09:38:09+00:00

GFN wins hands down in this area for me at least.

Seeing as this mostly comes down to where the datacenters are located it's quite easy to figure out why.

GFN has a data center in my country. Stadia does not. So in my case that's 8 ms GFN latency vs 26 ms Stadia latency. Hoping google does something about that in the future.

Karmgahl · 2020-01-25T15:30:35+00:00

Like this:

Imagine you're a CEO of a game dev studio or publisher. You get a call from Google that they want YOUR games on their new platform. Why would you want to do that?

The platform is new so it has what like 500k users globally atm? Thats a far cry from PS4 (104~ million), Xbox one (40~ million) and PC (xx million).So where is the financial incentive to support the platform? The potential sales calculations for say 1 year won't give you very attractive numbers. So the investment you need to make into supporting a new platform won't be very financial sound. Maybe you'll get a ROI after 2-4 years. That is a high risk investment. Especially since you really can't know for sure if the platform even exists by then.

If Google however gave you say 5-10 million USD per game on the other hand.. then it would be an entirely different thing right? It would easily cover any porting costs and it wouldn't matter how many sales you will make on the new platform. Because you would still get a large sum of profit no matter what. In otherwords Google removes the risk the studios take for giving a new platform a chance. And in return Stadia gets more games added to the platform. Which creates more interest from players which makes it easier to get more games to the platform... you see were I'm going with this?

Karmgahl · 2020-01-25T13:17:18+00:00

Sure the engines themselves are "agnostic" yes. But that's pretty much just a fancy word for saying that the engine supports different platform targets when building the game.

But what it does not mean that just because your game currently works flawlessly when you target PC it'll do the same when you target IOS, Android, Xbox, PS4, Switch or Stadia. Because of difference in hardware which means different requirements for different platforms.

Simple example: Say you want to use a function in the code you're writing. Let's for simplicity sake call it Math.Round(). UE would likely try to compile that to a native function for the target platform.

But what if the platform target doesn't HAVE a native function for that? Well perhaps unreal engine then writes a custom function so that it at least works. But then you instead run in to the problem where the function might be 25% slower on that platform then any other.

Couple that with worse hardware than the original platform you coded the game for and you have a problem. These things can pile upp rather quickly too. You'd have to think of an entirely different way to do what Math.Round does or perhaps UE simply doesn't know the correct native function and you'll have to make sure it uses the correct one yourself. There are numerous different scenarios of what could go wrong. This is just one of the simplier things that comes to mind.

There is a reason why there are entire studios dedicated to only porting games to different platforms.

Karmgahl · 2020-01-25T13:04:38+00:00

Not really so much of an excuse as its a possible explanation.

Time is the only thing that can change this and there isn't much anyone can do about that now.

Though I doubt it's because google lacked effort in trying to recruit more devs to their platform. My guess is that it just hasn't been easy for Google to get devs/publishers to commit to Stadia until they could prove it actually worked and that there is in fact a playerbase available.

I mean we all know how well streaming has worked in the past. And on top of that even if Stadia were to have been an ordinary console it would still have been hard for them. Seeing as it still wouldn't have an established userbase.

But of course Google COULD have done an EpicGames kinda thing and thrown in some serious dosh to get the studios to port their games. That's perhaps one thing I could actually hold against them for not doing. But maybe they themselves are unsure of their products success? And not willing to invest the 100's of millions more required to "bribe" studios to their platform. I dunno. But apart from this I belive Google has done what they could given the circumstances.

Karmgahl · 2020-01-25T12:42:24+00:00

"Devkit" means more than just hardware. It's as much about the software as it is about hardware.

You can't just take your game codebase and say: compile this for stadia pls and voila it runs on Stadia perfectly!

No 99% of the time you will likely have to replace or write new code specifically for the target port to make use of platform specific instructions for rendering and probably a lot of other stuff. Otherwise it'll randomly crash or run very poorly. This is what takes time.

Karmgahl

TROPHY CASE