Topic: Xbox Cloud Gaming

So I got another month of GPU today and I decided to check out Xbox Cloud Gaming on my Macbook Pro's Safari browser. Holy crap man, this is some incredible stuff! All I had to do was type in xbox.com/play, log in with my account, connect a controller and then I was all set to go. It's such an easy process! The first thing that impressed me is the fact that you don't have to download any of the games, obviously. But it's still crazy that you can literally play Banjo-Kazooie on your web browser! The second thing that impressed me is that the service recognises your save files from your Xbox consoles through the cloud. You can literally play a session on your Xbox, then go lay down on your bed with your laptop and continue playing where you left off. Naturally, I experienced some lag here and there but for the most part my experience was very good. I can definitely see myself using this feature more in the future.

But holy crap man, this is truly gaming on the next level. You can play anywhere you want! If they keep improving the service and reducing the lag, then Microsoft and Phil Spencer are literally paving the way for the future. I'm 100% onboard with their vision now.

Have you guys tried out this feature yet and what's your experience of it?

@Deadcow Yeah I feel the same way as you now that I've used it a couple of more times. I started up Bug Fables as it just came out on Game Pass today and the game doesn't really work well through the cloud. In the game it's all about being fast on the trigger so to speak and I keep messing up the input because of the lag. I definitely want to try out other games that don't require that much of a timely input, maybe e.g. the Telltale Walking Dead games.

Been running it in Chrome since launch day on a 500/500 wired connection and its been mostly flawless so far. From Forza, to Halo, to Gars, Streets of Rage everything works exactly as expected. My smaller laptop with 4 gigs and a Ryzen 3 chugs pretty badly but my other with 16GB/i5 is indistinguishable from having an actual Xbox. Really pleased with it thus far.

@Deadcow havent had any problems playing Dead Cells with it at all

I'm really interested to try out The Medium now that it's coming to Cloud Gaming and I don't have a Series X. Based on what I've seen and know about the game, it doesn't seem like it will require precision input since it's a walking simulator with puzzle elements. However, I do get some lag here and there as well as sound crackling when I play games through the cloud but hopefully that won't affect my experience of this game that much (e.g. sound cutting out right when there's a jumpscare).

Also, it's great to get a taste of how the future is going to be in my case in terms of Xbox gaming. I won't be getting a new console anytime soon, so it's nice to see that I'll still be able to experience next-gen games through my computer with Cloud Gaming, even though I only have a Macbook which is not really optimal for gaming, lol. But it still works great thanks to the cloud.

Just tried it out to do the game pass quests and it is a hell of a lot better than it was. This is through the app btw. I managed to do the whole prologue of GTA V which would have been impossible a month or 2 ago.

Still jittery as hell though, lots of screen refreshes. I wouldn't play a proper game through it at all. Just wouldn't be a good experience, not when I have an actual Xbox just sitting there. But still saves me some download time on some of these quests...

Need to try it through the chrome browser still as it seems like people are having a better experience with that.

So The Medium has been added to Cloud Gaming today and I decided to play it now as my first real "cloud" game. I also played it on Chrome and honestly didn't find my experience any different than on Safari. Anyway, I played for 1.5 hours and the game felt great to play! Every 10 minutes or so the game starts stuttering and the sound starts crackling, but it only lasts for a couple of seconds and I honestly don't find it such a big deal. The tradeoff is that I'm able to play a Series X game that I otherwise won't be able to experience on my Xbox One and that's good enough for me. I also played with headphones and the game is such a spooky experience.

Overall I really enjoyed my time with it so far and I can definitely see myself playing it to completion. Cloud Gaming is simply phenomenal, I can't believe that I actually get to play current-gen games without having to own a current-gen system. Major kudos to Microsoft, Game Pass is seriously shaping up to become an absolute game changer for the gaming industry.

@LtSarge I'll definitely give that a go if they roll out that new edge browser for console that has cloud gaming support

Also, I'll never know why they ditched the xCloud moniker. I know it was a codename but it's way more catchy than Xbox cloud gaming and I feel like a lot of people still call it xCloud, myself included!

Has anyone seen issues with some games with the PC beta (through Edge). Most games are fine, but all 3 Fable games, dark crystal, octopath, probably others don't run. They just refresh the page when you hit play. I noticed games that run have a warning icon that my controller isn't connected even though it is and works. The games that don't start don't have that icon.

So today I was planning on finishing up The Medium on Cloud Gaming and I started up the game later than usual. I tend to play it around 8 PM or so, but today I started playing at 11 PM. For some reason, the game was unusually laggy today. Like way worse than usual. I mentioned before that it stutters every 10 minutes or so, but now it was laggy pretty much all the time. When I first booted it up, the site told me that "it took longer than usual to connect", which is a message I've never received before. So I'm wondering now if the time of day that I choose to play a game on Cloud Gaming affects my connection. Maybe there are a lot more people using the service at the time I started playing today? I'm going to start up the game much earlier tomorrow and see if it makes any difference.

I tried earlier in the year all cloud based services (stadia, GeForce now and xcloud) and even by my router on a 5G wireless connection the games were nearly unplayable due to lag. I guess I am just someone that could play a 480p game without complaining but lag... Not in my book...

I tried art of rally last night with xcloud, loved the visuals but the lag was deadly! I've played a reasonable amount of new vegas on x cloud and results have been much more positive! Has anyone tried xcloud vs streaming from your console?

For those that are experiencing lag: I've done some testing on various device I have around the house.
Android: CAT S41, Samsung Galaxy S20, Sony Xperia 1ii,
Windows: Lenovo T490, Desktop PC(Home built)

Now all these devices are running on the same network, powered by some ghastly Asus gaming router that looks like an up turned spider (Asus ROG GT-AX11000). Some of the devices are unplayable, CAT S41, Lenovo T490, while the rest are pretty good. In all cases the signal is strong and using 5Ghz, for the devices that are unplayable it doesn't matter how close I get to the router. My suspicion so far is that there is more to the minimum spec than connection speed, I suspect your device also needs to be fast at video decoding.

I've searched around on the internet to see if anybody has done any benchmarks to backup my conclusion, but came up with nothing. But I'd suggest trying a different device before blaming your network connection.

Anyone else seeing sudden poor performance after this past weekend on PC xcloud? Mine's been running great (browser) and even better (app) until then. There was a Windows Update over the weekend on my Surface Pro. A big update that had the full "updating windows" screen you never see for normal updates, and it took a while (probably laying groundwork for Win11 upgrade, it's a 2019 model.) I have two Surface Pros around (the 2017 model as well.) That one has an update pending but I haven't rebooted yet.

On the one that was updated suddenly xcloud is almost unplayable. It's constantly redrawing the screen in 3-layer posterized stages and/or corrupting in the app. I switched to browser and it just stalls periodically instead (that never happened before.)

I tried switching to 2.4GHz and it seemed kinda better, slightly, but didn't fix the problem (and never had interference issues until that update.) I switched to a different router I run, and it was definitely better, but still not right. Then later in the evening (when less people were playing xcloud I'm sure) it seemd substantially better on the original.

I would say there's interference but nothing else on the machine seems affected and speed tests over the wifi are over 300 with 14ms pings. Wired I'm over 600 with 11ms pings. Should be no issues there. Could be wifi interference, but the other Surface Pro playing on the same router has no issues (and hasn't installed the update.)

I can only assume the Windows Update either broke something with video drivers/decoding or the wifi driver, power management, or something that's breaking performance.

Has anyone tried out Xbox Cloud Gaming on Xbox One or Series X since it launched last week? I'm very curious to see how well games like Forza Horizon 5 plays through the cloud on the consoles. Like if I'm able to play Game Pass titles that take up 100+ GB in download size through the cloud without having to download anything, and they run well, and I can also play next-gen titles on Xbox One, then I'm seriously going to be using Game Pass Ultimate a lot in the future. I'm very interested in playing Halo Infinite, The Gunk and also the next A Plague Tale next year, which I thought I'd have to buy a Series X for but with Cloud Gaming being available on Xbox One, I can just play that game there.

So I decided to buy a month of Game Pass Ultimate seeing as how so many great games have come out and are coming out soon such as Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite and The Gunk. What I've been most interested in though is seeing how well these games perform on my base Xbox One through Cloud Gaming and I'm pleased to report that Forza Horizon 5 at least runs very well with next to no lag at all. However, the game does this thing where it "refreshes" the screen fairly often when it becomes too pixelated, which in all honesty doesn't bother me that much as long as the game doesn't lag since that actually affects how well you perform at the game. Like I remember when I was playing The Medium through Cloud Gaming on my laptop and it would lag every 5-10 minutes for a few seconds and that was rather annoying. But it rarely ever lags when I was playing FH5 and that's the most important thing for me.

Now I'm curious to see how Halo Infinite will run through Cloud Gaming. If it runs just as well as FH5 then the future of Cloud Gaming is looking very promising. This feature is important to me because I'm not planning on buying a next-gen system anytime soon but with this I can play games like the next A Plague Tale, Stalker 2, Starfield and so on, i.e. games that are next-gen exclusive, on my base Xbox One and I don't have to download hundreds of GBs every time to boot. It's just so convenient considering how games just keep getting bigger and bigger, not to mention that it's a great way to test out games on Game Pass instantly. Absolutely brilliant feature!

@LtSarge While my X was away and I was on the S, I genuinely found some games, like Yakuza 0, that run on XSX hardware on the streamed version, looked and played better streamed with the new console streaming app than they did played native. It's a 900p, jaggy, blurry mess natively on the console just running the OG X1 version, still, after I was used to the sharp X1X version. The old 1X actually runs those games better than the S which I didn't expect (makes sense, technically since XSS is the next gen One S, and XSX is the next gen One X, but I just didn't expect a new console to run games worse than an old console even if it makes sense.) Streamed it looks great, just with some softening and artifacting in the image. It's still only 1080p vs 4k, but it has AA and sharpened textures etc.

I, too was impressed with Forza. I know what you mean by the refresh. If it's fully redrawing top to bottom I think that's a bandwidth issue (not necessarily on your end, could be server congestion), I've seen that with games. FH5 has a lot of artifacting in the stream that makes it look very soft/blurry at times, but it responds basically as good as native. It was a tough choice for me to choose streaming vs native on the S. Native, the foliage looks like Doom '93, but streamed has that artifact blurring. But the sense of zero latency streaming Forza was impressive. I remember trying to stream FH4 on the Edge version on PC back in July, and it felt like the car would turn a full second and a half after I tried to turn, it. Had to adapt to this sort of act before you need to act playstyle. Not the native app. It feels native.

My only wish is they enable playing games from your library someday, and also that they allow you to stream installed games. Right now even once you start downloading it, it won't let you stream it.

I'm probably going to give Serious Sam 4 a try, and I'm going to stream it. Why download it to try it out when I know halo will be my shooter after tomorrow?

@NEStalgia Yeah exactly, that's why I've been playing FH5 through Cloud Gaming and not through the base Xbox One version. I'm sure this game in particular runs fine on base XB1, I just want to get used to playing new games through the cloud just to have a better experience in general.

Oh interesting, I didn't know the refresh thingy was a common thing. I was actually planning on going out and buying a network cable tomorrow just to see if a wired connection would improve the stream. Do you think it's worth giving it a shot or maybe that won't help at all?

But yeah, I definitely prefer Cloud Gaming on Xbox One than on computers, there's basically no latency at all. I've been playing Marvel's Avengers as well and it's pretty much the same experience with that game as with FH5. No latency, but it refreshes fairly often and honestly, it does get kinda annoying during cut-scenes as it takes you out of the immersion. But I don't mind it during gameplay, same with FH5. I'm expecting games like Serious Sam 4 and Halo Infinite will be the same, can't wait to give those a try!

I have tried 'cloud gaming' twice now.

The first time was on my Laptop - Playing the Artful Escape, a game I would never of bought or bothered 'downloading' because space is a very limited premium and I wouldn't spend time moving games from internal SSD to external HDD to create space for it. I played through the entire game this way and apart from a couple of 'crashes', within seconds of playing, it 'felt' like I was playing on a console. The game is a bit 'Platformy' at times and it felt responsive - not once did I feel that Lag was an issue. I can't say that it felt exactly the same as playing natively on Console as I haven't compared - but it felt like I was playing locally compared to other games.

The second time I tried was on my Series X - I played the opening level of Marvels Avengers. That too didn't feel laggy either. I didn't struggle with the Combat for the entire Bridge section and I am sure I could play the entire game quite happily that way too if I wished. However, this (and particularly a quick look at FH5 - I stopped before the first car even dropped) do highlight one of the limitations for me. That being the Visual Quality.

My Laptop has an 11.5" 1440p screen so the Visuals of streamed games seemed OK initially. It wasn't until I played on my Series X that I really noticed the drop in resolution and some of the compression artefacts - not surprising when that's on a much larger 55"4k HDR screen - a 1080p streamed image is quite a downgrade in image quality. Marvels Avengers was 'bearable' because I had only seen youtube video's on my laptop so didn't really have an 'expectation' and its even impressive looking when compared to older, 1080p games running natively but with FH5, I have FH4 as a 'baseline' visual quality expectation so seeing that with 'low' res and streaming artefacts made me stop playing via the cloud and install. The opening introduction is a visual showcase in itself so why not enjoy it at its 'best'.

I still will use streaming on my Series X to try games that I certainly wouldn't bother downloading and filling up my SSD with, maybe some games that don't benefit as much by resolution because of their artstyle/design but it seems they have really done an excellent job of 'playability'. Of course, if I want the 'best' experience, then downloading and playing on my Series X is the way but at least I have options and can choose how and where I want to play. The fact I could play via streaming on my Laptop/Mobile and then carry on playing locally on my Series X is incredible.

Without streaming, I probably wouldn't have bothered playing either game and I know I will try a LOT more. Having the option to Stream games removes the last barrier for me. Its all well and good having Game Pass which removes the 'cost' barrier but with limited storage space and relatively long download & install times that is a barrier to me. I didn't play a lot of Game Pass games because of the lack of storage, the hours waiting to download and install and not entirely sure if its worth the effort and time at the end of it - especially for a game that's only a few hours long. Now, there is 'no' barrier - just pick a game, wait a 'short' time to load in and away you go...

@LtSarge Not to mention load times! When the X first went down, before I got the S as a stopgap, I set up the old 1X again. I thought of FH5, and it happened to be the very day they launched the console app for xcloud. I didn't have to think for 5 seconds if I'd stream the game or download it on X1...no contest, I remember FH4 loading times on X1...no thanks.... it's worth it to just stream.

I did FH5 local on the S once I got it, though it's better looking streamed, but Yakuza 0, it's either the old 1X or the streamed version. Local on the S is just worse.

I definitely would try the wired network cable. Without a buffer of more than a few frames, unlike video streaming the moment it hits a network hiccup it'll be obvious like that. It's a bandwidth limitation being hit, and there's no way to know if it's a local issue or server congestion, but if you're wireless, it's definitely possible it's local. Especially wireless on the Surface I'd get that issue sometimes constantly in one session, sometimes not at all, but I assume wireless is responsible for part of it. On the console I'm wired to fiber, so there's no real issue with local bandwidth. I have seen the refresh thing occasionally still, but it's rare (FAST games like FH5 can still overwhelm the aggressive compression and have a lot of smeary blur, especially in the scenery, but the full redraw seems rare.) And yes, it annoys me like nails on a chalkboard when it happens, so I definitely notice

Remember they're rolling out that new sharpening tech on mobile that I'm sure will make it to PC and console sooner than later, so the image quality will only improve! IDK how they did it, but FH5 streamed didn't feel any more latent to me streamed than it does natively on the console.

@NEStalgia That's actually a good point, I've definitely noticed these games loading much faster which is really nice!

Yeah, I thought that might cause some issues. I do have fast internet but I use a wireless connection and the router is also in another room, so that might be why I'm experiencing more problems than you regarding the refresh thing. I'll give it a try tomorrow and see if it's any different. It won't matter regardless because the experience right now is still really good that I'm going to continue playing the games whether the connection is wired or wireless. And like you say, the quality is just going to keep improving from here on out. The fact that the games rarely lag is a huge improvement, and if they can improve the picture quality then that would be even more awesome!

I do have to say that I just tried out Serious Sam 4 through Cloud Gaming and it's an absolute mess. It lags fairly often and the refresh is so bad that every time you even turn the camera, it will refresh lol. I saw someone on the Push Square article expressing the same concerns so I think the game is just poorly optimised for Cloud Gaming (if that's even possible?). It doesn't seem like a wired connection will improve things either for that game. I even tried to play FH5 after my session with SS4 just to see if there was something up with my internet and nope, the game runs just as good as it did earlier today. So it has to be something with SS4, or maybe just shooters in general. Hopefully Halo Infinite won't be that problematic tomorrow. Might be good to get that network cable just in case!

On a side note, I'm actually quite curious to see how Halo MCC runs through Cloud Gaming just to see if it's simply the problem of playing shooters through the cloud. Might give that a go later tonight!