Project xCloud demo of Halo 5 nearly indistinguishable from local play

[Fatboi1]

Only a few ms of additional input latency when streaming to a smartphone.
Kyle Orland - 6/10/2019, 4:26 PM

Enlarge / Project xCloud running Gears of War 4 at an E3 Microsoft Theater demonstration.
52 with 35 posters participating, including story author

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Further Reading
Microsoft announces Project Xcloud—Xbox game streaming for myriad devicesAfter Microsoft's pre-E3 press conference yesterday, we got our first chance to try out Project xCloud, the cloud-based streaming gaming service the company will be launching in October. Video analysis of those hands-on tests shows response times via Wi-Fi that are practically indistinguishable from local gameplay—at least for a streaming version of Halo 5. For something as sensitive to latency as a first-person shooter, seeing is believing.
We tried out Project xCloud on a Samsung Galaxy S8, mounted to an Xbox One controller connected via USB. The game was running on the Microsoft Theater's Wi-Fi connection, but a Microsoft representative couldn't comment on the bandwidth or other details of that connection.

Playing Halo 5 on that setup felt responsive to my fingers, running at an apparent 60fps. We didn't have a high-end, custom-built latency testing rig to measure things precisely. But we did have an iPhone with a slow-motion camera to do some quick visual testing.

Project xCloud demo at E3 2019
In our video tests, the time between tapping the A button and seeing a response on the smartphone screen took 16 frames of a 240fps video (or 67 milliseconds) across three subsequent tests. That's almost imperceptibly slower than the 63ms (milliseconds) input latency Digital Foundry measured on the Xbox One version of Halo 5 in 2017 tests.

Testing latency of a wired Google Stadia demonstration at March's Game Developers Conference, Digital Foundry found total latency of 166ms, compared to a low of 100ms on a 60fps PC.

We'll of course have to hold off a final assessment until we can try out xCloud on our home networks on a variety of different games (and comparisons against those games running locally). For now, though, this early test in ideal conditions shows that responsive streaming gaming should at least be possible.

That's crazy if true.

Danrarbc wrote:
So where were the xCloud servers that this demo was running on? In the building? Is Microsoft's data center in LA near the theater?

Edit: Ninja'd by seconds.



Jeff Gerstmann from Giant Bomb had specifically asked where the servers were and he was told somewhere in the Bay area. So definitely not on site.

 

[levitate]

Likely running on a 8 trillion Gbps network...

 

[Rekkapryde]

Likely running on a 8 trillion Gbps network...

Sad but true.

 

[Fatboi1]

Likely running on a 8 trillion Gbps network...

It was streaming to a phone, that means it was connected to either a 4G LTE, 5G or Wifi network . The server was in the Bay area and this was in LA. This isn't unbelievable at all as I've used something similar this year and it works pretty much the same.

 

[satam55]

Likely running on a 8 trillion Gbps network...

Sad but true.

It was streaming to a phone, that means it was connected to either a 4G LTE, 5G or Wifi network . The server was in the Bay area and this was in LA. This isn't unbelievable at all as I've used something similar this year and it works pretty much the same.

Skip to the 50-second mark:

We take a first look at Microsoft's Project xCloud in action.

 

[Jimmy Two-Times™]

Skip to the 50-second mark:

 

[Cladyclad]

I played a 10-minute segment of one of Halo 5's early levels, up to the point you battle two Hunters for the first time. The lag was noticeable, but totally and completely playable, and more than adequate for an offline shooter. There were occasional instances of artifacting here and there, and you probably won't want to get competitive on it, but the audio delivery, the responsiveness of the controls, and the visuals were all incredibly impressive, vastly exceeding what I would ever have expected.

^

This is from a super duper xbot groupie. The owner of that windows site

 

[Leasy]

I trust Microsoft on this

 

[Hiphoplives4eva]

The new Halo and gears look crazy!!!

 

[Jimmy Two-Times™]

The new Halo and gears look crazy!!!

shyt looked like a cancelled 00s Cartoon Network TV show

 

[Tenchi Ryu]

I believe its that good specifically because Sony themselves partnered with them to use that X-cloud software

 

[Tenchi Ryu]

 

[Yade]

It was streaming to a phone, that means it was connected to either a 4G LTE, 5G or Wifi network . The server was in the Bay area and this was in LA. This isn't unbelievable at all as I've used something similar this year and it works pretty much the same.

Nah they had it hooked up to some shyt

 

[Fatboi1]

Nah they had it hooked up to some shyt

Yeah I seen it, ethernet. Regardless, this technology isn't unbelievable or doesn't work, I've used it plenty of times and MSFT's solution might be the best one.