Does anyone here use Google stadia? How is it?
I am currently on vodafone broadband but am experiencing high packet loss at peak times which means the google stadia experience isn’t great.
Thinking of switching but don’t want to do anything until I am sure I will get a better experience.
Hiya @raxus & Welcome To The Cuckoo Community !!! 
While the Community here has had a little discussion about
The Google Stadia on the post below i have yet to invest in one.
Im an Xbox Gamer Myself however both @oliver the cuckoo head of service
and @kn100 seem to have more knowledge on this for now and reading from
what they are saying they suffer on the latency side (lag) rather than packet loss.
@kn100 is a Cuckoo User so they maybe able to advise more on this !!!
Hope This Helps.
Hey,
Stadia for us has been a great experience - I recommend using the official controller + Chromecast though, it makes the experience more seamless. The latency is there but for story driven games like the assassin’s creeds it’s totally fine. I’ve got my CC connected to my Cuckoo supplied router via 5ghz wifi, and the connection is pretty much rock solid, and we pay for stadia pro which is 4k and uses around 20gb per hour of data. I still use my PC for competitive multiplayer games where latency matters - and I doubt I’d ever use stadia for that sort of gameplay, but it’s a great experience for assassin’s creed, cyberpunk, and other games which are mostly story driven.
Thanks @kn100 that is good to know.
I don’t tend to play multiplayer so maybe that’s why i don’t notice the latency. For me a button press on the official controller appears to happen instantly on the screen. Do you think you notice it more because you also game on PC?
If you ever feel like it would be good to know what stats you get when using stadia on a pc, there is an extension called Stadia Enhanced that provides them. It’s how I realised I have packet loss which is causing the stuttering.
My contract with vodafone is up in May so will likely move ISP then. Would be good to know if Cuckoo has similar issues.
The latency is not bad by any stretch of the imagination, it’s barely noticeable and for slower walking story games it is more than playable, and I quite happily use my Stadia with my wife without any issues. I use Stadia on Chromecast Ultra with the official Stadia controller - which delivers a pretty good experience. The main issues I notice are:
Blurriness/Macroblocking - and this isn’t an internet issue, Even when Stadia is absolutely perfect quality wise it’s still there, but this is expected - At the end of the day low latency video encoding like what Stadia is doing is going to always be a compromise between encoding quality and latency. It only really significantly affects gameplay in very dark scenes.
Slight latency - as I said earlier, it is noticeable, probably noticeable to me as I play some extremely latency sensitive games such as Apex legends or Rogue Company on PC, where you absolutely want the lowest latency possible. It’s not bad, nowhere near bad enough to bother me for games that aren’t competitive, and only slightly worse than what you see using a PS4.
Cuckoo, being a solid 80mbit/s FTTC provider - will likely deliver an optimal experience, assuming your connection to the router is solid. Go Ethernet if you can, but WiFi in my case is fine as the CC is very near to the router so 5ghz is possible.
Thanks @kn100 very helpful.
That sounds great, will move to this in May as Vodafone don’t seem like they will address the problem, but who knows they could always surprise me.
I have decent wifi as I am using mesh wifi and have used iperf3 to test the quality of it.
Latency on vodafone is around 10ms to 15ms but the packet loss just makes it a stuttering mess. If you play at the right time of day then its great. Naturally being a large company they keep finding various reasons it’s not them but me.
Well my connection will just fall over then if I had a Stadia @raxus …I see packet loss when I do a connection test randomly through my xbox but I have other checkers running 24/7 in the connection idle time picking up other stuff like line errors/downtime etc.
If your planning to move over then you can use the advanced connection date tool on the signup forms to let cuckoo start your take over anytime up to 2 years in the future and it should be quite smooth as you end your vodafone broadband contract you then join the cuckoo contractless world.
Granted things may change between now and May but I like to think ahead myself with all the essential services.
Hmm that’s interesting. I guess it depends on the % of packet loss. I am getting 7% to 8% during peak times. It might have always been there but stadia shows issues with your broadband that you would never notice otherwise. How much packet loss are you getting?
I will look into the advanced connection date tool. Thanks
@raxus Now is the packet loss that your seeing an issue on the connection side (Vodafone) or the Stadia Software ??.
Im always seeing line errors which result in packet loss on my side but not higher than 3% (non cuckoo) but my speed is nowhere near what it should be.
If your interested in lots of technical data then look into joining the SamKnows Project as a tester and plug in a small tester box to your router and then forget about it.
Then monthly you can get a report card emailed to you on your connection statistics and what its really doing.
But there is an online dashboard you can access to see this during the month as well.
@PhantomR1982 I can’t be sure tbh with my level of technical knowledge.
What I do know is that the service works fine except for peak times. The statia stats tell me that the packet loss is high during peak times. I asked in the stadia reddit and other UK users don’t have the same issues so I assume the issue is on vodafones side plus other users like me have complained on the vodafone community forum. Tier 2 support from vodafone says there are not enough complaints for them to have tier 3 look into the issue.
@raxus That sounds like a typical response i hear from most of the bigger well known brands quite a lot to be honest they make out theres no issues and they dont want to investigate further.
Having access to the samknows whitebox really opened my eyes to when the issues where happening.
Its easy to learn if you have any free time in a day or evening.
Vodafone isnt a provider I’ve yet experienced or Talk Talk Directly but from what you’ve said it reminds me of early issues I had with Sky when they first started up and it prompted my signup to the project.
I’ve heard similar horror stories however on slow sync speeds and compensation not being paid etc…
Sometimes its just a case being insistant to get the issue escalated further.
@PhantomR1982 If I had a long time left on my contract I might be inclined to continue but with cuckcoo being available i don’t see the point. I went self employed last year so don’t want to spend my time on internet issues. I’m connected to @Alex on linkedin and have been following their journey on fund raising etc. I work with lots of startups so keen to support any i can.
The samknows project continues with whoever you transfer to in the future as it just plugs in to the back of a provider supplied router or your own router via ethernet cable and your mains.
I’ve used it with multiple providers even when I’ve changed all you have to do is let the team know when your new provider takes over to change the profile for the data collection.
Being connected to @Alex over linked in is traumatic just dont ask him about wales or sheep whatever you do
I also respect your choice on supporting start ups as it helps new innovators compete in existing markets its the same as me supporting local high street businesses where I can & I also did a bit before lockdown with Funding Circle as well on multiple business loans.
How does Stadia compare to the Nvidia GForce now?
I’m thinking of buying an Nvidia Shield Pro as a console as I prefer PC gaming and like the fact I can dial my games in to the Top of line RTX Nvidia Cards with Ultimate Ray Tracing and AI
would love to know if anyone here has the Nvidia Shield Pro using the Gforce now experience and how they find it!