If there was a reason why game streaming took this long to take off, it would be due to lag. Over the years, our internet connectivity has gotten a lot better which can help facilitate smoother gameplay, but can you imagine trying to stream a game only to be continuously interrupted due to latency issues?
If you’ve ever played online games have encountered lag, you know how frustrating it can be. That being said, this does not mean that lag has been completely eliminated, and for those wondering how it could impact services like Google Stadia, the company seems to have an idea on how they might tackle the problem.
In an interview with Edge, Stadia’s VP of Engineering Madj Bakar floated the idea of “negative latency”. This essentially creates a buffer of predicted latency between the server and the player, and then tries to mitigate it with various methods. This includes either running games at high framerates to act on player inputs faster, or even predict a player’s button press, meaning that commands are being sent to the server earlier to help combat any potential lag in between.
It sounds rather fancy and we’re not sure how exactly it will work in real-life, but Google Stadia is currently pegged for a launch this November so we probably won’t have to wait too long to find out how smooth the service will be.
Filed in . Read more about Google and Stadia. Source: engadget