Check out how Stadia’s ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’ stacks up to Xbox, PC

Questions still swirl around Google’s cloud gaming platform, Stadia, but now that it’s out, users can get some answers.

Thanks to excellent YouTube channel Digital Foundry, which provides in-depth analysis of the technical aspects of games and compares resolution, framerate and other features across consoles and PC, we can see how Stadia really stacks up.

Digital Foundry’s latest video compares Stadia’s rendition of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 to Xbox One and PC with interesting results.

However, before we dig in, it’s worth noting that Stadia depends entirely on your internet connection, as well as proximity to Google’s data centers. In other words, there are several factors that can severely affect how Stadia performs for different people, which can make testing difficult. Ultimately, Digital Foundry does an excellent job given the circumstances, but don’t take the latency and responsiveness tests as the final say on Stadia’s performance. Those numbers may change depending on your location and internet connection.

Stadia graphics similar to Xbox One X, video compression an issue

With that said, let’s dig into it. First up, Digital Foundry tested the free tier of Stadia, which streamed Red Dead at 1080p/60fps in the web browser. However, due to the tester’s internet situation, he couldn’t test it at 4K. Instead, he had another person test Stadia Pro at 4K, but it actually ran Red Dead at 1440p resolution with a lower 30fps framerate.

It’s not clear why Stadia Pro didn’t run at 4K or why it used a lower framerate. However, the video does analyze the stability of the Stadia and Pro framerates. Free Stadia wasn’t able to maintain a solid 60fps and often dropped a few frames. Digital Foundry described it as similar to running a game on PC with settings slightly higher than what the hardware can handle.

Stadia Pro, however, was rock solid at 30fps and hardly ever lost frames in the test.

Graphically, Digital Foundry says Stadia matches up closely with the Xbox One X settings which, in most cases, works out to about Medium or High settings on PC. The video goes through a detailed analysis of specific graphics settings like lighting and texture and shows just how they stack up to each other.

The biggest issue with Stadia’s visuals is video compression. It generally makes the game look less sharp and detailed. However, it’s particularly bad in night or dark scenes, where the compression causes banding and other artifacts.

Stadia input latency roughly two frames per second slower than PC

Finally, Digital Foundry analyzed input latency and the results were quite surprising. PC running Red Dead at triple-buffered 4K/60fps had input latency of 355 milliseconds (ms). Xbox One X, however, had latency of 435ms. Google Stadia at 1080p/60fps impressed with latency of 385ms, coming very close to PC in terms of responsiveness. According to Digital Foundry, Stadia works out to about two frames per second slower response than PC.

Impressively, Digital Foundry says that extra time with Stadia is basically processing time combined with latency to Google’s data centers. Digital Foundry measured its latency to the nearest data center at 25ms, meaning another 5ms of processing time to make up the total 30ms difference between PC and Stadia. Obviously, that latency can change depending on your connection and proximity to a Google data center.

Overall, the analysis by Digital Foundry reveals some interesting information about Stadia and its performance. The video is well worth the watch, especially if you’re interested in the technical details. Stadia’s Red Dead performance was better than I expected, but compared to what’s available, I’m not sold on Google’s cloud gaming platform yet. However, those who care less about visual fidelity may find that Stadia does exactly what they need.

Source: Digital Foundry Via: Android Police

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