The day has come, Google has finally opened up their Linux-powered game streaming service Stadia. They're giving you two free months of Pro too, so you can try it with the Pro games without paying a penny.
Announced on the Google Blog, they mentioned the current trying times with social distancing and how difficult it can all be. Since a lot of people are stuck at home they're giving gamers in "14 countries free access to Stadia for two months". When in, you will instantly be able to play these games that you can claim free with Pro:
- Destiny 2: The Collection
- GRID
- Gylt
- SteamWorld Dig 2
- SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech
- Serious Sam Collection
- Spitlings
- Stacks on Stacks (on Stacks)
- Thumper
Do keep in mind, that to continue playing them you need to keep up the Pro subscription which can be cancelled at any time. I've tested the cancellation procedure, and there's no issues with it. Takes a few clicks and it's automatic. You can buy games too at any time, to keep them. Google also run special discounts for Pro subscriptions. If you stop your Pro, you can re-subscribe any time and then get back access to previously claimed games too.
To acccess Stadia: make sure you have a Chromium/Chrome browser and then you need to go to Stadia.com to sign up, and then you should be able to just get going. If you have a gmail account, you shouldn't need to create anything extra. However, Google said that it may take up to 48 hours for this opening to be available everywhere.
Apart from that, there's not much else special you need. It works with mouse and keyboard plus it's worked with my Steam Controller, and the Logitech F310 is fine too. As long as it's picked up as an input type in your browser, it should work. You don't need their own Stadia controller.
If you want a few extra helpful features, you can also try out the Stadia+ extension, which is open source.
As a reminder, there's been a lot of updates around Stadia lately. In short: Google has promised at least 120 games on it this year, they've opened dedicated studios to work on Stadia games, Typhoon Studios has joined them to work on Stadia games, Splash Damage are working on an exclusive game for Stadia and more. You can see a recent round-up we did here.
I'm definitely keen to see what more people think of it, after having a great experience with it personally. I regularly play The Division 2 (video on YouTube) and Assassins Creed both on my Linux desktop and my Chromecast without issues.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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For reference I can play perfectly fine on a crap laptop, with Ubuntu on wireless where it gets about 30-50mbps. It doesn't need a super fast connection, that mainly helps for 4K.There are a lot of variables that contribute to one's experiences. 1000Mbps Up/Down Fiber here for context.
That's all the context I need to not bother reading about your experience! That's... not normal. I consider myself very lucky to have a Virgin fibre connection - 100Mb down and 20Mb. That's usually about 9Mb/sec downloads and 2Mb/sec uploads. Usually plenty and way faster than any of the older ADSL connections out there, which make up the vast majority of rural UK.
You have a connection that's typically 11 times faster at downloads, and roughtly 50 times faster for uploads. Lucky you!
Tried D2 yet ?
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wintermute Apr 9, 2020
I consider myself very lucky to have a Virgin fibre connection - 100Mb down and 20Mb. That's usually about 9Mb/sec downloads and 2Mb/sec uploads.
I'm on a similar connection in Cambridge and my latency is fine. On the other hand my girlfriend, on the same connection, got essentially a slideshow when she first tried it. There are things you can try, such as the Stadia+ extension so you can choose your encoding method (although that seems to be broken right now) or a VAAPI-enabled Chromium.
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so its 14 countries only? where the F is the list of countries?...
managed to get this far:
then:
thanks for letting me know...
says a lot.
Last edited by Xpander on 9 April 2020 at 9:12 am UTC
managed to get this far:
then:
thanks for letting me know...
says a lot.
Last edited by Xpander on 9 April 2020 at 9:12 am UTC
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so its 14 countries only? where the F is the list of countries?...
I thought it might have been the countries that Stadia has released in, but that's purely a guess.
I signed up through the android app.
First opinions:
- defaults to 1080p, which looks quite bad on a 1440p screen. Installed Stadia+ to get 4K.
- Can't get the games/stadia/chromium to vsync so I get tearing.
- So far a consistent latency of 29-30 ms (as reported by Stadia+), which is pretty damn good.
- Edit: also, what on earth did they bind the menu to that is usually bound to ESC? Only managed to get there from the controller.
Anyway, need to solve the vsync thing first before I try more
Last edited by Ehvis on 9 April 2020 at 9:55 am UTC
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so its 14 countries only? where the F is the list of countries?...
I thought it might have been the countries that Stadia has released in, but that's purely a guess.
I signed up through the android app.
yeah through android app it says the app is not available for your country...
its stupid that it just says "something went wrong" on the browser then. its like windows errors.
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SystemShock Apr 9, 2020
Hi, maybe i got that all wrong but i don't think that this is the free "1080p only" "Stadia-Base-Version" we're all waiting for.
It's only Stadia-Pro free for 2 Months.
After that it'll cost again 9,99.
pls correct me if im wrong...
It's only Stadia-Pro free for 2 Months.
After that it'll cost again 9,99.
pls correct me if im wrong...
0 Likes
Hi, maybe i got that all wrong but i don't think that this is the free "1080p only" "Stadia-Base-Version" we're all waiting for.
It's only Stadia-Pro free for 2 Months.
After that it'll cost again 9,99.
pls correct me if im wrong...
Correct. But if you don't pay after two months, you'll effectively have base left as you'll still be able to access your bought games. And I highly doubt they would close the store to you after that, but current former pro owners could confirm that.
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When your Pro ends, you automatically go onto Stadia Base and it acts like a normal store.Hi, maybe i got that all wrong but i don't think that this is the free "1080p only" "Stadia-Base-Version" we're all waiting for.
It's only Stadia-Pro free for 2 Months.
After that it'll cost again 9,99.
pls correct me if im wrong...
Correct. But if you don't pay after two months, you'll effectively have base left as you'll still be able to access your bought games. And I highly doubt they would close the store to you after that, but current former pro owners could confirm that.
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Note: I've added a link to the 14 countries currently supported.
1 Likes, Who?
- Can't get the games/stadia/chromium to vsync so I get tearing.That's likely some sort of compositor issue on your end, since it's basically just video.
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Yeah, because giga bit fibre so common where I am (UK) .....
You're also comparing a MMO to a single player.
Internet speed will play a part obviously, I would except it been a speed issue if it was saturating my connection which it wasn't , not even half. Not tried doom eternal I will give that a go later being a single player game that may hold up better.
Please try D2 for a comparison with doom.
I have played Destiny 2 I just don't play the game as its not fun IMHO (How Bungie made this and Halo I'll never understand). It's completely playable. I will admit while playing with the Stadia controller Aim felt "floaty" but I adjusted to it and its more than playable. No such issue with KB/Mouse. I don't play FPS/Competitive games with a controller. My attempts at the crucible with the controller were laughable.
I also hopped into Serious Sam multiplayer and had no issues winning matches after adjusting to the controller.
Last edited by drlamb on 9 April 2020 at 1:09 pm UTC
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Gotta say, I'm impressed. The whole experience is so seamless, it picked the controller right away and in few minutes I was in game. The image quality is excellent (for my eyes at least) I've seen no encoding/decoding artifacts whatsoever and plays really smooth. Is a more pleasant experience compared with GeForce NOW.
That being said, the input lag is...substantial. I can tolerate the lag I experience on GeForce NOW, but in this case is just too much. The Stadia extension reports 30 ms, which doesn't sound that bad, but in practice it feels like running on ice, especially if you use the mouse and keyboard. After a while I started to feel a bit of a nausea and had to stop. Switching to the gamepad felt much better, but still meh...
I suppose their closest datacenter/whatever is too far away from me compared with the GFN ones, so maybe in the future things might get better.
But then again, I can play Gylt in excellent conditions while my graphic card folds away full speed, all this in a browser, on Linux and without going through all kind of hoops. Is pretty amazing.
@drlamb
What latency do you have?
That being said, the input lag is...substantial. I can tolerate the lag I experience on GeForce NOW, but in this case is just too much. The Stadia extension reports 30 ms, which doesn't sound that bad, but in practice it feels like running on ice, especially if you use the mouse and keyboard. After a while I started to feel a bit of a nausea and had to stop. Switching to the gamepad felt much better, but still meh...
I suppose their closest datacenter/whatever is too far away from me compared with the GFN ones, so maybe in the future things might get better.
But then again, I can play Gylt in excellent conditions while my graphic card folds away full speed, all this in a browser, on Linux and without going through all kind of hoops. Is pretty amazing.
@drlamb
What latency do you have?
1 Likes, Who?
There are a lot of variables that contribute to one's experiences. 1000Mbps Up/Down Fiber here for context.
That's all the context I need to not bother reading about your experience! That's... not normal.
You're missing the important point. The question is not if it works with your line today, but if it works out in general (and with your line "tomorrow").
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Yeah, because giga bit fibre so common where I am (UK) .....
You're also comparing a MMO to a single player.
Internet speed will play a part obviously, I would except it been a speed issue if it was saturating my connection which it wasn't , not even half. Not tried doom eternal I will give that a go later being a single player game that may hold up better.
Please try D2 for a comparison with doom.
I have played Destiny 2 I just don't play the game as its not fun IMHO (How Bungie made this and Halo I'll never understand). It's completely playable. I will admit while playing with the Stadia controller Aim felt "floaty" but I adjusted to it and its more than playable. No such issue with KB/Mouse. I don't play FPS/Competitive games with a controller. My attempts at the crucible with the controller were laughable.
I also hopped into Serious Sam multiplayer and had no issues winning matches after adjusting to the controller.
All I can say is your view of fine/completely playable and mine are very very different, I too tried SS3 and that's as bad, input was better than D2 I agree bit still bad experience over all .
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so its 14 countries only? where the F is the list of countries?...You'll look like a giraffe, huh? So only we at GoL will know you really look like a penguin.
managed to get this far:
2 Likes, Who?
Overall, people seem to be experiencing a huge range of workability, from totally awesome to totally sucks and everything in between. I'm getting the feeling that whether it works great or sucks depends partly on internet speeds, but also to a big extent on luck of the draw in terms of how far your server is from you.
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Overall, people seem to be experiencing a huge range of workability, from totally awesome to totally sucks and everything in between. I'm getting the feeling that whether it works great or sucks depends partly on internet speeds, but also to a big extent on luck of the draw in terms of how far your server is from you.Yeah, it's lots of different factors. If Google well and truly stick it out for the long term though, it will only get better of course as they get more of their own routing closer to people in more countries, and as ISPs improve their own tech and so on. For a lot of people, the tech is already there, for a lot of people it's also the opposite. Like everything: it's not for everyone.
1 Likes, Who?
armageddon51 Apr 9, 2020
I have a 15/10 connection in Canada and it's pretty playable. D2 stutter a little bit but it's quite enjoyable. It seems to play better on Linux (Manjaro) then Windows on Chrome. Now I am sure this is going to put pressure on Steam to lower their price as a Google war is brewing. I would't be surprise if Steam launch a similar model too. Of course that will demand a huge investment in cloud services. Man I'll be happy not to drop those outrageous $1000 on a video card or download 80 GB of stuff. If it's successful, that a "game" changing event.
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One big advantage I see with Stadia is that it has Red Dead Redemption 2, while GeForce Now doesn't and will probably never work in Wine due to how it uses both DirectX and Vulkan simultaneously.
hell! is that even possible?
1 Likes, Who?
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