Microsoft Cloud Gaming - coming to Samsung TVs

[monkeydog]

The Xbox was free after lunch so gave using Edge a go. It works well and doesn't look too bad on a bigger screen.  It'll do nicely until streaming lands on non insider Xboxs.

 

Couple of quirks.  Need to turn off overscan an in the Xbox setting menu to remove borders in Edge. 

 

The double squares button works but turns off controller mode. You have to click the screen to reactive and turn controller mode back on again.  It a bit annoying for games that use it a lot.

 

Haven't tried plugging a mouse in, which might resolve that.

[Gotters]

does anybody use this on Safari on a mac ?

 

I've got an older mac so its not on the brand new latest version of OSX, but I can connect my xbox controller fine via bluetooth.

 

I open up cloud and get the dashboard, can navigate with the controller to launch a game, but whenever one launches the controller won't work - Football manager comes up with some prompt about the controller being idle, which it isn't.

 

I'm suspecting its the older OSX which I can't upgrade as won't take the latest versions due to mac being a 2012 model. 

[Paulando]

18 minutes ago, Gotters said:

does anybody use this on Safari on a mac ?

 

I've got an older mac so its not on the brand new latest version of OSX, but I can connect my xbox controller fine via bluetooth.

 

I open up cloud and get the dashboard, can navigate with the controller to launch a game, but whenever one launches the controller won't work - Football manager comes up with some prompt about the controller being idle, which it isn't.

 

I'm suspecting its the older OSX which I can't upgrade as won't take the latest versions due to mac being a 2012 model. 

It possibly needs a new OS, yeah. On mine I can browse the XCG splash screen with the controller connected, which is when I know it’s not going to flag as being ‘idle’.

[Dan]

I tried this yesterday on an Amazon Firestick 4K on a old 1080p TV. It worked better than expected via the built in web browser. 
 

If MS ever bring out a HDMI dongle for this it’d be great for going on my travels. 

[monkeydog]

On 10/11/2021 at 14:47, Dan said:

I tried this yesterday on an Amazon Firestick 4K on a old 1080p TV. It worked better than expected via the built in web browser. 
 

If MS ever bring out a HDMI dongle for this it’d be great for going on my travels. 

 

I forgot that the Firestick had a built in browser.  Might give that a go if the main tele's occupied.  Wifi's not great in the playroom though. It's fine for streaming video but not sure how it'll handle xcloud.

 

MS do plan to bring their own dongle out.  I assume it'll use MS's wireless controller protocol, which would help with latency a bit over bluetooth.  

 

 

[Jonny5]

4 hours ago, Gotters said:

does anybody use this on Safari on a mac ?

 

I've got an older mac so its not on the brand new latest version of OSX, but I can connect my xbox controller fine via bluetooth.

 

I open up cloud and get the dashboard, can navigate with the controller to launch a game, but whenever one launches the controller won't work - Football manager comes up with some prompt about the controller being idle, which it isn't.

 

I'm suspecting its the older OSX which I can't upgrade as won't take the latest versions due to mac being a 2012 model. 

I haven't used it for a while, but I always used Chrome on MacOS and it worked ok with a paired Xbox controller. 
 

Im tempted to sign up again for a quid to play FH5. Although if I wait a bit I guess I could split my one pound month between Halo & Forza. 

[HarryBizzle]

I didn’t realise this was on Xbox now. Am playing San Andreas on Series X via Xcloud and it’s really impressive. Can’t tell it’s not local. 

[Mr. Gerbik]

Launched today:

 

Quote

: Today you can play Game Pass games from the cloud on your Xbox console. We’re excited that Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) is now available on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles with a Game Pass Ultimate subscription. We are launching in 25 regions with Brazil coming soon. This capability will initially roll out with our November release to a subset of Xbox gamers and scale to all gamers in supported markets over the coming weeks.

Quote

For Xbox One users, cloud gaming also allows you to play some next gen games on the Xbox One console you already own. This means select games that are currently only playable on Xbox Series X|S, like Recompile, The Medium, and The Riftbreaker, are now playable on your Xbox One with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and cloud gaming. We will also continue to support this capability and expand our cloud game library to include more next gen games like Microsoft Flight Simulator in early 2022.

 

[Boozy The Clown]

 

[Gigawatt]

Had a go of this on my son’s old One S which I’ve borrowed now he’s got a Series X. It’s been surprisingly good even though it’s only on wifi. Better than I’ve had on a web browser on the iMac and better than PS Now, and both of those were on wired connections. I wonder if it will be possible for me to play the Series X version of the Halo Infinite campaign like this rather than downloading the One S version?

[monkeydog]

Streamed some Call of the Sea and Halo 5 via our XSS and it worked really well. The visuals held up on the TV and I didn't notice any issues due latancy. 

 

(My main issue was that I forgot that it was 4 I'd been playing and was very confused for a few minutes)

[tobert]

Hmm I can't see streaming as an option, presumably it's accessed via the gamepass app?

 

The press release is a little vague in saying it will be released to a subset of Xbox gamers.

 

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2021/11/17/xbox-cloud-gaming-launches-on-console/

 

Scratch that, it's appeared after updating the console

[Jonny5]

Is this still streaming at 720p or have they increased it now?

[tobert]

I think they have increased to 1080p with the new series X servers.

 

I tried it last night and it looked terrible blown up on my 55" OLED.  At best the image looked softer/blurrier than normal, at worst it looked like a low resolution youtube video.  There was also an odd thing where a scan line would run down the screen every so often creating judder.

 

Xcloud has worked well for me on my mobile maybe because the screen is smaller but doesn't scale well in my experience.  I can see me using it to quick try out a game (it would have saved me downloading GTA SA for example) but its a very poor substitute for local gaming on console. 

[K]

I had a quick go on it last night, and it seemed pretty good. Back 4 Blood seemed to work fine, and there wasn't any obvious indication that it was being streamed. Gears of War 2 looked a bit soft focus (although I suspect that's just the game's aesthetic). Doom was the real test, and while it ran very smoothly with no obvious glitches or dropouts, it also looked a bit softer than I remember, and there seemed to be a very small but noticeable delay to controller inputs.

 

It's not quite as good as Stadia in terms of technical quality, but sheer number of games you can just start off and be away with, without having to install them, was very tempting. It seems perfect for trying games out. If you had an Xbox One, it's arguable that a current-gen console is less desirable now, although the quality isn't quite there, and streamed games won't work with quick resume.

 

Hopefully, the rise of streaming means that there's some kind of concerted move to get away from unskippable idents and intro screens when you boot a game up. It takes the piss a bit when games take no time to install and virtually no time to load, but you still have to wait through some pointless text screen.

[Garwoofoo]

1 hour ago, tobert said:

 its a very poor substitute for local gaming on console. 

 

I'm seeing a few Xbox One S owners delighted that they can play, essentially, Series S versions of their games - stuff like Forza Horizon at 60fps, or games like The Medium that they otherwise wouldn't have access to at all. I think it definitely has its uses.

[pinholestar]

Pretty damn impressed with it to be honest. It’s going to be a godsend for whacking out those weekly MS Rewards quests without having to install some 100GB monstrosity (Conan Exiles this week, for example) and is perfect for demoing a game that you’re not sure about without committing to the installation. It’s also opened up things like Elder Scrolls Online for me because I wanted to play it on Xbox after having played a good chunk of it on PS4 but wasn’t going to commit over 100GB of precious SSD space for the privilege. Now it’s not a problem and ironically may have just lost Microsoft a sale of the SSD expansion card 😆

 

The latency was very good for the games that I’ve tried it with but I can definitely tell the difference with shooters for example, which is why I have an inherent resistance to it becoming the primary method of distribution in the future. Local is always going to be preferable for me personally for that reason alone. Nevertheless it’s a great option to have and it must be fantastic for those who don’t yet have a Series console to be able to play things as if they did. 
 

Just another great addition to the whole Xbox user experience that Microsoft have crafted this gen. They’re absolutely killing it and haven’t put a foot wrong so far. 

[LaveDisco]

This is the first step towards the death of local. It’s works great. 
 

That and the climate will thanks those reward point hunters burning coal to downloading 50Gb games to play for ten minutes to unlock an achievement. 

[TehStu]

2 hours ago, pinholestar said:

It’s also opened up things like Elder Scrolls Online

I didn't even think of this, but I very occasionally dabble with ESO but then sacked it off when a 50gb patch was due.

[Sarlaccfood]

Yeah I was curious about San Andreas so just had a quick blast and forgot it was even streaming. Amazing really.

 

As good as new games are looking, this cloud integration with gamepass and virtually “handing” my friend the controller to have a go on Demon’s Souls on his PS4 while I was screensharing over the Atlantic have been the things that have blown my mind the most this gen. 

 

 

[TehStu]

Cloud integration is really well done I think, games show up in your last played bit as normal but with a little cloud icon. Menu button lets you install, on top of the usual options.

 

Tried Scarlet Nexus on my XSX, wired to router. Have to say that the image quality blown up to 55" wasn't good. I wasn't sure how to get useful connection information like I can from the Xbox windows/android apps, either. I didn't notice these image quality issues on my 13" laptop, but perhaps they were still hidden. Will try again on the smaller TV later, as I'd primarily be on the XB1 to do this.

[HarryBizzle]

Yeah, I think the reason I couldn’t tell San Andreas wasn’t local is because it looks and runs like a dog even when it is. Tried a few others today and it’s noticeable but overall still fantastic as a way to try a game or get playing on launch day without downloading. 

[TehStu]

In the interests of science, I fired it up on the XB1/40" TV. I noticed the same jpg-ish compression around text on the intro to Scarlet Nexus. I mean, less noticeable, but obviously a function of the streaming compression. Hells bells though, it loads fast and is as lag-less for me as usual. I'm definitely going to dip into games this way, and at 1080p I guess it's only using as much bandwidth as streaming films anyway.

 

I also immediately loaded Scarlet Nexus on my laptop and managed to capture the intro text that looked particularly compressed on TVs (WIN+Shift+S works!):

 

zoom in on that and it'll give you a sense of what you're going to see, when blown up on a TV. I genuinely couldn't see it on my laptop screen. I don't think it's terrible, but it may not be the crisp 4k visuals you're used to.

[Fused gamer]

I’ve been using this on my Mac Pro through edge browser for a while. It runs very well and has me wanting an Xbox, but while they’re tough to get hold of this is plugging a gap. Halo Infinite plays and looks great.

[Mr. Gerbik]

It's a welcome addition but it simply doesn't look good on my Series X connected to a big telly. The thing is, Stadia on that same telly looks fantastic and as good as playing a local game. Makes me wonder why Microsoft can't achieve the same quality.

[monkeydog]

37 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

It's a welcome addition but it simply doesn't look good on my Series X connected to a big telly. The thing is, Stadia on that same telly looks fantastic and as good as playing a local game. Makes me wonder why Microsoft can't achieve the same quality.

 

Out of curiousity, are you comparing it to a Stadia 1080p Steam? xCloud isn't 4k, yet at least. 

 

I'd assume the hardware's good for it.  Obviously more than just that with regards to image quality.

[TehStu]

9 hours ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

It's a welcome addition but it simply doesn't look good on my Series X connected to a big telly. The thing is, Stadia on that same telly looks fantastic and as good as playing a local game. Makes me wonder why Microsoft can't achieve the same quality.

Can the XSX stream in 4k? I never do Twitch etc so have no idea what the consoles are capable of. Reasonably assuming a PC, and thus Stadia, can brute force any problem.

[shirubagan]

Was streaming the Series X version of FH5 on my X1X earlier. No noticeable lag, some crappy compression at times, but nothing to ruin the gameplay. Probably not great for twitch gaming, but I enjoyed the snappy load times and lack of installing. Very nice extra, especially for completing those shitty MS Rewards quests when possible  

[Shook]

I had the controller working in the menu but not the game itself thing until I tried Chrome and then it worked.

 

Gave it a whirl last night and a few minutes in to carrying on my Dishonored playthrough, I realised that this is what everyone will be doing in future apart from those who care about ping and headshots and stuff like that.

 

It's totally playable otherwise.

 

 

[Fry Crayola]

Experiences vary, unfortunately. My play of Forza Horizon 5 was stuttery, with tearing and frequent full-screen decoding garbage (particularly on changing the camera). 

 

On the other hand, I've had smooth experiences with other games on it at other times, so it's a consistency issue.