Google Stadia’s data use is over 100MB per minute at 1080p

Google Stadia's streaming can use a lot of data even at 1080p, and that's going to add up quickly for anyone worried about a data cap.

[THC CELL]

When this becomes full on in future broadband going to be very expensive

[UltraNova]

How much data is used at 4k 60fps then? Ouch.

That said, what stops IPs increasing the cost of internet after all streaming services are up and running? Who can stop them?

The future is indeed looking expensive.

[ShadowWolf712]

Competition would.

The biggest problem right now is that Telecom companies really do have the closest thing we have today to monopolies. They literally "own" coverage on entire chunks of the country; some companies are literally the only ones legally ALLOWED to provide coverage in some areas.

There are entire swatches of the U.S. where you literally can't get anyone BUT Comcast, or Time Warner, or Spectrum. So long as they never have to compete in these areas, they can do whatever the hell they want, really.

We need to force that market back open.

[UltraNova]

Agreed but how to you make your case against monopolies that you basically depend on? Its not as simple as choosing not to buy a product, this is the internet we are talking about, a modern day necessity like water and electricity.

How do we fight against that?

Edit:
I understand your example applies to the US only since here in EU there's no such thing as entire areas being in the sole control of one Telecom company (afaic) but we still see the results of behind the table dealings between them in various cases (similarly priced monthly plans and caps, etc). I'm not saying it happens everywhere but it does happen. The competitively priced plans usually come from smaller telecom Companies that offer an inferior connection (rented bandwidth from bigger Telecom Companies, copper connections instead of fiber etc). So that defeats the idea of healthy competition acting as a control.

[DarXyde]

Don't forget, 8K is slowly becoming the next thing.

[Cobra951]

UltraNova, ShadowWolf712:
I don't think there are any legal constraints on who delivers broadband. I think it's more a question of who's invested in the area. Here where I live, for example, we had Time-Warner Cable, now Spectrum, as the only decent broadband for years. Then more recently, a subsidiary of AT&T joined the market. The infrastructure got upgraded with lots of fiber. (Huge spools of the stuff sat in my neighborhood streets for a while.) Now both companies share the infrastructure.

Necessary monopolies, usually called natural monopolies need to be regulated. The state imposes rules and acceptable costs to the residents. Running water and sewers, for example, is a natural monopoly. The internet is not.

DarXyde:
No way in hell, man. 4K is already overkill, and no consumer GPUs can handle it consistently at 60 fps or better. 8K is 4 times the pixel count of 4K (16 times 1080p). 2 billion pixels per second at 60 fps. The bandwidth would be way past prohibitive. Storage for art assets, nope. Download speeds, nope. Game loading speeds, ouch. VRAM needed by GPUS, yikes! And it's so unnecessary, given that even 4K is unnecessary. If they do go all in on 8K panels, they better include really, really good scaling hardware.

[crazyCoconuts]

In the US, I've got to think the cable/Telco companies that supply internet are treading carefully so as to not give gvmt good reason to step in. They already subtly "optimize" traffic, and are walking a fine line

[thejigisup]

@shadowwolf712, they do not own coverage. How much do you think it would cost for a company like charter to use either Verizon's lines or run their own. In either case let's then think about how much money charter would make off of the churn from Verizon to an inferior product if the lines are 'rented' or a surge in pricing due the charter needing to recoup their cost as quickly as possible.
In most cases telecoms don't move to new areas due to the margins not being very profitable. You def see companies laying down new fiber and those companies definitely expand their footprint as they are already investing in material and man hours to lay the systems in place. It's not a monopoly by choice necessarily and the local governments play a role in it as well. You had better believe that Verizon wishes their fiber lines were everywhere but if there's a population of 5k in a town and it costs them 12 million to lay new fiber and support those new nodes then they will probably reconsider before the investment.

Sidenote: you'll also be seeing more companies offering cellular service as sir may be the next wave of standardized internet service in the future. 5G cellular technologies will vastly improve I'm the next 5-10 years and that may render your standard cable service as useless, especially if the days caps keep increasing as they have been.Why do people get gigabit service and all they have is 15-20 devices connected at any given time? Bc a bigger number means better I guess, Netflix only needs about 5Mbps. Like why do you really need 1000Mbps? To play fortnite? nah.

[LostinthePANIC]

Coming from someone who used to work for Comcast, I can honestly say that if you want to get a bit more well educated about the absolute legal Monopoly that cable companies have, just watch the Adam Ruins Everything episode "Adam Ruins the Internet." We literally watched it in training as a group.

As a side note: watching this was not a part of our training, but our instructor showed us anyway.

[smashman98]

No as time goes on bandwidth increases. To match the usage of the average consumer.

[kneon]

I can already get 1.5Gbps, I'm just not willing to pay for it as it's pointless for me.

[rainslacker]

Bandwidth is regulated by the government, or regulatory committees around the world. In some cases, the government owns parts of those backbones which serve the internet. The net started as a collaboration between academia entities which were publicly funded, and as it grew, it expanded to have backbones which were owned privately, but because of the government still owning parts of the backbone, they regulate how much bandwidth is allowed on major connections between various internet main relays in countries, and an international committee regulates that above them.

It's the only way something like the internet can work, otherwise, any given provider could easily use up the entirety of the bandwidth, but academia, and the government require their own pieces of the pie, and to keep things fair, and because they provide taxpayer dollars to build infrastructure, they say how much can be used.

Bandwidth itself can increase with new technologies, but as of now, that bandwidth is only increasing due to increase in infrastructure. The ISP's aren't keeping up with backbone, and the backbone isn't keeping up with consumer, or other users, demands. Everything will come to a head of conflicting interests before it isn't a problem.

[Reefskye]

Not if you don't have data limits I go through over 300TBs a month doesn't cost me any extra. That's in UK though I don't know how it is in rest of world. Data limits are rare as hell here anyone still on them is getting ripped off by their ISP

[Wontime1]

Holy smokes 300tbs? That's a lot my dude. Be thankful u have a no data cap option

[Reefskye]

Mostly Skype HD video calls, not including any games I install, that's just me not including other people in my family lol, edit sorry Skype does 300gbs a month i get through about 100tb a month I got my numbers wrong lol

[Mithan]

I work for a large Telecom. Despite what everybody likes to believe, telecom infrastructure is quite costly.

I am not saying that everything with Telecom is perfect, it isn't. There are monopolies that shouldn't exist, there are legalized issues where only one telecom is allowed to compete (bullshit, but it happens), there are extremely labour intensive jobs that make things like burying fiber optic cable cost anymore from $15k-25k a Kilometer, equipment is expensive, etc. Then of course, we are required to "maximize shareholder value" of the investors who buy stocks and provide capital for new expansions, also it is very important that the CEO can have his $35 million dream home and the upper executives can own their super cars and middle managers who do nothing but waste time with Metrics and Time Approval or terrorizing the call center staff who are at the bottom of the totem pole, can get their $150-200k.

Personally, I believe Telecom is something that should be run as a "non-profit", with Service for the people uttermost in-mind, and full transparency and accountability so you don't get nepotism, shitty lazy working people, bad managers hiring their friends from their wedding party, etc in the company. We should go back to calling it "Infrastructure", not a business. It is a service, it should be efficient, not for profit.

This is becoming far too important now and the potential to redefine our world, especially in light of climate change issues and such, is too great to ignore, but as long as we have telecoms limiting people to 10Mbps DSL and 300Gb download speeds, we will not be able to harness the true power of this medium.

Imagine being able to train people (kids and adults) at home and maybe do away with schools to some extent, imagine being able to more effectively run businesses from home or work from home, etc, etc. All of these things are ripe for transformation but do not happen because of prevailing attitudes (your boss not wanting you to work from home, telecom's not wanting to re-invest, schools, etc). Imagine the money that would be saved on infrastructure alone, that could be re-invested into other things.

However, we are stuck on old ways of thinkings. Capitalism doesn't work anymore because its been subverted by people buying off government people to pass laws that are friendly to connected people.

Everybody is in it for their "own interests" and the overall "public good" doesn't matter.

[UltraNova]

Thumbs up.

[rob-GP]

"On PC, Red Dead Redemption 2 is an approximately 150GB download. So that’s significantly less than 47 hours on Stadia. And that doesn’t include any extra time put into Red Dead Online. Now, to be fair, you don’t need to download any updates for Stadia games. But streaming is still far more data intensive."

Did they really just compare the physical download size to the streamed data size? They do know that you're not downloading the files and are simply viewing the streaming video, right? It's not like a movie where a 1.4gb video file will only stream 1.4gb as it's simply playing the file, it's an interactive medium which you play - very different.

For example, Thumper is only 1.4gb on Steam. You'll use more than that in bandwidth by playing it for about 15 minutes. Those who want to stream their games most likely have decent and unlimited internet, so the amount of bandwidth used probably doesn't matter to them.

[DeputyB]

Exactly, people who are getting into the streaming services will have unlimited data. If you don't have unlimited internet this is not a product for you.

[rob-GP]

At this point, I feel like people are just actively seeking things to say which are negative about the service just because it's something clearly not intended for them. Look at how much hate PS Now initially got from people who were never going to subscribe to the service either.

There was an article the other day from someone complaining that they couldn't use the system over public Wifi - most public venues have a throttle on the bandwidth each person gets and on certain services based on the ports used. So complaining about that is being very picky - the majority of people will grab this to play at home or at least where they have access to a decent Wifi or wired connection they know isn't being restricted.

[roadkillers]

^ They are. Some things are legitimate like latency and lack of games. I have never heard of data caps since AOL, I live in rural Wisconsin.

[DarXyde]

As long as it does not become THE means of gaming, I can just ignore it.

Otherwise, I am very tempted to believe that even with an unlimited plan, people will consume so much data that ISPs will introduce data caps as a response to bandwidth consumption.

[bluefox755]

Who is it for? I haven't heard anything positive about it outside of a few people on here. Just seems like a terrible product that no one asked for.

[Cobra951]

It really isn't a product at all. It's a service. The controller you get is a paperweight without the service. (OK, I concede that paperweights are products.) You don't have any of the games they "sell". They have them. You have to forever play nice with them if you want to keep getting access to what you "buy".

[Sgt_Slaughter]

I bet it won't work well even on Unlimited because they love to throttle those users.

[ChronoJoe]

They're just highlighting the idea that the net bandwidth spent is higher for playing through the game via stream, than downloading. What your downloading is obviously different.

They highlight the same thing that you're saying, that the stream will consume far more bandwidth over time then the single download.

[rob-GP]

True, but do people need that point out to them? Surely we know this? The amount is the part which seems strange though as Netflix only uses about 2gb an hour on HD, although that's only at 24fps, so I imagine that's why it's about 2.5x the size.

would be interesting if you could enable a 30fps mode and have it half the amount of data used as an option for those with slower or capped connections (although you don't want to play streamed games if you're capped).

[ChronoJoe]

Well people are notoriously quite bad with numbers and statistics. So while it might seem like common sense, it's probably something that gets misinterpreted quite often.

[Cobra951]

There's more to it than that, rob-GP. You can't do a whole lot of temporal compression on a real-time process (in this case, streaming game frames to you on the fly, as quickly as possible after your actions with the controller lead them to get created at their end). There is no multi-pass encoding. Each frame is going to take a lot more bandwidth than a Netflix movie's (regardless of frame rate).

[knickstr]

Your math is way off. At 100 MB every minute you would use 282 GBs in 47 hours of play. That is not significantly less than 150 GBs. And that is on the lower end of the data usage for this service if you go by the maximum data usage per hour based on the article, then 47 hours of gameplay would be 940 GB.

[rob-GP]

I was quoting the article in that first paragraph :)

I think they're saying the 150gb download is a lot less than the amount of data you'll have used if you stream the game. Which is something everyone should understand really?

I guess the best comparison, which the article doesn't touch one, would be to build a PC with specs that can run the game at the same settings as Stadia then run it for 47 hours and calculate how much electricity that has cost - the monitor and PC.

Once they have that cost - do the same for a 1080p or 4k TV and their router for the whole 47 hours and deduct the totals.

With that figure, they'll have how much (in monetary terms) the gamer would essentially 'save' by cloud streaming over running it natively on their PC (or even console if they decided to go down that route). That would then be a valid amount to come to a conclusion as to whether it's more cost-effective to pay to buy the game and stream it over buying the game and playing it on your Pc.

But, nobody has decided to do this yet.

[Orionsangel]

Imagine streaming Stadia games and then streaming your Stadia game on Twitch. It's streaming and then streaming again. The lag doh lol.

[PlayableGamez-]

No rational Twitch streamer would stream a Stadia game.
That would be equivalent to a marathon runner using high heels as their choice of shoes.

[The_Sage]

It's already happened.

[PlayableGamez-]

@The_Sage well some people are masochist.

[Shiken]

No rational gamer would play a Stadia game.

Fixed it for you.

[Immagaiden]

https://www.thelocal.fr/201...

[rob-GP]

Why would you - it's a Google product. Not sure if it's built-in yet but it's going to stream to Youtube direct from the server. So, you're streaming just fine and Google is streaming to their YT servers - meaning no impact on your bandwidth and experience.

If you have to stream to Twitch then fair enough, It'll be an issue if you're doing it via your PC, but if they implement an option to stream to Twitch from the device then it'll be the same as the YT connection - streamed from Google, not you. I doubt they'll do that though as they're competitors and they want you on their streaming service.

[Ripsta7th]

youtube?!? what about twitch and mixer

[rob-GP]

Getting a lot of downvoted for stating what Google said the device was going to do. People on here are a bit ignorant I guess.

@Ripsta7th - sure, those two are valid and popular streaming platforms but Stadia is Google's platform and Google owns YouTube - that's why integration to YouTube for streaming directly from the Stadia servers (so it doesn't use your bandwidth like it would when you usually stream) is set to be to YouTube - according to the announcement conference.

Streaming to Twitch or Mixer will most likely require you to stream to your PC or chrome device, then run it through OBS, X-split or your capture card software, then use your own bandwidth to upload - resulting in a loss of quality and possibly an impact on the quality you're receiving from Stadia servers. Once the Stadia to YouTube is activated, you'll always be playing it at the best quality you can receive, based on your internet download speeds, and the viewers also get the best quality too, as they're getting the stream from Google, not your PC.

[Neonridr]

streamception.. a stream within a stream..

[CaptainObvious878]

insert *we know you like streaming, so we've added streaming to your streaming, so now you can stream while you stream* meme.

[Orionsangel]

Yo Dawg, we added streaming to streaming because you like streaming

https://imgflip.com/s/meme/...

[gamer7804]

watching an epic failure in real-time. Imagine only owning a stadia, someone else decides to watch Netflix in your house at the same time you are trying to play a game, suddenly , best case scenario, your 4k 5.1 surround image (which isn't even possible at launch). drops to like 720p stereo low bit rate sound at best, or at worst the image starts pixelating or lag trying to keep up.

[Neonridr]

I mean it really depends on how fast your internet is. Pretty sure people with 100+ Mb/s can easily spare some bandwith for someone watching a movie elsewhere. Again, it's always going to depend on your setup.

[bloop]

Most of the reviews I've seen on Stadia have been on 300+mb connections with nothing else using the network and it's still unstable. If someone just opened Spotify on their phone you'd have RDR2 in glorious 8 bit graphics and sound 😂

[Shikoku]

And this is why game streaming isnt the future.

[YodaCracker]

This comment will not age well.

[AnubisG]

Yes, in about 50-100 years we will look back on this comment and have a good laugh, won't we?

Streaming is not the future for the next 4-5 decades at least. Internet speeds and infrastructure is nowhere near to a point where this can work properly for everyone.

[ShadowWolf712]

lmao if streaming is the future, then the future is in some deep trouble

[Shikoku]

As well as game streaming. The lag is not what they said it would, the rez is not what they said it would, the service lacks just about every "feature" it was supposed to have not to mention datacaps, as this article points out, makes "game streaming" a niche market at best. Buy your damn games and stop trying to free load, actually support the industry. Game streaming is an unsustainable model hell video streaming is pretty much in trouble as well. Netflix is now in a fight to stay relevant with every media studio coming out with its own streaming service. Now instead of have 2 you need 4 damn services just to watch the same shows as you could last year. So thats the future huh? Where I need 4-5 game streaming services just to play the four games I want? Its already happening. Ubisoft, Square, EA, Activision, MS and Sony all have a streaming service. So your telling its much cheaper to have to have all of those to play a few games I want? No its not.

[Neonridr]

people said the same thing about movie streaming.. Physical media for movies is dying.

[Profchaos]

Woah...were going to need a bigger pipe

[Knushwood Butt]

I laughed.

[PhoenixUp]

The data cap? What many people aren’t talking about is that Stadia itself will end up costing more than just buying a console in the long term.

It costs more to main in various aspects

[spambot0815]

everthing subscription is more expensive in the long term compard to owning and that subscripiton that they called rent is actually the worst. unfortunately most people can't ditch that like stadia.

[MajorLazer]

Especially when you can potentially sell that console with your collection of physical games and get some decent money even late into the gen

[EasilyTheBest]

Google Stadia is already dead you'll just have to wait for the lag to catch up for everyone to see...

[stuna1]

Lol.

[Ripsta7th]

im limited at 1tb per month, any 50gb more is 10 dolllars

[Dark-soul]

In Lithuania most common internet plan is 100mb per second, so should not be a problem at all :)
However i am old school gamer and prefer good old fashioned consoles instead of streaming (same like most ppl prefer actual books instead of digital)

So do not want stadia even for free tbh..

[Pancit_Canton]

Google went full ****** with this one. Another L. They are just glad that they own android, youtube and their seach engine to keep the cash flowing. Otherwise, they would be in the graveyard by now.

[Einhander1971]

The futures physical always has been.

[NotoriousWhiz]

100MB per minute at 1080p? Yeah, just *who* is this being marketed to? That's too expensive for a casual and a serious gamer will want a physical rig. No chance anyone will have any kind of decent experience playing on the go, you'd be better off with a handheld gaming device, be it a phone with games downloaded on it or the Switch.

[Father__Merrin]

Most services are unlimited anyone who uses this are likely to have a good connection. Seems to me most people are testing this on the Post Office broadband

[gold_drake]

wuut? lol fuck, my internet is decent, but not that decent.

[Wontime1]

It would be great if this had isp's back off of data caps. We would all be grateful for stadia then......
Also, 5g is going to help with the isp monopolies we have in parts of the country
TMobile will be launching their home internet service

[Artemidorus]

That's a no from me and that's with a huge amount of fibre with unlimited connection because we all know they slow them down when users are too greedy.

[StarScreamXIX]

LOL nope. I'd have to pay another $50 for Comcast Unlimited. NO THANKS.

[Iamnothuman12]

Man this is going to get very expensive very fast

[TheHan]

This will be a crisis

[KickSpinFilter]

What an epic disaster this launch is!
Makes WiiU, PS3 and XB1 launches look like major success stories.

[Thundercat77]

What a mess.

[gleepot]

OR. I could buy a physical game and keep it, play it whenever I want, and not pay anything for streaming data.

[Antifan]

Streaming isnt the future. No indication in the market that it is.

[xenz]

Wonder what happens when someone else in your household starts streaming movies. Guess nobody at Google thought about that major problem?

[3-4-5]

A lot of plans give you 100gb a month. Obviously some more, but you are looking at using all that within a week.

[Traecy]

Again...most hardcore gamers will be paying Stadia no mind,they'll continue to play video games on their favorite consoles & PC.

[deno]

Why not do what game-pass does, just download the game on the hard drive then erase after you're done. Why stream the game? It seems more archaic.

[DafunkyRebel]

They should’ve known better, especially since internet providers are such throat cutting scum

[Dfooster]

Imagine if someone created a box that the game came in that sits underneath your tv and you only had to then use your broadband for online play? No more worrying about lag or data caps, I would be all over that.

[Richhard1]

Pretty sure they’ll data cap the unregulated lines too when demand becomes higher. imagine that half way through your weekend Netflix session, ‘please pay x amount to increase your data cap, the futures bright, my ass.

[Sophisticated_Chap]

Yikes! This is why a download service is essential, to give people the choice. The only way I would consider streaming, is if I were to be travelling without having a PC, laptop or games console handy.

[victorMaje]

Said it before I’ll say it again, cloud gaming is an ISP’s wet dream.

[Knightofelemia]

Wow just a giant dust collector then 100mb per minute I have unlimited data but just wow

[SPEAKxTHExTRUTH]

I can see Comcast executives reading these articles about Stadia’s bandwidth usage sitting there rubbing their hands together like Birdman with a big smile in their faces.

[MasterCornholio]

"Harrison would go on to note that “ISPs are smart [and] they understand that they’re in the business of keeping customers happy and keeping customers with them for a long time,” which seems like an overly optimistic view of both the relationship ISPs have with customers in the US and the state of the broadband industry in the US in general."

https://www.theverge.com/20...

Well Google isn't worried because they believe the ISPs will be nicer to their consumers.

I honestly don't believe that at all and it's a huge problem with this service.

[sampsonon]

If you are a gamer and don't have unlimited data you are doing yourself a disservice.
for those that have no choice? that just sucks.

[Melankolis]

That's 6gb/hour!

[The7Reaper]

If anything is the future of gaming it'll be VR and definitely not streaming

[zodiac909]

This is quickly turning into a Fallout 76 Situation...where despite all the cut features, and un-assuring way Google has handled this product leading up to launch, idiots (early adopters) are surprised at how half assed Google is handling this??? When you invest in "shit", do you expect anything other than "shit"??

[DashMad]

RIP everyone with 20GB data cap

[DVAcme]

I've read reports that it's WAY more than that. Like, 7GB per hour at 720p.

[kitano1947]

a lot of Americans on this site with shit internet it seems. data caps? 100mb / minute is a lot?? hahahahahahhahahhahahah