Following the announcement that Xbox Cloud Gaming has now officially rolled out to all Game Pass Ultimate members on Windows 10 PCs and Apple devices, the experience has been massively upgraded. Now, players will benefit from cloud games run through custom Xbox Series X hardware, bringing a faster, more responsive experience.
In an Xbox Wire detailing the rollout of Xbox Cloud Gaming to Windows 10 PCs and Apple devices, it was revealed that games in the cloud are now running on Xbox Series X hardware. This is said to bring "faster load times, improved frame rates, and an experience of a new generation of gaming". To improve latency, games will be streamed at 1080p and will run up to 60FPS.
"We’re also making significant improvements to the overall experience: Xbox Cloud Gaming is now powered by custom Xbox Series X hardware. We’ve been upgrading Microsoft datacenters around the globe with the fastest, most powerful Xbox hardware to give you faster load times, improved frame rates, and an experience of a new generation of gaming.
To ensure the lowest latency, highest quality experience across the broadest set of devices, we will be streaming at 1080p and up to 60fps. Going forward we’ll continue to innovate and add more features to enhance your cloud gaming experience."
It's a fantastic step in the right direction, and some users who have taken advantage of the upgrade recently have shared their positive experiences. It seems like a substantial upgrade and one that Xbox is committed to continue improving. With a wider range of accessibility for Xbox Cloud Gaming, no doubt many will be pleased to see an improvement in the cloud's capabilities.
Happy to see Xbox Cloud Gaming upgraded to custom Xbox Series X hardware? Drop us a comment and let us know,
[source news.xbox.com]
Comments 26
So if you have super fast internet.
Can you get the full series x console at home experience on cloud.
Say full effects resolution, FPS, ray tracing.
Hdr Dolby vision and atmos, not a single difference or compromise?
Just in time for Flight Sim, the first Series X|S game to not have a native XB1 version meaning XB1 owners won't miss out.
Interesting, I thought it was a partial rollout but this makes it sound as is they mostly or entirely phased out the old servers. This might explain the relatively low units sold for Series X, which despite selling as soon as it shows up, seems to not be manufactured as fast as PS5s (based on sales figures.)
It’s very likely Microsoft has been aggressively reserving a large number of chips for cloud server racks. Would not be shocked if there is one XSX server for every XSX sold to consumers.
@Dezzy70 not full resolution as they stated the streams are up to 1080p, not 4k. The game likely will run at 4k on the server and downsampled to 1080p before it’s send to the user, but that still always looks better than 1080p rendering as it result in a smoother, less aliased render.
Getting 4k streaming is likely going to take further tech development (encoder side) and would not be shocked if similar to Stadia, 4k streaming ends up becoming some premium feature.
@Dezzy70 well it runs at 1080p/60 FPS for now. If it has ray-tracing i don't know but I would assume so. I tested Dirt 5 on my phone it ran pretty smoothly so it should still be a pretty premium experience.
Yes yes yes. Super happy about this. Can’t wait to test it
@Tharsman
Thank you I see.
So the premium experience on your 65” 4K OLED/QLED is the series x console at home.
Good to know, as my internet is terrible.
I think Microsoft said that anyway the premium experience will always be the premium console under your tv.
@Dezzy70 I’m sure sooner or later they will offer a 4k solution, be it part of the service or an extra tier is anyone’s guess, but even Netflix charges extra for 4k streaming. Raytracing will be on full effect while using xCloud now, though.
Console under the TV will always be superior, but this makes playing Xbox games with potato hardware viable. One of the most annoying things until now with the old servers is we were still dealing with terrible load times. At this point, if I had a One X, and my internet cooperated, I would take streaming over playing natively on One X, but will obviously always prefer playing natively on Series X.
@The_New_Butler try it again now that it’s on Series X hardware. I was having a poor experience, almost unplayable, on my iPhone, but things are a lot better now. Still not perfect but it seems the new hardware has better encoding capabilities that make things a lot smoother.
I just played through the Banjo Kazoie tutorial (wanted to make sure they were not throwing BC 360 games on old One X servers) and Minecraft Dungeons, all is running rather nicely, with just mini hiccups (due to my bad internet.)
Has this rolled out to the Game Pass app for android
Off topic, just started cyberpunk on series x
So far it’s really great and enjoying it.
No bad experience yet.
Playing quality mode, sharp picture and smooth.
Guess there has been a lot of patches released.
@Tharsman I genuinely hope now that this upgrade process seems to be all the way done we can see a lot more XSX in the wild and specially for the Christmas period as both Halo and Forza launch.
@The_New_Butler @Tharsman I tried Microsoft Dungeons here at home and I’d say it’s acceptable but not good. I had some lag and hitching but it wasn’t unplayable. I will say the touch controls are very painful though. For reference, I have 200Mbps internet.
@FatalBubbles touch controls are better than nothing when one is, like, at a dentist office, but they are not ideal for anything with fast pace. Missed many jumps on Banjo on the tutorial with touch controls, so don’t see me ever playing that in such a way, but a turn based RPG that does not have any crazy times mechanics? That would be just fine with touch controls. I would play Dragon Quest XI that way. Story based games like Tell Me Why might also work just fine with touch controls.
I did but a GameSir X2 to play my Xbox remote while on bed, so I can see myself carrying that with me for xCloud when I leave the house.
@Tharsman I’ve heard multiple sources say JRPGs are good for this. I’ll have to try one. I must have hit the inventory button 30 times in one level or MD on accident. Lol.
@Dezzy70 "Can you get the full series x console at home experience on cloud."
In a word... No.
In a few more there are always compromises but IF you can get it to work well it will be perfectly playable and if you're not a graphics aficionado you can have a great time playing some types of games. My biggest compliment is that when it really works, you just forget you are playing via the cloud. But it's always going to be a step down from a box at home and some types of games are a better fit than others. Currently it's 1080p max with a few other compromises, imho fine for a phone, tablet or maybe even laptop screen but not fine for playing on a massive 4K TV yet.
"So if you have super fast internet..."
Sadly it's also not just about internet speed but more about internet consistency, and some other unknown variables it seems. There are PLENTY of people that have ultra fast internet but have issues whereas there are others that have average internet but it seems to work fine. ymmv
THIS is the largest hurdle for all game streaming services IMO it currently doesn't "just work" for many people. They only get one chance to make a good impression with the masses, otherwise the tech will be written off for several years as "tried that didn't work well" for many users.
@Tharsman @The_New_Butler Based on your posts I've just tried it again now the Series X server blades are in place. (I last tried it a few weeks ago on iOS when that launched in beta)
Here's my thoughts after 30 mins of game time playing with a series X controller on a MS Surface Pro over 5GHz wifi (BT with 71.4 Mbps down / 18.1 Mbps up / 5ms Ping, well above the recommended specs)
Generally visual stream quality was excellent, and you could almost forget about that if it wasn't for occasional audio micro stutters (didn't seem to affect the gameplay strangely).
For individual games:
All in all it was fine for some games and i'd consider it as a last resort for slower games, but still not good enough for the faster, precision and FPS games.
But I cannot stress enough YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY, everyone seems to have a different experience based on their internet setup. Definitely worth everyone trying to see if it works for them.
Psychonauts loaded up within 5-10 secs. Bloody amazing tech.
@Dezzy70 read the story, straight up says 1080p and 60fps.
@FatalBubbles its the upload thats important...once your over 100mbs on the download its then the upload that causes the lag or input lag...as in the USA most ISPs are lopsided...example i have gigabit from comcast thats 1gb down but i only have 40mbs upload speed(advertised upload)...one day these isps will realize the upload is as important and start increasing those speeds.
@Blessed_Koz That could explain it. I think my upload is 10.
Wish I had more than 6mb a second internet. 😂
Just played a bit of No Man's Sky on an M1 iPad Pro. It really looks great, no artefacts or banding for me. However, the lag was definitely noticeable, much more so than with GeForce and Stadia. There's a real sense of the button being pressed and then the action happening afterwards.
My Series S is in the office so I often console stream to the living room and it's the other way round, lots of artefacts and banding but not too much lag.
The lag makes a lot of the xcloud games unplayable for me. I'd rather play 720p/30 with minimal lag on an iPad screen than have good 1080/60 with noticeable lag.
@Dromosus Yes this was mostly my experience too.
Note the 60fps is important at helping reduce the perceived lag. Digital Foundry covered this on one of their Stadia review suggesting that under pretty perfect conditions games at 60fps on Stadia had a similar lag to games at 30fps on a native system.
Although the Stadia controller links directly to wifi in order to cut down lag rather than having to go through the software first like on Xbox, which is a technical advantage.
I hope this happened some time after lunch today, as I was playing Horizon 4 on my iPad and the lag was terrible, and this was on a 200mbps connection too!
Definitely cool. Sneaking a minute or two of play on my phone was a drag when returning to old load times!
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