Stadia and the broken promises
DOOM is one of those titles that need no introduction, all video game fans know it and know what it means within the industry. Therefore, when Stadia appeared, DOOM Eternal was used to show the public that they were serious about this game via streaming.
With the DOOM Eternal demo, they not only showed that there would be high-level games, they also used it to announce that Stadia would execute the title in real 4K resolution. But it is not so, as ID Software has confirmed, the game runs at 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second on Full HD screens. And if bandwidth allows it, on 4K screen it scale from 1800p to 2160p and at 60 fps.
As you may already be imagining, this breaks Stadia’s promise, represents a hard blow to the service and a disappointment to all those users who believed the company’s words one hundred percent. Because during the presentation it was emphasized several times: «DOOM Eternal will run in real 4K».
Anyway, within the bad there are some good things. The first is that content from 1080p to 2160p is not being scaled, but from 1800p to 2160p. That makes, despite not being real 4K resolution, the quality is better. The second is that when this scaling is done and the high resolution video signal is delivered, the 60 frames per second are maintained.
However, it is still a hard blow who receives Stadia and his game proposal via streaming.
Where is the Stadia limitation
If you have followed the Stadia theme, from its presentation to the day of its launch it is likely that you already know everything about it. The service was launched and despite the initial good reviews, it also had to face some problems to which Google had to respond.
Now, this real 4K theme is another hard blow. Because they promised that at launch the service would be able to run the games in real 4K and it is not so. Moreover, titles such as Destiny 2 or Red Read Redemption 2 do the same as DOOM Eternal, they scale the content from 1080p or 1440p according to the user’s internet connection.
What is the problem? According to Google it is not or should not be a hardware problem, because they already said that their GPUs were more powerful than the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro together. Perhaps it is the problem of developers, who still do not see how to optimize the adaptation of their games to the system.
Moreover, a few days ago some developers distrusted such platforms. If Google, Nvidia or anyone else stopped having an interest in continuing to offer the service, would it have been worth the effort to adapt the games?
Now that these proposals start is when we should take more care of what is said and how it is said. Because they can easily be the future of video games. But if they take false steps like this, the user will not trust and will not bet on the game via streaming. Even less with the new generation consoles just around the corner.
