Games played on a connection with high latency will incur a delay between your controller inputs and what happens in the game, while games on low latency will respond more closely to what it’s like to play a game that’s been downloaded onto a local device. Latency is what determines whether it’s playable. Any speeds lower than the minimum will result in buffering that will completely derail the experience.Ĭonnection speeds only determine whether you can see the game, though. If you remove the player input part of the equation - which is, admittedly, very important - cloud gaming is just a video feed streamed to you. If you’ve used video streaming services like Netflix, you may already be familiar with these requirements. If you want to play games in 4K, you’ll need a connection speed of 35 Mbps or more. DSL or satellite connections often won’t cut it, given the high demand of cloud gaming when it comes to speed and latency.įor the major cloud gaming services, like Google Stadia, Nvidia’s GeForce Now, Sony’s PlayStation Now, and Microsoft’s xCloud, you want an internet connection speed of around 15 megabits per second (xCloud requires at least 10 Mbps) to be able to stream games to your screen at 720p resolution. If you can, opt for cable or fiber internet. Internet speeds can fluctuate wildly across the world and also inside each country itself. Internet connectionĬloud gaming calls for a fast and stable internet connection. If you want cloud gaming to be the seamless experience that its marketing campaigns have promised, you have to know how it works so you can pick the hardware that’s right for you. Destiny 2’s Sanctified Mind, Sol Inherent boss isn’t going to wait around while you work out your latency problem. Everything about cloud gaming falls apart as soon as your internet connection can’t handle the kind of games you want to play. You need as close to a perfect response time as possible when you’re fighting against enemy players in a competitive game, or even if you’re in a particularly hard section of an action-based game. Not only are there several different services to choose from with various kinds of subscription fees, but there are specific internet speeds you have to hit in order to play the games in the first place.

Cloud gaming has a lot of hidden requirements.

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