At its 2019 E3 showcase, Bethesda revealed Orion, its patented cloud streaming SDK, which it says its easy to integrate into existing games. Bethesda claims Orion allows games to run at “max settings” with minimal bandwidth usage, even if you live far away from a data center. To demonstrate these claims, Bethesda and id Software who are leading development of this SDK, demonstrated DOOM 2016 at 4K 60 frames per second, running on a smartphone. We’ve uploaded the presentation clip so you can take a look below.
Some of the biggest barriers to xCloud isn’t necessarily the speed of your network, but the conditions too, namely 5GHz WiFi, or high-quality 5G (with a compatible smartphone). Bethesda’s Orion demo showcases DOOM 2016 running at 4K, with 60 frames per second, with “no perceptible latency,” which is most likely the ideal end-goal of Microsoft’s xCloud tech for Xbox Game Pass Cloud Gaming.
I remember watching this demo and how people were saying that Orion is the best game streaming tech in the industry. This is an absolute critical piece for the future cloud gaming
Yes, MS bought ZeniMax for much more than just licences and studios. It actually totally make sense, very similar to their previous acquisitions, though not on the same scale.
Yeah, the amount of reporting just on the games and studios (not that they aren’t world-class in themselves) that ignores the tech and wider implications with the purchase is pretty standard fare for our wonderful gaming media. I personally haven’t even cataloged all the implications of the purchase; just having picked ESO back up after a year away, it’s remarkable how Xbox has quickly become the RPG powerhouse that they are.
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if this was a major factor in Microsoft deciding to pull the trigger on this deal. Microsoft seems to view cloud gaming as the key to unlocking markets that they have never been able to touch before (largely in developing countries), and this is technology that could potentially either be used to improve their product or serve as the foundation for a competitor. Microsoft always seems to be playing the long game, and the more I hear/read about Orion, the more short sided it seems to reduce the Bethesda purchase to Studios and IP.
Between the incredibly talented people, multiple big ips, one incredible game engine, and other tech like this, the Bethesda purchased is looking like a heck of a deal for Ms
Combining this tech with Series X APUs in Azure should have a significant impact on Xcloud streaming quality. Really curious to see what the streaming experience feels like in a year or two.
I hope they implement this ASAP. Xcloud is good with 60fps games but i was playing wasteland 3 last night on xcloud and the sound was glitching and the game crashed, could be the new gamepass app has some bugs though.
Stadia feels better though, stadia feels as good as console.
Ms is somewhat crippled by the hardware, stadia by running games on Pc has more opportunities to reduce latency.
Though I think MS long term play is to get Xbox games running inside windows, which I think was one of their goals with Win10x.
But at least in the meantime Xbox wasn’t just waiting on their feet, sx latency features were definitely designed with cloud gaming in sight as well to help mitigate the issues.
As the poster above said, yep, the crashing is most likely due to the game itself, not the cloud streaming. About the sound, though, were you on 5Ghz wi-fi? If not, that might be the issue.
Yeah come to think of it , it is 5ghz WiFi and I jave had sound issues in the bedroom before, however Ive tested both stadia and xcloud with 60fps games and there is a little more latency on xcloud, but its minimal. Scarlett hardware in servers may improve things
Thanks for sharing, OP. I missed this at E3, and I am very curious to see how this will improve streaming for me. Of course Microsoft didn’t pay all that money just for game exclusives, and now that I’ve seen this, I’m even more excited about the future of Xbox.
