We’re getting more and more used to streaming our content — whether it’s video files from a media server or music and video from Spotify and Netflix. The next target is gaming, obviously, and while there are solutions out there — like not-available-in-SA PlayStation Now — Google’s got a slightly different idea called Project Stream.
Project Stream is a streaming technology that allows for games, which might normally require a console or a dedicated PC, to be streamed through a web browser. The Chrome web browser, specifically, because this is Google’s test, after all.
And what a test it’s set to be. Project Stream is designed “…to push the limits with one of the most demanding applications for streaming—a blockbuster video game” and that game is going to be Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. A limited number of testers (who won’t have to pay for Ubisoft’s latest while they’re involved in the test) will be streaming the game through a Chrome browser, either on a laptop or a tablet, from 5 October.
The point of the test is to see if Google is capable of streaming a AAA game through a web browser, a complex task that has to account for a lot of fast rendering of “…incredible detail and life-like movement of the characters’ skin, clothing, and hair, to the massive scale of the world in which the game unfolds, down to every last blade of grass” while making sure that there’s no input lag to and from the controller that controls the character on-screen. It’s a little more difficult than streaming a video file that isn’t going to be constantly changing in random ways — hence all the testing.
If you’re looking to participate in Project Stream’s testing (which is looking for participants), you’re out of luck. The 25Mbps internet connection needed is within reach for some South Africans but the test… is limited to American users (over the age of 17) for now. But hey, hopefully we’ll reap the benefits of all this experimentation.
Source: Google