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ASUS, Acer and Lenovo built Chromebooks optimized to run services like GeForce Now:
One part of Google may have given up on cloud gaming, with Stadia set to be discontinued in a few months. But on the ChromeOS team, there's a whole new initiative to try and push back on the whole "you can't game on a Chromebook" thing. Today, Google — along with a handful of hardware and software partners — are announcing what it calls "the world's first laptops built for cloud gaming."
Stripping back the hyperbole, what does this mean in practice? After all, the whole point of cloud gaming is that you don't need superpowered hardware to enjoy high-quality games — many existing Chromebooks can run cloud gaming services just fine. That said, the new laptops announced today are quite a bit different than your average Chromebook.
At a high level, Google says that it focused on a handful of hardware features to differentiate these laptops, including large displays with high refresh rates, keyboards with anti-ghosting tech (and RBG keyboards in some cases), WiFi 6/6E cards and generally high specs.
[...] Naturally, software and game access is perhaps just as important as the hardware here. As such, Google has partnerships with NVIDIA, Amazon and Microsoft to ensure its devices work with GeForce Now, Luna and Xbox Game Pass out of the box. The NVIDIA partnership is probably the most significant, as the company is bringing GeForce Now's high-performance RTX 3080 tier to Chromebooks for the first time — this means games will play in up to 1600p resolution at 120 fps with ray tracing enabled (assuming the game supports these specs, of course). NVIDIA also made a progressive web app (PWA) so you can launch directly into GeForce Now from your Chromebook's dock or launcher.
[...] Google is also putting a big advertising and awareness push being this strategy, and it's not tied to a single product like Stadia. Given that Google is being service-agnostic, these laptops should provide a very good cloud gaming experience for the foreseeable future, even if Google doesn't stick with its cloud gaming push long term. And with other initiatives like Steam for ChromeOS moving forward (Google said it should enter beta soon), it's fair to say the company seems focused on removing the longstanding notion that you can't play games on a Chromebook.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14 2022, @04:37AM (1 child)
Wait, shouldn't that just be a cheap thin client with keyboard/pad control that simply displays video and audio? Doesn't a "Cloud"™ game do all the processing at the server, and then send the media stream down the pipe to your screen?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday October 14 2022, @08:07AM
You're not wrong, but no manufacturer is going to pair a high-end 2560x1600 120 Hz screen with very low end specs in a laptop that ultimately sells for $100-$200. Similarly, the high-end laptops aren't coming with 0-4 GB of RAM that you can just upgrade yourself.
What you are seeing is basic 1080p screens coming down to the $100 laptops (the ones larger than 11.6"), or you could forget the screen and use a display output (HDMI or USB-C) to move the game to a monitor or TV. At that point you might as well consider a mini desktop/SBC or keyboard computer like the Pi400.
There is some hope for the Wi-Fi card. Cheap laptops were quick to adopt Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]