Cloud-based game streaming is emerging as a convenient way to play games when clients have a good network connection. However, high-quality game streams need high bitrates and low latencies, a challenge when competing for network capacity with other flows. While some network aspects of cloud-based game streaming have been studied, missing are comparative performance and congestion responses to competing TCP flows. This paper presents results from experiments that measure how three popular commercial cloud-based game streaming systems -- Google Stadia, NVidia GeForce Now, and Amazon Luna -- respond and then recover to TCP Cubic and TCP BBR flows on a congested network link. Analysis of bitrates, loss rates and round-trip times show the three systems have markedly different responses to the arrival and departure of competing network traffic.

Materials:

• Paper: pdf
• Longer technical report: pdf
• Slides: pptx

See also:

• Xiaokun Xu and Mark Claypool. Measurement of the Responses of Cloud-based Game Streaming to Network Congestion, In Proceedings of the 32nd ACM International Workshop on Network and Operating Systems Support for Digital Audio and Video (NOSSDAV), Athlone, Ireland, June 17, 2022. Online at: https://web.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/game-stream-nossdav-22/

• Xiaokun Xu and Mark Claypool. A First Look at the Network Turbulence for Google Stadia Cloud-based Game Streaming, In Proceedings of the IEEE Global Internet Symposium (GI), Virtual Conference, May 10, 2021. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/stadia-net-gi-21/

• Mark Claypool, David Finkel, Alexander Grant and Michael Solano. On the Performance of OnLive Thin Client Games, Springer Multimedia Systems Journal (MMSJ) - Special Issue on Network Systems Support for Games, Volume 20, Issue 5, Pages 471-484, DOI 10.1007/s00530-014-0362-4, February 2014. Online at: http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~claypool/papers/onlive-journal/