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Microsoft Windows XBox (Games) Games Linux

Microsoft's xCloud Game Streaming Looks Worse On Linux Than Windows (arstechnica.com) 35

As noted by a Reddit user and confirmed by Ars Technica, Microsoft's xCloud game streaming looks noticeable worse when running on Linux than Windows. From the report: With the Linux User-Agent, edges are generally less sharp and colors are a little more washed out. The difference is even more apparent if you zoom in on the Forza logo and menu text, which shows a significant reduction in clarity. Interestingly, the dip in quality seems to go away if you enable "Clarity Boost, an Edge-exclusive feature that "provid[es] the optimal look and feel while playing Xbox games from the cloud," according to Microsoft. That's great for Linux users who switched over to Microsoft Edge when it launched on Linux last November. But Linux users who stick with Firefox, Chrome, or other browsers are currently stuck with apparently reduced streaming quality.

That Linux quality dip has led some to speculate that Microsoft is trying to reserve the best xCloud streaming performance for Windows machines in an attempt to attract more users to its own operating system. But using a Macintosh User-Agent string provides streaming performance similar to that on Windows, which would seem to be a big omission if that theory were true. Microsoft also hasn't published any kind of "best on Windows"-style marketing in promoting xCloud streaming, which would seemingly be a key component of trying to attract new Windows users. (The quality difference could be a roundabout attempt to get Linux users to switch to the Edge browser, where Clarity Boost offers the best possible quality. But that still wouldn't fully explain why Windows users on other browsers, without Clarity Boost, also get better streaming quality than their Linux brethren.)

Others have suggested that the downgrade could simply be a bug caused by Microsoft's naive parsing of the User-Agent strings. That's because the User-Agent strings for Android browsers generally identify themselves as some version of Linux ("Linux; Android 11; HD1905," for example). Microsoft's xCloud code might simply see the "Linux" in that string, assume the user is running Android, then automatically throttle the streaming quality to account for the (presumably) reduced screen size of an Android phone or tablet.

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Microsoft's xCloud Game Streaming Looks Worse On Linux Than Windows

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  • by Narcocide ( 102829 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2022 @07:48PM (#62679798) Homepage

    Yea, right. Are we supposed to believe Microsoft has no idea there's ambiguity of intent with the cheapest, dumbest approach when it also just so happens to make their own products look better?

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2022 @08:02PM (#62679824)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • By invoking the name Rube Goldberg your comment strongly implies that a simple case-insensitive string search for the word "Linux" is a far more opaque and complex logical feat than is factually accurate.

      • By invoking the name Rube Goldberg your comment strongly implies that a simple case-insensitive string search for the word "Linux" is a far more opaque and complex logical feat than is factually accurate.

        And when it finds that string it does what exactly? Calls deliverAlmost ImperceptiblyCrappierGraphics()? Just think of all those Linux users who don't actually care about Linux and only care about cloud gaming and will notice this tiny difference and proactively switch operating systems to Windows as a result of it! Man this strategy can't miss!

        I wouldn't have imagined there would be much of a market amongst desktop Linux users for DRM'd cloud gaming streaming services, much less ones from Microsoft.

    • Yes, but more likely a market-driven decision
    • Different implementations for different platforms, it's unsurprising they're different.

      I'd imagine their Linux branch probably lags behind the Windows branch. Linux users probably need to wait a little longer to receive updates and improvements.

    • by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Thursday July 07, 2022 @03:49AM (#62680530) Homepage Journal

      If people cared enough about performance in gaming, then the obvious thing to do is not game via streaming. Not go out and buy a copy of windows.

  • by phfpht ( 654492 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2022 @08:30PM (#62679886)
    Maye they can get Lennart Poettering to take a look at it. I mean, what's the worst he could do?
  • But that still wouldn't fully explain why Windows users on other browsers, without Clarity Boost, also get better streaming quality than their Linux brethren

    Windows users haven't played cloud games on browsers in like six months. Attempting to do so now just leads to a link to the Xbox app.
  • It is relatively easy to enforce DRM inside Windows applications. The same cannot be said in the free-for-all Linux environment, where the user is in full control of all administrative accounts.

  • by big-giant-head ( 148077 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2022 @10:17PM (#62680074)

    Steam works amazingly well on my Linux Box with Proton ... A bunch of games run as well on LInux as they do Windows ....

    • Some, especially older ones, actually run better.

      Yes, believe it or not, Linux is better at emulating old Windows versions than Windows.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Some games run well on Proton, many do not. Worse still, games which are marked as running well in the database sometimes get patched and the patch breaks them on Linux.

      Linus Tech Tips did a video about it a few months back. From a gamer's perspective it's not at all good, very hit and miss. Maybe that will improve now that the Steam Deck is out.

  • Back in the early days of gaming, Coleco, who held the license for some of the more famous arcade machines, was accused of making inferior versions for the Atari 2600 compared to their own ColecoVision (Donkey Kong being a notorious example of this).

    If you look at the versions side by side, it's obvious that there is a HUGE difference, one that you could not even explain with the difference in capability of the machines, because other games were mostly comparable. So did they "sabotage" the version for the

    • by noodler ( 724788 )

      If you look at the versions side by side, it's obvious that there is a HUGE difference, one that you could not even explain with the difference in capability of the machines,

      You OBVIOUSLY have no idea of the capabilities of the 2600. The capabilities of colecovision are generally far more advanced than the 2600.
      But hey, if you think you could make it look better then i'll leave you with your fantasy.

      because other games were mostly comparable.

      Not even close. Most games looked like shit on the 2600 and that was directly due to the hardware limitations. Altho time constraints also played a role. Games were pooped out in a couple of months at most.
      If you have any proof of this 'mostly comparable' thing then that would be in

      • Well... no. Yes, it's possible to create a better version of Donkey Kong on the Atari 2600, it's been done [kotaku.com], though I'm tempted not to say it "counts" considering it used a lot more storage than the average console at the time, but it shows that it can be done.

        The hardware on the ColecoVision was quite a bit better than the Atari 2600 (the 5800 would have been a more "even" match, essentially ColecoVision was a generation later), but with creative programming you could get quite a bit out of that old chips.

        • by noodler ( 724788 )

          though I'm tempted not to say it "counts" considering it used a lot more storage than the average console at the time, but it shows that it can be done.

          Yeah, i just read the coleco version developer stating it had to fit on a tiny tiny ROM.

          And to be completely fair, we have to compare it to other 2600 games of the time, developed with the knowledge and time constraints of the day.
          These days homebrewers know these 8 bit machines so well they can do things no one ever thought of doing back in the 80s. I'm pretty sure they could make a much better looking colecovision version of donkey kong as well.

          and few had the time, willingness and skill to do that for "just a video game for the kids".

          Sure, but even then the best 2600 games looked absolutely anc

  • Can someone explain to me how Google, Microsoft, Sony, etc. cannot get their streaming services to work as well or look as good as GeForce now looked 5-6 years ago?

    I keep coming back and trying, and it's crap crap crap. I have a gigabit connection, get sub 20ms (sometimes sub 10) from my WIRED device to the server, and it still runs poorly.

    Meanwhile geforce now used to run my entire steam library perfectly on a 30mbit connection using an 802.11g wireless connection.

    • 30/27mbit/s is actually enough to deliver a reasonably high quality compressed 1080 video stream, even for fast action. The reason the other services suck is they're massively under-provisioned. They probably assume most cloud gaming users are coming from mobile or console exclusive background, so a minor upgrade is all that's necessary to hook users, but then somehow fail to deliver even that.

      I really wish we could figure out why this failed business plan keeps getting pushed though.

  • by bjwest ( 14070 )
    How's the Windows branch run under WINE? I'm not against running things in WINE that I need/want that aren't available or don't run well in Linux.

Those who do things in a noble spirit of self-sacrifice are to be avoided at all costs. -- N. Alexander.

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