Credit: Google
High definition from anywhere.
Boy, Google Stadia sorta… faded into the background of things a bit, huh? After its launch, I hadn’t really heard much of anything about it, beyond the occasional sarcastic gripe from Twitter. Still, though its reception was a tad lukewarm, Google hasn’t given up on cloud gaming. Far from it, in fact, as they’ve just started rolling out the next stage of the platform’s progress.
On Wednesday night, certain Google Stadia users received an unannounced update to their systems. As it turns out, this update is the initial rollout for 4K game streaming on the web. Fun times! Originally, you needed a TV or a ChromeCast Ultra to reach 4K fidelity, but now you can get it through your computer. Well, I say “you,” but when I said “certain users” before, I meant very few users. Reports of 4K service have been popping up on Reddit, with users taking screenshots of games like Mortal Kombat 11 and Grid with 4K visuals, so someone’s getting it!
Credit: Baconrules21 via Reddit
If you want to check your connection while playing a game, either press the Stadia button on your Stadia controller, or press Shift + Tab. If you’ve got the connection speed and display capability, you should see a little 4K marker, indicating you’ve got max quality, though again, this is assuming you’ve received this phantom update. Interestingly, according to 9to5Google, while only an “Excellent” connection is supposed to be 4K compatible, they’ve actually been able to get 4K going with just an “OK” connection.
As of writing, Google has not made any official announcements regarding 4K on Stadia, so either this is an early rollout, or some kind of mistake. Either way, they’ll probably comment on it pretty soon.
