DOOM Eternal suffers from a lot of input lag on Stadia

DOOM Eternal is easily one of the most popular games in the series, securing strong sales on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. These strong sales were secured with strong performance, great visuals, fast-paced gameplay, low latency controls and more heightened story elements.  

On Google Stadia platform, all of these elements don’t hold true, as streaming latency has proven to be an issue for the game’s streaming-optimised version. In a recent Digital Foundry Video, which is embedded below, the Stadia version of DOOM Eternal was found to deliver a 19-24 frame delay between controller inputs and on-screen actions, which correlates to a 79-100ms delay when compared to the game’s Xbox One X version. 

In a fast-paced game like DOOM Eternal, low input response times are a must. In our own Performance Analysis for the PC version of DOOM Eternal, we saw the game’s ultra-fast action as a clear reason to own ultra-fast 120Hz monitors, making this increase in input response disastrous for DOOM Eternal’s gameplay.    

Digital Foundry‘s Tom Morgan stated that the input latency of DOOM Eternal’s Stadia version forced him to adapt how he played the game to compensate for the lag, highlighting how input latency has a direct impact on gameplay. This additional streaming latency has made DOOM Eternal a lot less enjoyable on Stadia, which is a huge negative point for what was one of Stadia’s early marketing highlights.  

And before you think that other factors impacted Stadia’s performance, they didn’t. The Chromecast used to stream the game was using a wired internet connection on a 300mbps Virgin Media connection on the same screen as the Xbox One X version and with no other devices using the network. This is as close to an ideal use case as you can get, but DOOM Eternal still had huge latency issues. 

While Stadia requires no game installs, offers a 1800p resolution in DOOM Eternal and runs at a mostly smoother 60 FPS, the game’s input latency is a downside that makes the game’s Stadia version inferior to its PC and Xbox One X counterparts. 60 FPS is good, but you also need the low input latencies to back it up, especially in a fast-paced game. 

Additional input latency is an inherent part of the Stadia experience, as it requires controller inputs to be sent to servers and back through the internet. Even so, this level of extra latency is a huge downside for Stadia, and it will inhibit the gameplay experiences of any future fast-paced or latency-sensitive games.