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MrFrog1
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

what is the cheapest laptop/pc that can deal with vp9 smoothly similarly to chromecast ultra?

Hello everyone,

so I have 2 constraints, first I want to play with mouse and keyboard, second I want to play 4k. Unfortunately my laptop can only handle h264 codec, and chromecast ultra doesn't work with mouse and keyboard. Since stadia is the alternative of expensive high end gaming pc, it doesn't make sense to buy one for stadia :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

any ideas? thanks in advance

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7 Replies
Dare
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

I'm glad you asked this! It's something I've rattled around in my head for a while, so hopefully I can help. As you said "laptop", I'll assume you want a laptop that you can play with on the go, but can also output 4K with a monitor in a sort of docked configuration. I'm assuming you don't want the laptop to play 4K on the laptop screen. From experience, playing on a screen smaller than 13" on the go is a bust, so I'm going to be looking at 13" and larger screens. Lastly, I'll assume that Stadia won't be the only thing you'll be doing on this laptop, so I'll look for modern specs.

I personally play on a Pixelbook. It's small, lightweight, battery lasts forever, and used you can find them for ~$600 these days. It has a 16:10 aspect ratio so you'll get letterboxing, but that doesn't bother me. For a similar price you have the much newer Pixelbook Go. On the Windows side for the same ballpark price we have laptops such as the Asus Vivobook 15 for ~$400 with 8GB of RAM and a 10th Gen i3, backlit keyboard, and is fairly thin and light. For $449 we have the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 with a 14" screen, 8GB RAM, and a Ryzen 5 3500U. Going up from there we have a whole range of HP laptops starting around $500 with 15" screens, 8GB RAM, and a variety of processors that can all decode VP9 just fine and push 4K via HDMI.

This is just to name a few suggestions. Really the sky is the limit depending on what spend range you have in mind. If a desktop is more your speed, the last PC I built on paper just for Stadia came out to around $400, or $500 if you wanted hardware DTS:X support.

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MrFrog1
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

@Dare I already have a laptop that can handle all things i want with a fast ssd. It‘s a bit old but it handles games like rainbow six for honor, csgo, gta 5 etc.

I think I‘m looking for something that doesn‘t exist, hardware for less than 200 €/$ because I‘m buying it only for stadia, and it‘s right I‘m not going to use its screen, just a 2.0 hdmi port would makes me happy...

If you think about it, investing around 600$ which is 60 months worth of stadia subscription, you can do the math of how many years you can have pro stadia for 600$, I‘m planning to buy a new good laptop next year, for now I need ccu-like price

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Larris
Founder
Founder

I'm rezzing this thread because I'm still interested in exploring this. @Dare or others, do you have any ideas for doodling out some paper builds? Either DIY or from a pick-your-parts manufacturer. Let's assume we make it as thin-client and cheap as we can, while also assuming we're not shopping for second-hand parts.

Maybe one desktop version and one laptop version. It's possible that certain Chromebooks will turn out to be cheaper than building a custom laptop, of course. Optionally, we might add the Pro-enabled dimension for 5.1/HDR/4K support.

(I know, a "desktop version" could be a Chromecast Ultra plugged into a monitor, but let's assume we want to run in a Chrome/Chromium/Edge tab with keyboard and mouse.)

If only the Raspberry Pi 400, the "computing keyboard", could have dealt with VP9, that would have been my first choice for the sheer convenience. Other single-board computers might still be on the table.

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Cola1979
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

I use a MinisForum Mini PC with Celeron 4000 and UHD 600 integrated graphics with 4GB of RAM. Paid 160€ on Amazon Germany. 

I can play pretty good (the only problems i have are those that most have, the internet connection) and it can handle VP9 with 4k (tested via stadia+ extension). 

This manufacturer has also better versions with more ram and newer processors for less than 200€. I suggest to look on Amazon if they sell those in your country. 

Most important is that the integrated graphics can decode 4k, if they do this, you are mostly on the safe side. If you can watch 4k without stutter on Youtube, it can handle stadia as well. 

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Larris
Founder
Founder

Looking good, that's a great tip. Thank you!

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fommy
Founder
Founder

I’ve been wondering if there would be an SBC that would support VP9 in hardware. Preferably running linux. And it seems I’m not alone https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/eunh13/google_stadia_with_a_single_board_computer/ 

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RXShorty
Platinum Stadia Guide
Platinum Stadia Guide

VP9 support is still a bit iffy.

Tried running my laptop on Ubuntu and tried to get hardware support for VP9 but didn't get it to work with my AMD system.
Used the Stadia+ plugin to force it and my CPU had to work for it, not ideal I am afraid.

Sure support will be better in the future but I wouldn't put my bets on it yet.

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