I was actually really impressed with the Stadia lag when playing Destiny using a Chromecast and the Stadia controller. I saw image compression but the lag and framerate were very good. Not just playable but good.

That then kills the "no hardware" argument though.

Afaik the Stadia controller talks to the service directly and not to the chromecast. Any other normal setup will be more laggy than the Stadia Controller + Chromecast setup.

If you play on any platform with the official Stadia controller, it also connects the same way (unless you're connected via USBC).

There's no bluetooth with the Stadia gamepad, so it's either wired via USBC or WiFi direct to Stadia servers.

You can bring your own bluetooth gamepad if ya want, though.

probably depends on the game, for things like this, probably less of a detriment.

It depends on the gamer too. I played around with various game streaming services. The games are definitely playable, and look good, but the lag is in there. Outside of fastpaced FPS games, most gamers will probably never notice it. If you are used to 30 fps gaming, then it will feel normal to you. But if you run a 144 Hz monitor at home, streaming will feel sluggish and delayed in comparison.

I find I'm fine with it if I'm using a controller, but it's much more noticeable when mouse aiming.