Xbox Cloud Gaming is getting mouse and keyboard support and latency improvements

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is working on adding mouse and keyboard support to its cloud gaming service that streams games to TVs, PCs, mobile devices, and more. The software giant teased the addition earlier this year and now it is encouraging game developers to get ready for mouse and keyboard support.

Microsoft is working on adding keyboard and mouse to streaming for PC users. You can add it to your game now and it will be appreciated by your keyboard and mouse users. Once we add it, it will light up in streaming.

Jorg Neumann, boss of Microsoft Flight Simulator, said that the addition of mouse and keyboard support could be this summer. It is likely that we will see mouse and keyboard support for Xbox games streamed to PC soon.

It will allow cloud gaming users to use a mouse and keyboard. It's possible to see games like Sea of Thieves with mouse and keyboard through Microsoft's cloud gaming service. There is a small list of games that support mouse and keyboard. It will be useful when Microsoft adds cloud gaming later this year.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is giving developers more ways to improve the quality of their games. Microsoft is working on a new display details interface that can save up to 72ms of time. Direct Capture reproduces hardware features in software to eliminate the wait time for Vsync and double or triple buffering.

Many games already support Direct Capture to improve their performance on Microsoft's cloud gaming platform. It is possible to drop to as low as 2-12ms. There are some things that can't be done. Direct Capture doesn't support dynamic resolution or high definition tv just yet

The resolution limitation won't be an issue for most game developers right now as Xbox Cloud gaming scales games down to 720p on mobile and1080p on PC and the web. There is no support for 4K or 1440p in the new Xbox TV app. It will change based on different devices, network conditions, and improvements to the streaming stack. Tools will soon be available for developers to test their games and learn how to use Direct Capture.

Image: Microsoft

Direct Capture shows that there is more to the game streaming service than just reducing network latency. Last year, the Turing Now tier was launched by the company. The adaptive sync technology built by Nvidia allows it to sync streamed games to any 60 or 120 Hz monitor.

The end result is some impressive improvements over what is available from the likes of Stadia or Cloud gaming. According to the company, it can beat the Xbox Series X at 60 frames per second thanks to its 120 frame per second support.