OnLive cloud gaming

[NdMk2o1o]

Has anyone heard of this? you basically sign upto the service and you stream all your games you want to play meaning anyone with a web browser and internet access could play the latest games even on a POS pc.

What the hell I dont get is how is this at all possible, the bandwidth needed to stream would surely be even more than HD video would it not? ok even if not, how the hell do they do this, cause if anyone is familiar with working remotely there is one BIG problem with remote working and always has been and thats performance of anything graphical, even pictures etc. No company has been able to come close to making video playable let alone gaming. So to be able to stream and display a game in real time to me sounds downright fake.

Another thing, when a user is connected, is it a 1:1 connection or are users sharing a machine, some games today are barely able to run at 60fps even with a high end GPU or dual setups etc. how can they afford to have a setup like this for every gamer? even if they had a dual quad board with 16gb ram and quad GPU's you are only talking about max of 4 users per server, and at the price of their service which is rumoured to be around $5-$10 a month, there is no way this is financially viable.

What about online play? you log into Onlive, which is the 1st connection, then you connect to a game server which is 2 connections doubling lag at the best scenario and making it awful in the worst.

I just dont see how a: its possible to stream a game without majoy lag especially in an online scenario they talk about compression, but to me you would need hardware compression for something like this which is expensive and needs a host and a client. Software compression is no where near that advanced and there would undoubtably be loss of quality.

If this is the case, this will be aimed at all the console fanbois who have never seen the graphics and performance of a decent gaming rig compared to a console

Anyone else heard of cloud gaming and the like, and what are your thoughts?

[Kreij]

Hmmm ... you need at least a 5Mb connection to play at 720p.
Probably doable, but I don't think it would be pretty.

[Mussels]

it was covered in the news ages back.

basically, its not possible. you end up with 50-100ms on every button press, wait for the compressed, low res images to come back, and so on.

basically its useless for any kind of competitive play, because you're never going to be close enough to the servers to make it worthwhile. Unless they locate a server at your ISP's data center (the one you connect to) it'll be too laggy for anything but kids games with no tight timing requirements.

[Kreij]

But ... but .. they say ...

Controller action and game play are relayed up and down the Internet at blindingly fast speeds

That's blindingly fast mind you. It's must be some super secret packet protocol.

[NdMk2o1o]

Originally Posted by Mussels

it was covered in the news ages back.

basically, its not possible. you end up with 50-100ms on every button press, wait for the compressed, low res images to come back, and so on.

basically its useless for any kind of competitive play, because you're never going to be close enough to the servers to make it worthwhile. Unless they locate a server at your ISP's data center (the one you connect to) it'll be too laggy for anything but kids games with no tight timing requirements.

Well if its not possible no one has told them cause theyre site is still up and running and you can even pre register for a year for free,

Though something like happened a couple of years ago, when a company calling themselves Juice and promised to be able to boost dialup speeds to 2mb for free, all you had to do was pre-register and they would let you know when they went live etc etc anyway basically turns out it was just a scam though the scale of it was huge in scam terms and this was back in 2004 when dialup was more common than it is now.

Just google Juice Boost Scam

[NdMk2o1o]

Originally Posted by Kreij

But ... but .. they say ...


That's blindingly fast mind you. It's must be some super secret packet protocol.

Exactly my thoughts, there are no protocols that can do this, the closest is PCOIP (hardware based not software) though this requires a dedicated hardware host and client and is not cheap.

[Lionheart]

I'd rather stick to my PC gaming thanx, it just feels better, especially when you build it yourself, feels way better to have your own hardware doing all the work too but I would say give this onlive thing some time, it might get better, hard to say

PS. Mussels, you interested in a HIS HD5870 1gb (reference design) video card from me for some crossfire action I got a good price for ya
($360 AUD shipped)

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by CHAOS_KILLA

I'd rather stick to my PC gaming thanx, it just feels better, especially when you build it yourself, feels way better to have your own hardware doing all the work too but I would say give this onlive thing some time, it might get better, hard to say

it cant get better until we get lower latency to their servers. thats teh round trip of you -> ISP -> onlive server -> ISP -> you... it might be enough for regular gaming, but its NOT enough for control input as well.


we're talking upto 200ms lag between you pressing a button and it appearing on screen, its simply not gunna go well.

[Lionheart]

Originally Posted by Mussels

it cant get better until we get lower latency to their servers. thats teh round trip of you -> ISP -> onlive server -> ISP -> you... it might be enough for regular gaming, but its NOT enough for control input as well.


we're talking upto 200ms lag between you pressing a button and it appearing on screen, its simply not gunna go well.

Im not technically minded when it comes to network related hardware, but I know what you mean, even if it was working perfect I still wouldn't use it

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by CHAOS_KILLA

Im not technically minded when it comes to network related hardware, but I know what you mean, even if it was working perfect I still wouldn't use it

let me give an example of pinging google.



many hops along the way.

normal gaming you get instant response in front of you (you click a mouse button, a gun fires instantly) - with this, if online was located absolutely perfectly, its still a 40ms delay between a click and it happening on my screen... and then you have onlive to the game server itself.

you click -> isp -> onlive click registers -> goes to game server (gets recognised that you fired) -> back to onlive -> back to your ISP -> back to you


its literally like running your games through a proxy... you'll notice no one does that.

[Lionheart]

Originally Posted by Mussels

let me give an example of pinging google.

http://img.techpowerup.org/100618/868.jpg

many hops along the way.

normal gaming you get instant response in front of you (you click a mouse button, a gun fires instantly) - with this, if online was located absolutely perfectly, its still a 40ms delay between a click and it happening on my screen... and then you have online to the game server itself.

you click -> isp -> online click registers -> goes to game server (gets recognised that you fired) -> back to onlive -> back to your ISP -> back to you


its literally like running your games through a proxy... you'll notice no one does that.

Ah ok, thanx for the simple input, pretty straight forward

[NdMk2o1o]

Originally Posted by CHAOS_KILLA

Im not technically minded when it comes to network related hardware, but I know what you mean, even if it was working perfect I still wouldn't use it

It is just not possible to be able to render all of that data on a server and then have it sent down the internet in a fashion that is going to be playable in any sense. Screams scam to me.

As mentioned the servers would need to be at least dual quads with 16gb ram and quad GPU's or a shit hot VDI setup or Blade data centre

[Mussels]

i typod online and onlive a few times in that post, but you get the idea.

[Lionheart]

Originally Posted by NdMk2o1o

It is just not possible to be able to render all of that data on a server and then have it sent down the internet in a fashion that is going to be playable in any sense. Screams scam to me.

As mentioned the servers would need to be at least dual quads with 16gb ram and quad GPU's or a shit hot VDI setup or Blade data centre

Lmao yeah by the sound of it, does sound like a scam I wonder if Road Runner that super computer can handle that jks

[W1zzard]

the lag in desktop gaming is at least 1 frame, possible more in the single digit range.

so a total lag (encode, send, process at server, send, receive at client, render) of 1 / 60 * 2 = ~30 ms might be acceptable.

but you are right, from what i heard so far onlive gaming (and similar technologies) is useless for competitive real-time gaming

[Kreij]

Here's the real kicker ...

Note that this only includes the device and the community functionality -- it doesn't include the cost of games, of which there's only 23 at launch. The company promises that more games will be coming quickly, and titles cost anywhere from $5 to $55 each.

So you have to buy the game, and then pay a subscription fee to play it on their service.
Seems like a good idea !!

[Lionheart]

Originally Posted by W1zzard

the lag in desktop gaming is at least 1 frame, possible more in the single digit range.

so a total lag (encode, send, process at server, send, receive at client, render) of 1 / 60 * 2 = ~30 ms might be acceptable.

but you are right, from what i heard so far onlive gaming (and similar technologies) is useless for competitive real-time gaming

Damn, I wish I actually had a good teacher in computer tech class so I would know all this interesting stuff maybe I should go to UNI

PS. hey Wizzard, I heard that Germany humiliated the Socceroos in the world cup

[NdMk2o1o]

Originally Posted by CHAOS_KILLA

PS. hey Wizzard, I heard that Germany humiliated the Socceroos in the world cup

Well you can laugh back at them cause Germany got beaten 1-0 by Serbia today

[wahdangun]

Originally Posted by Mussels

it was covered in the news ages back.

basically, its not possible. you end up with 50-100ms on every button press, wait for the compressed, low res images to come back, and so on.

basically its useless for any kind of competitive play, because you're never going to be close enough to the servers to make it worthwhile. Unless they locate a server at your ISP's data center (the one you connect to) it'll be too laggy for anything but kids games with no tight timing requirements.

but if this thing doesn't work, then why the publisher release the game for onlive ?

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by wahdangun

but if this thing doesn't work, then why the publisher release the game for onlive ?

you think the people at the top of businesses know a damn thing about computers and networks? i lol'd.

[GullyFoyle]

Originally Posted by wahdangun

but if this thing doesn't work, then why the publisher release the game for onlive ?

Mo. Money.

[lemode]

lol 5mb connetion...i am lucky if i get 157kb

[morpha]

People don't get to the top of companies by being good at something. They get there by either money, or social networking.

[CDdude55]

Here's what i said in an older thread about this same topic:

Onlive is slowly picking up momentum, it really is a great idea and they just got more funding for it...but it comes with a lot of issues that i don't know if they will be able to iron out.

If Onlive takes off, it would cripple a lot of companies and i don't think those companies will take that, gaming is a huge segment of their company, which rakes in tons of money all the time . Intel, Nvidia, AMD/ATI, Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft would take enormous hits if Onlive takes off. Onlive gets rid of the need for expensive hardware while replacing consoles at the same time.Guarantee those companies mentioned above will try anything in there power to stop Onlive in it's tracks.

And as you said, ping is still an issue. Hell, im still in running at kb/s, what about those people?, they need to wait for the speed standards are set higher.


Quote:
Others are not sure if it will be all console type games or PC games

It'll be both, but it all depends on the developers that jump onboard, so far they have a pretty good amount on board with them. With a good mix of notorious PC devs and console devs, from Activision to Crytek have jumped on.

I like the idea of games being played on a separate server, but i love PC hardware to much to much to have that happen.

But it has been shown off at a conference back in '09. Heres a demo of it:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5oIr4o_MIk

[DannibusX]

OnLive will kill itself once word spreads that you need to pay a subscription and buy the actual games.

It's a great concept, but I personally don't think it will succeed.