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Is Remote Play for the PC possible?

emnmnmeemnmnme Registered User regular
edited May 2008 in Games and Technology
The big barrier in PC gaming is keeping up with technology. You can't play modern games on a four year old budget machine and most casual types don't seem to get that - what with all the integrated graphics and slow RAM, they buy their $500 PC + monitor and Windows '98 package and expect to enjoy Bioshock when the thing can barely run The Sims 2. But after I read about how the PSP is expected to be able to stream PS3 games and HD movies with some miraculous future firmware update that does some jiggery-pokery with encoding, I wondered why the same can't be done with PC gaming.

Using an online service, players' input is sent to a more beefy system actually running the game. The gameplay is streamed back to the player's monitor. Through a broadband connection, there is no lag. The player takes his or her 500Mhz e-Machine with no video card and is able to enjoy Crysis with detailed DX10.1 settings.

Now, I'm not interested in the economics of it all or if the service would mimic Steam or Gametap - I just want to know if it can be done short of setting up a video camera in front of a monitor. If a Tandy or a Pentium III could run Team Fortress 2, that'd be pretty sweet.

emnmnme on

Posts

  • DaedalusDaedalus Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    You'd need a lot more bandwidth than the average person with a crappy computer really has, and you'd get framerate drops, and you could only do it at a low resolution, but it would be doable.

    Ever use a webcam? Same basic issues. And keep in mind that most webcams only do 640x480.

    Daedalus on
  • emnmnmeemnmnme Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    Yes, but after using Netflix's Instant Watch thingy, I'd wager streaming techniques are rapidly improving.

    emnmnme on
  • evilmrhenryevilmrhenry Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    Yeah, bandwidth is the killer here. Bear in mind you need a very large pipe, and a very quick pipe. Even a small amount of lag is enough to ruin the experience, and I'm not sure if you can even reliably stream 640x480 real-time and have it work.

    I'd look at Remote Desktop and the like to give an idea of the expected experience.

    evilmrhenry on
  • DaedalusDaedalus Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    Well, with Netflix, you don't need to worry about input lag. With Netflix you can buffer a couple minutes of video in case something goes weird with the connection. Not so much if you're doing something interactive.

    Daedalus on
  • emnmnmeemnmnme Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    Daedalus wrote: »
    Well, with Netflix, you don't need to worry about input lag. With Netflix you can buffer a couple minutes of video in case something goes weird with the connection. Not so much if you're doing something interactive.

    Oh, I know. I'm just saying after seeing Netflix and Hulu in action, I'm sure we'll figure something out in the next couple of years.

    emnmnme on
  • DaedalusDaedalus Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    emnmnme wrote: »
    Daedalus wrote: »
    Well, with Netflix, you don't need to worry about input lag. With Netflix you can buffer a couple minutes of video in case something goes weird with the connection. Not so much if you're doing something interactive.

    Oh, I know. I'm just saying after seeing Netflix and Hulu in action, I'm sure we'll figure something out in the next couple of years.

    It's not a software issue that can be just "figured out". You need an absurdly low-latency connection. It's a hardware issue.

    Daedalus on
  • devoirdevoir Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    emnmnme wrote: »
    Daedalus wrote: »
    Well, with Netflix, you don't need to worry about input lag. With Netflix you can buffer a couple minutes of video in case something goes weird with the connection. Not so much if you're doing something interactive.

    Oh, I know. I'm just saying after seeing Netflix and Hulu in action, I'm sure we'll figure something out in the next couple of years.

    Look at MMOs. They basically do what you're talking about in that the processing of gameplay mechanics is done on the server side. For any kind of gaming that requires reflexes, there is a limitation to how low you can bring latency just due to simple physics. It's why people playing FPSes and RTS for professional competitions will almost always do so in a LAN environment.

    The person who brought up Remote Desktop is spot on. There is a very large difference between buffering and real-time input processing. Buffering is enabled by greater bandwidth. Real-time input processing requires consistent, guaranteed lower latency.

    It can be done, but the problem ends up being that the kinds of games that you'd want to use your kind of proposed service for (high end FPS like Crysis) suffers the most from that kind of distributed model.

    In the end it's going to be easier for people to buy a console. It's why I swapped from PC to console for the majority of my gaming.

    devoir on
  • AroducAroduc regular
    edited April 2008
    Daedalus wrote: »
    emnmnme wrote: »
    Daedalus wrote: »
    Well, with Netflix, you don't need to worry about input lag. With Netflix you can buffer a couple minutes of video in case something goes weird with the connection. Not so much if you're doing something interactive.

    Oh, I know. I'm just saying after seeing Netflix and Hulu in action, I'm sure we'll figure something out in the next couple of years.

    It's not a software issue that can be just "figured out". You need an absurdly low-latency connection. It's a hardware issue.

    Jakob Nielsen disagrees.

    Aroduc on
  • SmasherSmasher Starting to get dizzy Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    Aroduc wrote: »
    Daedalus wrote: »
    emnmnme wrote: »
    Daedalus wrote: »
    Well, with Netflix, you don't need to worry about input lag. With Netflix you can buffer a couple minutes of video in case something goes weird with the connection. Not so much if you're doing something interactive.

    Oh, I know. I'm just saying after seeing Netflix and Hulu in action, I'm sure we'll figure something out in the next couple of years.

    It's not a software issue that can be just "figured out". You need an absurdly low-latency connection. It's a hardware issue.

    Jakob Nielsen disagrees.

    I can't find anything on his Wikipedia page that seems to relate to the issue. What are you referring to?

    Smasher on
  • devoirdevoir Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    Aroduc wrote: »
    Daedalus wrote: »
    emnmnme wrote: »
    Daedalus wrote: »
    Well, with Netflix, you don't need to worry about input lag. With Netflix you can buffer a couple minutes of video in case something goes weird with the connection. Not so much if you're doing something interactive.

    Oh, I know. I'm just saying after seeing Netflix and Hulu in action, I'm sure we'll figure something out in the next couple of years.

    It's not a software issue that can be just "figured out". You need an absurdly low-latency connection. It's a hardware issue.

    Jakob Nielsen disagrees.

    I'm really not sure what a UI consultant can do to get around simple physics in relation to latency as a problem for playing high-performance games via essentially remote desktop.

    devoir on
  • DaedalusDaedalus Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    devoir wrote: »
    Aroduc wrote: »
    Daedalus wrote: »
    emnmnme wrote: »
    Daedalus wrote: »
    Well, with Netflix, you don't need to worry about input lag. With Netflix you can buffer a couple minutes of video in case something goes weird with the connection. Not so much if you're doing something interactive.

    Oh, I know. I'm just saying after seeing Netflix and Hulu in action, I'm sure we'll figure something out in the next couple of years.

    It's not a software issue that can be just "figured out". You need an absurdly low-latency connection. It's a hardware issue.

    Jakob Nielsen disagrees.

    I'm really not sure what a UI consultant can do to get around simple physics in relation to latency as a problem for playing high-performance games via essentially remote desktop.

    Oh, that Nielsen.

    For desktop UI stuff you could do it a lot smoother since you could do most of the UI rendering locally. But the whole point of emnmnmnmnmnmnmnmnmne's scheme there is to do all the complicated 3D graphics and physics stuff on the remote machine, so it wouldn't work.

    Daedalus on
  • FaceballMcDougalFaceballMcDougal Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    For games you'll never not have some kind of install. Think of Instantaction.com but with your own PC being the 'server'.

    FaceballMcDougal on
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  • devoirdevoir Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    Daedalus wrote: »
    Oh, that Nielsen.

    For desktop UI stuff you could do it a lot smoother since you could do most of the UI rendering locally. But the whole point of emnmnmnmnmnmnmnmnmne's scheme there is to do all the complicated 3D graphics and physics stuff on the remote machine, so it wouldn't work.

    Yeah, it's not a problem of designing a sleeker interface or less processing, it's a problem of there's no bloody way to predict highly reflexive, randomised gameplay in the type of games that are 'worthy' of this kind of idea, in any meaningful way.

    devoir on
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    edited April 2008
    emnmnme wrote: »
    Through a broadband connection, there is no lag.
    Broadband just means it can carry a lot of information at once, not that it can do it fast. Even with a perfect connection physics alone will always introduce latency the further away from the source you are. Plus, with a PSP all you're doing is streaming a 480x272 video one way and input commands the other. That's pretty insignificant compared to what you'd need to stream on your average post-DOS PC display.

    Glal on
  • devoirdevoir Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    Man, has Sony promised that you can play like MGS4 over wireless to the PSP anywhere in the world?

    Because that is the most ridiculous claim.

    devoir on
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    edited April 2008
    The logistics of mapping its controls to the PSP's alone would be an interesting sight to behold.

    Glal on
  • devoirdevoir Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    I would love for them to try and justify how latency wouldn't affect their '4D' gaming experience.

    devoir on
  • PjstelfordPjstelford Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    devoir wrote: »
    I would love for them to try and justify how latency wouldn't affect their '4D' gaming experience.

    Well, you see, we've tesseracted the bandwidth, so the packets are actually received before they're sent. That way, we narrow the one mile problem down to a quantum state, and rarefract it upon the timecube. Using a standard pattern of vestibulation, we therefore ensure gaming not only in the three typical dimensions of the lesser consoles, but in the dimension: Sony as well, which as I'm sure you're aware, is also known as Dimension Awesome.

    Pjstelford on
  • PjstelfordPjstelford Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    emnmnme wrote: »
    Daedalus wrote: »
    Well, with Netflix, you don't need to worry about input lag. With Netflix you can buffer a couple minutes of video in case something goes weird with the connection. Not so much if you're doing something interactive.

    Oh, I know. I'm just saying after seeing Netflix and Hulu in action, I'm sure we'll figure something out in the next couple of years.

    Look up the Last Mile problem. To put it simply, we can refine a lot of things, but that last mile of cable between your house and the main pipelines is going to cost money to replace.

    Pjstelford on
  • devoirdevoir Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Pjstelford wrote: »
    Look up the Last Mile problem. To put it simply, we can refine a lot of things, but that last mile of cable between your house and the main pipelines is going to cost money to replace.

    It's not even a bandwidth problem.

    devoir on
  • DaedalusDaedalus Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    devoir wrote: »
    Pjstelford wrote: »
    Look up the Last Mile problem. To put it simply, we can refine a lot of things, but that last mile of cable between your house and the main pipelines is going to cost money to replace.

    It's not even a bandwidth problem.

    It's a latency problem, which is unfortunately harder to solve.

    edit: Sony is using Time Cube now? No wonder their console is so unworldly powerful!

    Daedalus on
  • SlapdashSlapdash Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Not that they're engineered for this kind of thing, but you get very noticeable lag on remote desktop utilities like VNC or RDP even on a fast local network. Of course, these are geared towards being flexible enough to work on all sorts of networks at all sorts of speeds.

    Right now, and in the foreseeable future, there is just no way to get that reliable of a connection out of a shared network. Maybe (MAYBE) with a dedicated point-to-point connection at some kind of ridiculously high speed with the minimal number of hops between them as possible. At some point, even the speed of light is going to start working against you.

    Slapdash on
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  • JCRooksJCRooks Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    Daedalus wrote: »
    devoir wrote: »
    Pjstelford wrote: »
    Look up the Last Mile problem. To put it simply, we can refine a lot of things, but that last mile of cable between your house and the main pipelines is going to cost money to replace.

    It's not even a bandwidth problem.

    It's a latency problem, which is unfortunately harder to solve.

    edit: Sony is using Time Cube now? No wonder their console is so unworldly powerful!

    As John Carmack once quipped, regarding network latency ... "The speed of light sucks."

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