I just got the offer for one year + game and signed up. I'm anxious to use the service on my laptop, plays video fine but barely runs newer games. If the games look good and are playable this $400 laptop is going to getting a lot more use. Game prices will probably be the biggest hurdle, seems like any game you buy is just a fancy rental like any other digital distribution service. In my case however it might make sense on a few games.
The big difference here being that you have to pay a monthly fee to keep access to the games you paid for. Other online distribution services don't ask you to pay 15$ a month or lose your games. Game prices for Onlive better be significantly lower than normal retail.
Got the 1 year offer as well. Plan to sign in and immediately start putting it through its paces day 1. Expect an impression within a day or so of release.
I really want this service to take off, but yeah, I agree, the DRM is troubling. I likely won't be using it much, if at all, for game purchases, and will likely just stick to renting the games instead. It was quite a while after Steam launched before I was comfortable purchasing digital copies of games through it, and Onlive will be no different.
Also, I have a pretty high-end gaming computer, so being able to play high end games isn't really the biggest draw to the service for me. Instead, it is finally being able to rent PC games. Is there an exhaustive list of all the games that will be on the service day 1? The Featured Games section only shows 6 of the more recent releases to be offered.
Guys, 80ms is probably the smallest amount of input lag you'll see. It's the time they're saying their servers will take to process your input and show you the result. It does not factor the distance beyond 1000 miles.
OnLive will only be good for turn based games and Peggle.
It will work for any game that uses a cursor. You can draw the cursor (like a lot of vnc etc clients) locally so the perception of input lag isn't there. For example (like you said, turn based games) Civilisation etc.
This system will never, ever work for direct input games where you use a controller/joypad or mouse (fps). But it will work for games that use a mouse, problem is the game makers would also need to compile special versions of their software (just minor tweaks though) that don't draw the cursor at the server end but leave it to the client side. (I say compile special versions because of the unique cursors etc, so they'd only need to make minor changes that for example sends for example a png image with transparency of the cursor to the client once which the client side uses to draw the cursor)
GrimReaper on
PSN | Steam
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
Speed of light: 3.00x10^8 m/s
Speed of electricity in coax cable: ~2/3 of this [1]= 2.00x10^8
Order of magnitude of latency acceptable: 10^-3 s
10^-3 s * 2.00x10^8 m/s = 2.00x10^5 m/s = 200 km.
I believe for internet applications, the latency added by all the switches/routers etc the packets have to travel through is a larger factor than the base electrical signal travel time.
Wandering Idiot on
0
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited June 2010
Apparently it launches tomorrow!
It'll last a year at best with floundering success. All I can think right now is some poor bastards have some bigass loans to pay back for starting the business, because the equipment being used is probably costing a pretty penny. Oh man.
It'll last a year at best with floundering success. All I can think right now is some poor bastards have some bigass loans to pay back for starting the business, because the equipment being used is probably costing a pretty penny. Oh man.
A year? You're being far too generous.
This thing epic flops in 6 months tops. It cannot do what it's proponents have advertised; as the internets have been saying since the first public demo, it's physically impossible to reduce the input lag to acceptable margins on current infrastructure.
EDIT: I'll say this, though: I'm amazed that it's actually come to the launching point. I thought for sure the whole thing would've been scrapped just a few weeks into the beta.
The Ender on
With Love and Courage
0
TetraNitroCubaneThe DjinneratorAt the bottom of a bottleRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
I agree that FPS games and other twitch-reflex type endeavors are doomed through OnLive, because there's just no way to eliminate the input delay. However, impressions seem to be that other strategy type games are actually quite doable. Haven't they actually been running a beta with actual consumers for the last few months? I wonder why we haven't heard anything about it one way or the other. I guess NDAs must be in place.
On another note, apparently you'll never be able to choose your graphical quality through OnLive. All video options are automatically set for you based on bandwidth, as you might imagine.
TetraNitroCubane on
0
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
It'll last a year at best with floundering success. All I can think right now is some poor bastards have some bigass loans to pay back for starting the business, because the equipment being used is probably costing a pretty penny. Oh man.
A year? You're being far too generous.
This thing epic flops in 6 months tops. It cannot do what it's proponents have advertised; as the internets have been saying since the first public demo, it's physically impossible to reduce the input lag to acceptable margins on current infrastructure.
You only need a stable internet connection of 1.5 mbps for SD quality. You can find that anywhere!
I can see the idea being picked up by some other company when the technology is actually there. Cryteam estimated it would take until 2012. I think they were too optimistic but whatever.
On another note, apparently you'll never be able to choose your graphical quality through OnLive. All video options are automatically set for you based on bandwidth, as you might imagine.
What about gameplay related options that affect performance? For example, AI radius is a pretty important option.
Couscous on
0
TetraNitroCubaneThe DjinneratorAt the bottom of a bottleRegistered Userregular
On another note, apparently you'll never be able to choose your graphical quality through OnLive. All video options are automatically set for you based on bandwidth, as you might imagine.
What about gameplay related options that affect performance? For example, AI radius is a pretty important option.
I don't recall ever reading about those kinds of options. Joystiq ran an article about it a few months ago, here.
In a demo of its upcoming streaming service, OnLive president and CEO Steve Perlman confirmed something long suspected -- players will not be able to adjust graphics settings. "We don't want somebody going and changing the settings to something different for what the game is optimized for," he told Joystiq in an interview during the 2010 Game Developers Conference. "We'll go and scale or adjust or do whatever changes we need to make in order to make it work."
I looks like they might just take control over all options, if the "whatever changes needed to make it work" quote is interpreted broadly.
I beta tested it, and it actually worked really well. (Mostly played Mass Effect)
My only concern is the pricing structure which seems a bit wonky, but I can see it as a viable alternative to upgrading your PC every year or two. Not sure how well it holds up in multiplayer games. It doesn't seem to crazy to pay monthly for this at a fraction of paying for upgrades/etc on your desktop.
I totally forgot this starts tomorrow! I have a free year and a game on it, so I'll be trying it out to see how well it works. I'll be using my wife's netbook too, so that should be interesting.
You only need a stable internet connection of 1.5 mbps for SD quality. You can find that anywhere!
Uh. Whether you're in SD or HD, input lag still bites you. The signals from your keyboard or mouse still have to travel all the way to the servers & get processed before any action you've taken can possibly be rendered for you (even if you draw the mouse cursor locally, your clicks won't be registered without a lag. Say buh-bye to your APMs in Starcraft). OnLive also still has to deal with the problem of ISP bandwidth taffic management, which is it's own little nightmare.
I know snake oil when I see it.
The Ender on
With Love and Courage
0
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
You only need a stable internet connection of 1.5 mbps for SD quality. You can find that anywhere!
Uh. Whether you're in SD or HD, input lag still bites you. The signals from your keyboard or mouse still have to travel all the way to the servers & get processed before any action you've taken can possibly be rendered for you (even if you draw the mouse cursor locally, your clicks won't be registered without a lag. Say buh-bye to your APMs in Starcraft). OnLive also still has to deal with the problem of ISP bandwidth taffic management, which is it's own little nightmare.
I know snake oil when I see it.
Whoever you quoted, for the record, is full of shit. There's no cable, no DSL, out where I live.
My point was that even assuming input lag is fine with a stable internet connection, finding one is fucking impossible.
This has not changed in a year.
Edit: That was sarcasm, damn it.
Edit 2: You know how Steam goes to shit every time a big new game is released? Imagine that except with everybody trying to stream a game at once instead of just trying to download it.
Couscous on
0
TetraNitroCubaneThe DjinneratorAt the bottom of a bottleRegistered Userregular
I beta tested it, and it actually worked really well. (Mostly played Mass Effect)
My only concern is the pricing structure which seems a bit wonky, but I can see it as a viable alternative to upgrading your PC every year or two. Not sure how well it holds up in multiplayer games. It doesn't seem to crazy to pay monthly for this at a fraction of paying for upgrades/etc on your desktop.
I realize you may not be at liberty to discuss the service in some regards, but could you describe you experience with input lag? What's your connection like? And, if you don't mind, what kind of quality were you seeing graphically?
I only played Single Player games really, and didn't have any input lag enough that it bothered mea nd i noticed it. Running on a normal Comcast connection (like 25/5?) and the graphics looked pretty good, kind of like HD Youtube. I think everything was running at like 720p.
I hope they have some kind of free trial for people to give it a shot, I don't know that it's for everyone and I still plan on upgrading my PC in the next few months (for more than just gaming reasons) but it really is pretty neat and works a lot better than I thought it would.
I only played Single Player games really, and didn't have any input lag enough that it bothered mea nd i noticed it. Running on a normal Comcast connection (like 25/5?) and the graphics looked pretty good, kind of like HD Youtube. I think everything was running at like 720p.
This is just one of those things that I can't believe unless I hear it from a fairly large sample of people. I don't think you're lying, but maybe your definition of input lag is much different than most folks's.
I mean, it can't work. It just can't. Not unless the OnLive guys have figured out how to make electricity move faster than it should through cable that they haven't even manufactured themselves.
The Ender on
With Love and Courage
0
TetraNitroCubaneThe DjinneratorAt the bottom of a bottleRegistered Userregular
I only played Single Player games really, and didn't have any input lag enough that it bothered mea nd i noticed it. Running on a normal Comcast connection (like 25/5?) and the graphics looked pretty good, kind of like HD Youtube. I think everything was running at like 720p.
I hope they have some kind of free trial for people to give it a shot, I don't know that it's for everyone and I still plan on upgrading my PC in the next few months (for more than just gaming reasons) but it really is pretty neat and works a lot better than I thought it would.
Thanks for being forthright about it. I'm still puzzled, but you're not the first one to claim that input lag isn't an issue. Whatever hoodoo magic they're using, I guess it's doing something right.
Beyond the tech aspects of it, though, I hate the DRM inherent to this model. Holy crap are we all proper screwed if it takes off.
I only played Single Player games really, and didn't have any input lag enough that it bothered mea nd i noticed it. Running on a normal Comcast connection (like 25/5?) and the graphics looked pretty good, kind of like HD Youtube. I think everything was running at like 720p.
Did you play any fighting games/FPS’s/3rd-person action games? (Mass Effect doesn’t really count, since from what I remember you’re mostly firing without moving and selecting powers in an RPG-ish way) Something like Arkham Asylum where the combat is fairly timing-sensitive would probably be a good indicator.
I don’t think the potential of the actual graphical quality is much in question as long as you have the bandwidth for HD streaming, but rather the performance of it. Like, did you ever have times where the picture stopped moving for a second while waiting for an update?
I didn't play anything that would be affected like that unfortunately, I only jumped into it a few times since I don't have that much free time.
I never had an issue where the video stuttered or stopped for any reasons while I was using it, I am skeptical to think I wouldn't notice input delay in a fighting game or something - but I didn't try anything like that out.
That can play any game out now at max settings. Yeah, $200 for a processor is about right though.
My 8800GT still plays everything fine at high settings.
If you're spending $500 on a new GPU then you're being dumb
Holy fuck, GPU prices have declined since I last went shopping for one. The 'ol GeForce 7650 I've got in this rig cost me just under 400 bucks, and it wasn't top of the line - an 8800 would've run me 500 if I'd have had the cash, wholesale.
...Is that a new manufacturer in the link? Maybe that's why it's cheap?
I've tended to have heating problems with GPUs from any manufacturer other than NVIDIA.
I can see maaaybe renting a game from this service when my PC is out of date and there is some extremely awesome looking PC exclusive that I HAVE to play.
I'm not sure that'll be a much of a factor outside of Blizzard games really, though.
Wth? Sounds like you've been overpaying for GPU's then. I've never paid over 150 bucks for one and you can almost always get near top of the line for that much.
Wth? Sounds like you've been overpaying for GPU's then. I've never paid over 150 bucks for one and you can almost always get near top of the line for that much.
Edit: Don't buy GPUs at retailers
Just like processor, you gotta find that sweet point for price/performance. I myself like around $200-$230 for my GPU's.
This tech seems amazing, but it honestly still seems like time travel to me, even though it supposedly works. The fact theres no input lag really suprises me. I mean, its like a dinasaurs brain. It has to go from you, to the server, then to what your streaming.
Trying to log in and getting nowhere. Was hoping that this would be a nice birthday present, but considering the wording, "OnLive will begin activating member accounts on or shortly after June 17th 2010, based on OnLive service availability." I'm not going to hold my breath.
Not sure what game I'll try though. Hopefully they have more than what they are featuring on the front page, but if the front page is it, then perhaps Splinter Cell: Conviction? That or Just Cause 2 maybe. I dunno.
Posts
The big difference here being that you have to pay a monthly fee to keep access to the games you paid for. Other online distribution services don't ask you to pay 15$ a month or lose your games. Game prices for Onlive better be significantly lower than normal retail.
Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
Steam Friend code: 45386507
I really want this service to take off, but yeah, I agree, the DRM is troubling. I likely won't be using it much, if at all, for game purchases, and will likely just stick to renting the games instead. It was quite a while after Steam launched before I was comfortable purchasing digital copies of games through it, and Onlive will be no different.
Also, I have a pretty high-end gaming computer, so being able to play high end games isn't really the biggest draw to the service for me. Instead, it is finally being able to rent PC games. Is there an exhaustive list of all the games that will be on the service day 1? The Featured Games section only shows 6 of the more recent releases to be offered.
It will work for any game that uses a cursor. You can draw the cursor (like a lot of vnc etc clients) locally so the perception of input lag isn't there. For example (like you said, turn based games) Civilisation etc.
This system will never, ever work for direct input games where you use a controller/joypad or mouse (fps). But it will work for games that use a mouse, problem is the game makers would also need to compile special versions of their software (just minor tweaks though) that don't draw the cursor at the server end but leave it to the client side. (I say compile special versions because of the unique cursors etc, so they'd only need to make minor changes that for example sends for example a png image with transparency of the cursor to the client once which the client side uses to draw the cursor)
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
Its a pre-invite test your internet that they wanted you to run for a few days.
http://www.fool.com/investing/high-growth/2010/03/11/this-cloud-company-will-kill-5-stocks-you-love.aspx?source=isesitlnk0000001
I sincerely hope my doubts are proven wrong. This is the sort of thing I'd like to see succeed.
It'll last a year at best with floundering success. All I can think right now is some poor bastards have some bigass loans to pay back for starting the business, because the equipment being used is probably costing a pretty penny. Oh man.
A year? You're being far too generous.
This thing epic flops in 6 months tops. It cannot do what it's proponents have advertised; as the internets have been saying since the first public demo, it's physically impossible to reduce the input lag to acceptable margins on current infrastructure.
EDIT: I'll say this, though: I'm amazed that it's actually come to the launching point. I thought for sure the whole thing would've been scrapped just a few weeks into the beta.
On another note, apparently you'll never be able to choose your graphical quality through OnLive. All video options are automatically set for you based on bandwidth, as you might imagine.
I can see the idea being picked up by some other company when the technology is actually there. Cryteam estimated it would take until 2012. I think they were too optimistic but whatever.
I don't recall ever reading about those kinds of options. Joystiq ran an article about it a few months ago, here.
I looks like they might just take control over all options, if the "whatever changes needed to make it work" quote is interpreted broadly.
It has to.
My only concern is the pricing structure which seems a bit wonky, but I can see it as a viable alternative to upgrading your PC every year or two. Not sure how well it holds up in multiplayer games. It doesn't seem to crazy to pay monthly for this at a fraction of paying for upgrades/etc on your desktop.
Uh. Whether you're in SD or HD, input lag still bites you. The signals from your keyboard or mouse still have to travel all the way to the servers & get processed before any action you've taken can possibly be rendered for you (even if you draw the mouse cursor locally, your clicks won't be registered without a lag. Say buh-bye to your APMs in Starcraft). OnLive also still has to deal with the problem of ISP bandwidth taffic management, which is it's own little nightmare.
I know snake oil when I see it.
Especially since you can adjust settings as you wish.
...?
I'm so dubious of this, but whatever. If I'm wrong, tomorrow will prove my wrongness as such.
...Eh?
500 bucks for a graphics card, 200 bucks for a new processor. $700 > $540
So, if it worked, OnLive would be a bit cheaper. Plus, it's always easier to pay in small increments rather than in one big lump sum.
Not that it matters.
Whoever you quoted, for the record, is full of shit. There's no cable, no DSL, out where I live.
This has not changed in a year.
Edit: That was sarcasm, damn it.
Edit 2: You know how Steam goes to shit every time a big new game is released? Imagine that except with everybody trying to stream a game at once instead of just trying to download it.
I realize you may not be at liberty to discuss the service in some regards, but could you describe you experience with input lag? What's your connection like? And, if you don't mind, what kind of quality were you seeing graphically?
I hope they have some kind of free trial for people to give it a shot, I don't know that it's for everyone and I still plan on upgrading my PC in the next few months (for more than just gaming reasons) but it really is pretty neat and works a lot better than I thought it would.
This is just one of those things that I can't believe unless I hear it from a fairly large sample of people. I don't think you're lying, but maybe your definition of input lag is much different than most folks's.
I mean, it can't work. It just can't. Not unless the OnLive guys have figured out how to make electricity move faster than it should through cable that they haven't even manufactured themselves.
Thanks for being forthright about it. I'm still puzzled, but you're not the first one to claim that input lag isn't an issue. Whatever hoodoo magic they're using, I guess it's doing something right.
Beyond the tech aspects of it, though, I hate the DRM inherent to this model. Holy crap are we all proper screwed if it takes off.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129112
That can play any game out now at max settings. Yeah, $200 for a processor is about right though.
My 8800GT still plays everything fine at high settings.
If you're spending $500 on a new GPU then you're being dumb
Did you play any fighting games/FPS’s/3rd-person action games? (Mass Effect doesn’t really count, since from what I remember you’re mostly firing without moving and selecting powers in an RPG-ish way) Something like Arkham Asylum where the combat is fairly timing-sensitive would probably be a good indicator.
I don’t think the potential of the actual graphical quality is much in question as long as you have the bandwidth for HD streaming, but rather the performance of it. Like, did you ever have times where the picture stopped moving for a second while waiting for an update?
I never had an issue where the video stuttered or stopped for any reasons while I was using it, I am skeptical to think I wouldn't notice input delay in a fighting game or something - but I didn't try anything like that out.
Holy fuck, GPU prices have declined since I last went shopping for one. The 'ol GeForce 7650 I've got in this rig cost me just under 400 bucks, and it wasn't top of the line - an 8800 would've run me 500 if I'd have had the cash, wholesale.
...Is that a new manufacturer in the link? Maybe that's why it's cheap?
I've tended to have heating problems with GPUs from any manufacturer other than NVIDIA.
I'm not sure that'll be a much of a factor outside of Blizzard games really, though.
Edit: Don't buy GPUs at retailers
Just like processor, you gotta find that sweet point for price/performance. I myself like around $200-$230 for my GPU's.
This tech seems amazing, but it honestly still seems like time travel to me, even though it supposedly works. The fact theres no input lag really suprises me. I mean, its like a dinasaurs brain. It has to go from you, to the server, then to what your streaming.
Not sure what game I'll try though. Hopefully they have more than what they are featuring on the front page, but if the front page is it, then perhaps Splinter Cell: Conviction? That or Just Cause 2 maybe. I dunno.