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I like the fact that you can watch other people play, and provide commentary, etc.
I also like the idea of "renting" PC games because, really, that's one thing about PC gaming VS console gaming that I feel is entirely in consoles' favor.
But I see nothing that marvelous here that I don't already attain by having my PC and X360.
Kinda neat but I'll pass.
4rch3nemy on
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Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
I hope some people in the thread made the same comments as I'm about to make, it's important to realize the repercutions.
Cloud computing means the information is stored on their servers, you don't have anything. It means major privacy issues. Everything that you do in a game, and also in your private life would be at someone else's reach, potentially. This poses a huge risk I'm not willing to take.
Also with the fact you DEPEND on them for even getting anything or playing any game at all, whenever you're bored, it means that they can charge you far higher than if you had bought a high end PC. This is like X-Box Live but worse, pretending to save money but really you're paying $50 a year for the past x years, it adds up. This would be far worse, you'd burn through the same amount as a high end PC. And don't think that games wouldn't be tiered. You want to play a hot game with great graphics on release? That's extra than playing 1 year old games on medium graphics. Of course they'll do it.
This also means that small companies won't be able to get their name out there, a lot of word of mouth is generated by sharing CDs with friends, playing a free demo etc Already you might have heard of the PS3 really crippling small publishers by charging for all bandwidth, a small publisher simply cannot get its demo out on the PS3.
You have to realize that this cloud computing thing means you give all power to someone else. This from a consumer point of view is not very good at all.
What is really the ONLY benefit? Really, the only one : No more need to upgrade computers. Do people really understand how the pricing will rip us off? Do people really care about games on demand? You can already have that with services like Gametap anyway.
Think this cloud computing, cloud gaming thing through, personally I will never ever buy into such a scheme, ever.
As for upgrades, am I mad that I can't play Empire : Total War? Sure. But I'm still loving it playing old games again, or maybe Drakensang and it's lower requirements . Also I don't own a HD TV and probably never will. People spend a lot of money on TVs. Save that TV money and just use it for PC upgrades.
You are a very strange person
Yes, playing new releases will be more expensive than playing older games. It already is. Fucking duh. I don't think it will cost more than an actual retail copy of the game, since that would be fucking stupid on a level I can barely comprehend. The graphics you get are apparently based upon the connection speed you have, so they can't charge you for better graphics. The ISPs, on the other hand, are a different story
And they have demos. They demoed demos at their presentation thing. Free demos will still exist, and apparently the spectator thing is available no matter what, so you can just watch someone else playing a game and see if you'd like it before even trying the demo or renting it/purchasing it. Plus they've signed on one indie company and they'll probably sign on more if they're at all successful
And privacy issues? Really? Really? Like I give a shit whether someone knows that I favor the flak cannon in Unreal Tournament or whether I play a chick in Mass Effect (oh Jennifer Hale, your voice is so much more badass than that other dude's)
Now I will admit that trusting these people with my games or whatever is a bit of a risk - if they have an earthquake or a server issue then I can't play my games. But it's the same with Steam, and I've never had a problem with them, and besides, with all the fuckin' retarded ass DRM these days, you don't even own the games you buy at brick and mortar stores anymore. You have to activate them using the internet using their activation servers and god forbid if those ever go down
Really, you can get by playing modern games on a pretty cheap computer. You won't have the highest graphics, but when I've ran UT3 at 30FPS on a geforce 6200GT, 512mb of DDR1 ram, and a AMD 1600+, people claiming that you have to pay out the ass for PC gaming is just lies
That's the thing though, why bother accepting a lower quality output when a much lower price (up front) console will offer far more satisfactory visual quality, along with other perks as centralized 'social networking' and ease of use? Judging from your specs, I'm guessing you'll pull in a Level 2 (the metric used in UT3 config) graphics quality at best. Xbox 360 is probably Level 4 or so from the images I've seen.
Personally I find this OnLive a whole load of bollocks. It certainly will not fly in the UK, with the terrible, terrible bandwidth caps we suffer. Not as bad as the Aussies or Canadians, but still bad. I'm not too fond of the potential input lag either.
But it's the same with Steam, and I've never had a problem with them, and besides, with all the fuckin' retarded ass DRM these days, you don't even own the games you buy at brick and mortar stores anymore.
It's not at all the same as Steam. Steam actually gives you a copy of the game on your harddrive. They also have an offline mode that actually does work if you keep your games patched (despite constant bitching otherwise).
You can access your save files at any time with a Steam game, also mods, .ini configurations and any other tweaks that come with having the game on your harddrive.
Drool on
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Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
It's not at all the same as Steam. Steam actually gives you a copy of the game on your harddrive. They also have an offline mode that actually does work if you keep your games patched (despite constant bitching otherwise).
You can access your save files at any time with a Steam game, also mods, .ini configurations and any other tweaks that come with having the game on your harddrive.
Okay yeah that's true
I don't think this service is going to replace that sort of thing immediately, or ever, really. There's always gonna be some people who want to mod and use mods and tweak and fiddle with every little thing in their games or computers
But I maintain that you'd have to be some kind of stupid to not see the benefits of something like this, and the implications it will have if their video compression algorithms or whatever the fuck are really as super great as they say
I like the fact that you can watch other people play, and provide commentary, etc.
I also like the idea of "renting" PC games because, really, that's one thing about PC gaming VS console gaming that I feel is entirely in consoles' favor.
But I see nothing that marvelous here that I don't already attain by having my PC and X360.
Kinda neat but I'll pass.
In this like all things Nethack is soooo far ahead of it's time.
lowlylowlycook on
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
I don't think this service is going to replace that sort of thing immediately, or ever, really. There's always gonna be some people who want to mod and use mods and tweak and fiddle with every little thing in their games or computers
dude says in an interview linked earlier that they see what theyre trying to do as additive, not replacing anything. people with gaming computers dont really need what theyre offering, theyre aiming at adding a ton of new PC gamers into the mix by expanding the audience to people who dont have gaming computers and wouldnt want to/know how to build one and keep up with upgrading it and whatnot.
I don't think this service is going to replace that sort of thing immediately, or ever, really. There's always gonna be some people who want to mod and use mods and tweak and fiddle with every little thing in their games or computers
dude says in an interview linked earlier that they see what theyre trying to do as additive, not replacing anything. people with gaming computers dont really need what theyre offering, theyre aiming at adding a ton of new PC gamers into the mix by expanding the audience to people who dont have gaming computers and wouldnt want to/know how to build one and keep up with upgrading it and whatnot.
Yeah, it's trying to do a Nintendo Wii kind of thing, essentially
And we all know how that turned out
giant golden pools filled with money is how it turned out
Yeah, it's trying to do a Nintendo Wii kind of thing, essentially
And we all know how that turned out
giant golden pools filled with money is how it turned out
It has nothing to do with the Nintendo Wii, their marketing strategy, or their games. It's not even a logical comparison. Nintendo didn't say "We're going to bring in casual gamers into the market by charging them for a console, a monthly service fee, AND for the games they want to play which they won't actually own." It's more of the business strategy of Microsoft's X-Box, and that's stretching it. This is entirely new, and may be a bit too far ahead of its time to be successful, given the atrocity that is the US internet infrastructure. It MIGHT work in Korea or Japan, but not in the US.
It seems very likly that this will fall flat on its face, but as some people earlier have mentioned, I think the general idea/tech would do wonders as the basis for an MMO or anyone other big multi-user game that isn't twich-heavy.
Foefaller on
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Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
Yeah, it's trying to do a Nintendo Wii kind of thing, essentially
And we all know how that turned out
giant golden pools filled with money is how it turned out
It has nothing to do with the Nintendo Wii, their marketing strategy, or their games. It's not even a logical comparison. Nintendo didn't say "We're going to bring in casual gamers into the market by charging them for a console, a monthly service fee, AND for the games they want to play which they won't actually own." It's more of the business strategy of Microsoft's X-Box, and that's stretching it. This is entirely new, and may be a bit too far ahead of its time to be successful, given the atrocity that is the US internet infrastructure. It MIGHT work in Korea or Japan, but not in the US.
Yes well I was grossly simplifying it for the sake of a joke
But I agree that it's possible it might be too ahead of it's time to take off
Does this mean I can play PC only games on my Mac? That would be quite cool.
Furthermore, does this also mean that I could play high end games on my Macbook Pro, which itself can run most things but not well.
My internet connection is biblical. If this even remotely lives up to promises I can see it being very successful. Input lag is the one drawback I can see. But other people are already fluffing their math so I guess noone has any fucking clue how it works now do they.
Ah, ok, 1ms for encoding. So, 1ms for encoding, 5.something ms for one-way trip (as NotACrook points out, more than that), 5.something ms for the return path to get the video to you. 11-13 ms just for optics and encoding. There's also generating the content, but that should be negligible.
So,
* what do the switches and ISP's add?
* assuming optical backbones, what is the cost of fiber<->copper conversions? (edit: gotta be negligible, right?)
* how much does the typical household router add?
Actually they've said 80 ms for the encoding, which is where the 80 ms came from in my earlier post. That sounds about right as video encoding relies on several frames of information. Video encoding on a per frame basis is just picture encoding and you're not going to get good compression, which they will need.
Also that compression is very expensive and will put huge strains on the cpu and gpu. They will need a second cpu and gpu just for the encoding and streaming.
The 5 ms is also wrong, as I and many others here have mentioned it will be upwards of 100 depending on location.
There is a lot to creating and sending live video across the country.
Cronus on
"Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
Where did they say 80ms for encoding? That's wrong.
Their video encoding is not linear, it's per frame from what I can understand.
It will not be a flat 100ms and above for network latency.
Your assumptions would indicate a 200ms+ latency _at least_ for their demonstration on the show floor at GDC considering their servers at out of the building and in another city.
I can't believe anybody actually thinks games will be playable on this. Have you ever tried, say, moving a mouse cursor with 100ms or higher input lag? It's not fun at all.
I'm 99% certain this will flop because of the technical limitations alone. I'll be happy if they somehow prove me wrong.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Mac users should be extatic about this thing. I'm predicting (well a lot of people before me) that this is the way not only gaming will go, but also computing. All we'll need in the future is a monitor keyboard, mouse and a little box that decodes a video stream hooked up to high speed internet access. Let google or microsoft shell out for all the fancy hardware in their server farms. I can run my programs in the "cloud" and they can just stream the results back to me. We'll all have our own user id's and be able to access our stuff from terminals or smart phones or whatever from anywhere. 4g wireless is only a couple of years away. ATT in my area is laying down fibre. (25 megs down at home /drool (still envious of south korea)). I'm sure there will be a way for us to back up our data. And if you're worried about privacy just ask yourself if you keep your money in a bank/use an atm card/have a social security number.
I tend to respect Nick and co (from Idle Thumbs mainly) and this is the most 'down' set of impressions I've seen. Don't cherry pick from the article. He points out the flaws, but also what works.
I tend to respect Nick and co (from Idle Thumbs mainly) and this is the most 'down' set of impressions I've seen. Don't cherry pick from the article. He points out the flaws, but also what works.
Yeah, extremely skeptical. What does "optimal connection experience" mean? Are they wired to their service by LAN, or actually running the whole thing through a broadband ISP? If the latter, have they proven it?
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
I tend to respect Nick and co (from Idle Thumbs mainly) and this is the most 'down' set of impressions I've seen. Don't cherry pick from the article. He points out the flaws, but also what works.
Yeah, extremely skeptical. What does "optimal connection experience" mean? Are they wired to their service by LAN, or actually running the whole thing through a broadband ISP? If the latter, have they proven it?
At some point you have to take them on their word, seeing as they have said multiple times that they're running it from Santa Clara. How would you see them prove it?
Optical connection experience is probably a Verizon fibre-grade connection or similar with enough bandwidth to not touch the sides at their 4/5mbps 720p setting, into the GDC building.
Where did they say 80ms for encoding? That's wrong.
Their video encoding is not linear, it's per frame from what I can understand.
It will not be a flat 100ms and above for network latency.
Your assumptions would indicate a 200ms+ latency _at least_ for their demonstration on the show floor at GDC considering their servers at out of the building and in another city.
That 200ms is also not an assumption, at least not for me. With their 80 ms straight out + ?? ms for streaming + ~.12 ms for control latency(I'm assuming this is Halo or Crysis or another modern day game) + ~80 ms for Qwest DSL on my end. Now granted you can reduce that by playing checkers on FIOS, but it's still going to be high. At least 100 ms.
When giving a demonstration at GDC, you can have your servers in the server room next door with everything at optimal conditions. Now you are under 100ms when showing the press.
There is a lot of talk about this, and they did a good job getting buzz going, but I'd still be surprised if this ever saw the light of day with AAA titles.
Cronus on
"Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
I tend to respect Nick and co (from Idle Thumbs mainly) and this is the most 'down' set of impressions I've seen. Don't cherry pick from the article. He points out the flaws, but also what works.
Yeah, extremely skeptical. What does "optimal connection experience" mean? Are they wired to their service by LAN, or actually running the whole thing through a broadband ISP? If the latter, have they proven it?
they claim that one of their farms (the one running all this shit) is 50 miles away.
Tasteticle on
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
Great, no one seems to have read my message on the previous page. I guess no one cares about privacy rights or paying an arm and a leg for this service. I just hope it doesn't affect my life my becoming too popular.
Great, no one seems to have read my message on the previous page. I guess no one cares about privacy rights or paying an arm and a leg for this service. I just hope it doesn't affect my life my becoming too popular.
I wouldn't worry about it.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Where did they say 80ms for encoding? That's wrong.
Their video encoding is not linear, it's per frame from what I can understand.
It will not be a flat 100ms and above for network latency.
Your assumptions would indicate a 200ms+ latency _at least_ for their demonstration on the show floor at GDC considering their servers at out of the building and in another city.
That 200ms is also not an assumption, at least not for me. With their 80 ms straight out + ?? ms for streaming + ~.12 ms for control latency(I'm assuming this is Halo or Crysis or another modern day game) + ~80 ms for Qwest DSL on my end. Now granted you can reduce that by playing checkers on FIOS, but it's still going to be high. At least 100 ms.
When giving a demonstration at GDC, you can have your servers in the server room next door with everything at optimal conditions. Now you are under 100ms when showing the press.
There is a lot of talk about this, and they did a good job getting buzz going, but I'd still be surprised if this ever saw the light of day with AAA titles.
uhhh they already have AAA titles ready to go
Tasteticle on
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
Where did they say 80ms for encoding? That's wrong.
Their video encoding is not linear, it's per frame from what I can understand.
It will not be a flat 100ms and above for network latency.
Your assumptions would indicate a 200ms+ latency _at least_ for their demonstration on the show floor at GDC considering their servers at out of the building and in another city.
That 200ms is also not an assumption, at least not for me. With their 80 ms straight out + ?? ms for streaming + ~.12 ms for control latency(I'm assuming this is Halo or Crysis or another modern day game) + ~80 ms for Qwest DSL on my end. Now granted you can reduce that by playing checkers on FIOS, but it's still going to be high. At least 100 ms.
When giving a demonstration at GDC, you can have your servers in the server room next door with everything at optimal conditions. Now you are under 100ms when showing the press.
There is a lot of talk about this, and they did a good job getting buzz going, but I'd still be surprised if this ever saw the light of day with AAA titles.
A packet can make an entire round trip in 80 milliseconds, a very short amount of time compared to other Internet traffic that travels through hardware that either compresses or decompresses the data.
I'm not trying to be pedantic, but you've repeated this several times. The articles you reference allude to the latency between the client and server, not encoding time. In the press conference, it is stated as 1ms compression/encoding time. Hard to believe, but that's what is claimed.
Where did they say 80ms for encoding? That's wrong.
Their video encoding is not linear, it's per frame from what I can understand.
It will not be a flat 100ms and above for network latency.
Your assumptions would indicate a 200ms+ latency _at least_ for their demonstration on the show floor at GDC considering their servers at out of the building and in another city.
That 200ms is also not an assumption, at least not for me. With their 80 ms straight out + ?? ms for streaming + ~.12 ms for control latency(I'm assuming this is Halo or Crysis or another modern day game) + ~80 ms for Qwest DSL on my end. Now granted you can reduce that by playing checkers on FIOS, but it's still going to be high. At least 100 ms.
When giving a demonstration at GDC, you can have your servers in the server room next door with everything at optimal conditions. Now you are under 100ms when showing the press.
There is a lot of talk about this, and they did a good job getting buzz going, but I'd still be surprised if this ever saw the light of day with AAA titles.
uhhh they already have AAA titles ready to go
Yes, but having them deployed in Joe Schmo's living room vs. a GDC stage is different. Very Different. On the technical side as I and many others have mentioned and on the buisness side of licenssing these titles and writing contracts and deciding who does tech support and who gets what percentage of the money.
I don't ever see someone having a good experience playing Crysis on this thing in their living room.
Cronus on
"Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
They said that thanks to the video compression algorithmns, the overall latency they're aiming for is 80ms. Not that the compression algorithmns spit out video 80ms after the fact. You're taking their overall number and then readding all the other factors on top of that.
And regarding the fact that Venturebeat reported the same number, that's because Giantbomb took their entire article from Venturebeat.
Yes, but having them deployed in Joe Schmo's living room vs. a GDC stage is different. Very Different. On the technical side as I and many others have mentioned and on the buisness side of licenssing these titles and writing contracts and deciding who does tech support and who gets what percentage of the money.
I don't ever see someone having a good experience playing Crysis on this thing in their living room.
They're listed as partners on the website, a number of these companies have come out and said their titles will be on the server when it launches beta. What do you want to see? The actual contracts signed and dated? You cannot seriously imagine that having 9 major publishers agree to have their names and games plastered all over this are just going to decide after GDC that they don't want in.
They said that thanks to the video compression algorithmns, the overall latency they're aiming for is 80ms. Not that the compression algorithmns spit out video 80ms after the fact. You're taking their overall number and then readding all the other factors on top of that.
And regarding the fact that Venturebeat reported the same number, that's because Giantbomb took their entire article from Venturebeat.
Even if they manage 80ms as an absolute best-case scenario--which is all I can imagine it being, in the real world--that's still a lot of fucking input lag, especially when you add in the 25ms or more that most TVs and many computer monitors already have.
Prediction: There will be a big day-one explosion of trying this out, then everyone will tell their friends how much it sucks, and it'll flop. Out of business within months.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
They said that thanks to the video compression algorithmns, the overall latency they're aiming for is 80ms. Not that the compression algorithmns spit out video 80ms after the fact. You're taking their overall number and then readding all the other factors on top of that.
And regarding the fact that Venturebeat reported the same number, that's because Giantbomb took their entire article from Venturebeat.
Even if they manage 80ms as an absolute best-case scenario--which is all I can imagine it being, in the real world--that's still a lot of fucking input lag, especially when you add in the 25ms or more that most TVs and many computer monitors already have.
I broke down the numbers in a previous post based on latency numbers to servers in WoW, being a popular, well-connected MMO. 80ms is a conservative estimate that's probably like the average you'll see in well connected areas.
Does this mean I can play PC only games on my Mac? That would be quite cool.
Furthermore, does this also mean that I could play high end games on my Macbook Pro, which itself can run most things but not well.
My internet connection is biblical. If this even remotely lives up to promises I can see it being very successful. Input lag is the one drawback I can see. But other people are already fluffing their math so I guess noone has any fucking clue how it works now do they.
Well, not quite for you per se, they're only planning for 4 US hubs to start, so even if they accept international users, the lag would probably be pretty bad
They said that thanks to the video compression algorithmns, the overall latency they're aiming for is 80ms. Not that the compression algorithmns spit out video 80ms after the fact. You're taking their overall number and then readding all the other factors on top of that.
And regarding the fact that Venturebeat reported the same number, that's because Giantbomb took their entire article from Venturebeat.
Even if they manage 80ms as an absolute best-case scenario--which is all I can imagine it being, in the real world--that's still a lot of fucking input lag, especially when you add in the 25ms or more that most TVs and many computer monitors already have.
I broke down the numbers in a previous post based on latency numbers to servers in WoW, being a popular, well-connected MMO. 80ms is a conservative estimate that's probably like the average you'll see in well connected areas.
Here's the thing--this is totally different from WoW or any other online game. Multiplayer games over the internet render everything and accept input client-side. They use all kinds of predictive tricks to reduce lag, which is what makes the game playable. Any input you give the game? Yeah, your character immediately responds, and then updates the server.
With OnLive, you send your input to the server, it goes upstream, and then it comes all the way back with an image.
And again, I really can't imagine 80ms being anything but the absolute best case. Most users will be suffering from double that or more.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Posts
I also like the idea of "renting" PC games because, really, that's one thing about PC gaming VS console gaming that I feel is entirely in consoles' favor.
But I see nothing that marvelous here that I don't already attain by having my PC and X360.
Kinda neat but I'll pass.
You are a very strange person
Yes, playing new releases will be more expensive than playing older games. It already is. Fucking duh. I don't think it will cost more than an actual retail copy of the game, since that would be fucking stupid on a level I can barely comprehend. The graphics you get are apparently based upon the connection speed you have, so they can't charge you for better graphics. The ISPs, on the other hand, are a different story
And they have demos. They demoed demos at their presentation thing. Free demos will still exist, and apparently the spectator thing is available no matter what, so you can just watch someone else playing a game and see if you'd like it before even trying the demo or renting it/purchasing it. Plus they've signed on one indie company and they'll probably sign on more if they're at all successful
And privacy issues? Really? Really? Like I give a shit whether someone knows that I favor the flak cannon in Unreal Tournament or whether I play a chick in Mass Effect (oh Jennifer Hale, your voice is so much more badass than that other dude's)
Now I will admit that trusting these people with my games or whatever is a bit of a risk - if they have an earthquake or a server issue then I can't play my games. But it's the same with Steam, and I've never had a problem with them, and besides, with all the fuckin' retarded ass DRM these days, you don't even own the games you buy at brick and mortar stores anymore. You have to activate them using the internet using their activation servers and god forbid if those ever go down
So there
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
That's the thing though, why bother accepting a lower quality output when a much lower price (up front) console will offer far more satisfactory visual quality, along with other perks as centralized 'social networking' and ease of use? Judging from your specs, I'm guessing you'll pull in a Level 2 (the metric used in UT3 config) graphics quality at best. Xbox 360 is probably Level 4 or so from the images I've seen.
Personally I find this OnLive a whole load of bollocks. It certainly will not fly in the UK, with the terrible, terrible bandwidth caps we suffer. Not as bad as the Aussies or Canadians, but still bad. I'm not too fond of the potential input lag either.
It's not at all the same as Steam. Steam actually gives you a copy of the game on your harddrive. They also have an offline mode that actually does work if you keep your games patched (despite constant bitching otherwise).
You can access your save files at any time with a Steam game, also mods, .ini configurations and any other tweaks that come with having the game on your harddrive.
Okay yeah that's true
I don't think this service is going to replace that sort of thing immediately, or ever, really. There's always gonna be some people who want to mod and use mods and tweak and fiddle with every little thing in their games or computers
But I maintain that you'd have to be some kind of stupid to not see the benefits of something like this, and the implications it will have if their video compression algorithms or whatever the fuck are really as super great as they say
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
In this like all things Nethack is soooo far ahead of it's time.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
dude says in an interview linked earlier that they see what theyre trying to do as additive, not replacing anything. people with gaming computers dont really need what theyre offering, theyre aiming at adding a ton of new PC gamers into the mix by expanding the audience to people who dont have gaming computers and wouldnt want to/know how to build one and keep up with upgrading it and whatnot.
There is no reason why both can't exist at the same time.
Yeah, it's trying to do a Nintendo Wii kind of thing, essentially
And we all know how that turned out
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Yes well I was grossly simplifying it for the sake of a joke
But I agree that it's possible it might be too ahead of it's time to take off
We'll have to see
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Furthermore, does this also mean that I could play high end games on my Macbook Pro, which itself can run most things but not well.
My internet connection is biblical. If this even remotely lives up to promises I can see it being very successful. Input lag is the one drawback I can see. But other people are already fluffing their math so I guess noone has any fucking clue how it works now do they.
Actually they've said 80 ms for the encoding, which is where the 80 ms came from in my earlier post. That sounds about right as video encoding relies on several frames of information. Video encoding on a per frame basis is just picture encoding and you're not going to get good compression, which they will need.
Also that compression is very expensive and will put huge strains on the cpu and gpu. They will need a second cpu and gpu just for the encoding and streaming.
The 5 ms is also wrong, as I and many others here have mentioned it will be upwards of 100 depending on location.
There is a lot to creating and sending live video across the country.
"Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
Their video encoding is not linear, it's per frame from what I can understand.
It will not be a flat 100ms and above for network latency.
Your assumptions would indicate a 200ms+ latency _at least_ for their demonstration on the show floor at GDC considering their servers at out of the building and in another city.
I'm 99% certain this will flop because of the technical limitations alone. I'll be happy if they somehow prove me wrong.
I tend to respect Nick and co (from Idle Thumbs mainly) and this is the most 'down' set of impressions I've seen. Don't cherry pick from the article. He points out the flaws, but also what works.
Yeah, extremely skeptical. What does "optimal connection experience" mean? Are they wired to their service by LAN, or actually running the whole thing through a broadband ISP? If the latter, have they proven it?
At some point you have to take them on their word, seeing as they have said multiple times that they're running it from Santa Clara. How would you see them prove it?
Optical connection experience is probably a Verizon fibre-grade connection or similar with enough bandwidth to not touch the sides at their 4/5mbps 720p setting, into the GDC building.
The 80 ms came from Gertsmann http://www.giantbomb.com/news/what-if-your-game-console-was-just-a-video-stream/1016/?linktags=home,home-news. It's also on the VentureBeat story. Again, 80 ms sounds about right. You're not going to be doing live video compression in 1 ms.
That 200ms is also not an assumption, at least not for me. With their 80 ms straight out + ?? ms for streaming + ~.12 ms for control latency(I'm assuming this is Halo or Crysis or another modern day game) + ~80 ms for Qwest DSL on my end. Now granted you can reduce that by playing checkers on FIOS, but it's still going to be high. At least 100 ms.
When giving a demonstration at GDC, you can have your servers in the server room next door with everything at optimal conditions. Now you are under 100ms when showing the press.
There is a lot of talk about this, and they did a good job getting buzz going, but I'd still be surprised if this ever saw the light of day with AAA titles.
"Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
they claim that one of their farms (the one running all this shit) is 50 miles away.
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
That's unplayable for most kinds of games, and not a fun experience in the kinds of games that will be playable.
I wouldn't worry about it.
uhhh they already have AAA titles ready to go
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
I'm not trying to be pedantic, but you've repeated this several times. The articles you reference allude to the latency between the client and server, not encoding time. In the press conference, it is stated as 1ms compression/encoding time. Hard to believe, but that's what is claimed.
Yes, but having them deployed in Joe Schmo's living room vs. a GDC stage is different. Very Different. On the technical side as I and many others have mentioned and on the buisness side of licenssing these titles and writing contracts and deciding who does tech support and who gets what percentage of the money.
I don't ever see someone having a good experience playing Crysis on this thing in their living room.
"Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
They said that thanks to the video compression algorithmns, the overall latency they're aiming for is 80ms. Not that the compression algorithmns spit out video 80ms after the fact. You're taking their overall number and then readding all the other factors on top of that.
And regarding the fact that Venturebeat reported the same number, that's because Giantbomb took their entire article from Venturebeat.
They're listed as partners on the website, a number of these companies have come out and said their titles will be on the server when it launches beta. What do you want to see? The actual contracts signed and dated? You cannot seriously imagine that having 9 major publishers agree to have their names and games plastered all over this are just going to decide after GDC that they don't want in.
Even if they manage 80ms as an absolute best-case scenario--which is all I can imagine it being, in the real world--that's still a lot of fucking input lag, especially when you add in the 25ms or more that most TVs and many computer monitors already have.
Prediction: There will be a big day-one explosion of trying this out, then everyone will tell their friends how much it sucks, and it'll flop. Out of business within months.
I broke down the numbers in a previous post based on latency numbers to servers in WoW, being a popular, well-connected MMO. 80ms is a conservative estimate that's probably like the average you'll see in well connected areas.
Also: http://img228.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mouselaggn6.swf
As a personal observation, 80ms is noticeable, but something I adapted to pretty quickly in that demo.
Well, not quite for you per se, they're only planning for 4 US hubs to start, so even if they accept international users, the lag would probably be pretty bad
Here's the thing--this is totally different from WoW or any other online game. Multiplayer games over the internet render everything and accept input client-side. They use all kinds of predictive tricks to reduce lag, which is what makes the game playable. Any input you give the game? Yeah, your character immediately responds, and then updates the server.
With OnLive, you send your input to the server, it goes upstream, and then it comes all the way back with an image.
And again, I really can't imagine 80ms being anything but the absolute best case. Most users will be suffering from double that or more.
I would, but apparently the link is broken.
Edit: Oh hey, it works now. Wonder what's going on. Is imageshack being weird again?
edit: after trying various settings it seems like personally 15 is about the max I would find acceptable, and there's no way they'll achieve that