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OnLive - threat to all gaming hardware
- Thread starter intellix
- Start date
Never going to take off.
Game companies are making too much money at present from releasing physical media (on consoles that is) what incentive do they have to allow this to happen. GTA4 made something like $500m in its first month I cannot see any company having deep enough pockets to pay this for GTA5 can you then you have MS & Sony with all their exclusive development deals for platforms & DLC.
If bandwidth in all gaming homes was dedicated with no contention ratios & the developers allowed their games to be licenced this way then perhaps in about 10-15 years it maybe the future but right now its just another Phantom console.
Also consider the cost for the computing power to render something like GTA5 to say 15m homes at once the cost alone would be staggering probably US military, NASA or ILM are the only places with this level of computing power right now.
Game companies are making too much money at present from releasing physical media (on consoles that is) what incentive do they have to allow this to happen. GTA4 made something like $500m in its first month I cannot see any company having deep enough pockets to pay this for GTA5 can you then you have MS & Sony with all their exclusive development deals for platforms & DLC.
If bandwidth in all gaming homes was dedicated with no contention ratios & the developers allowed their games to be licenced this way then perhaps in about 10-15 years it maybe the future but right now its just another Phantom console.
Also consider the cost for the computing power to render something like GTA5 to say 15m homes at once the cost alone would be staggering probably US military, NASA or ILM are the only places with this level of computing power right now.
Associate
Well looking at the facts nor is latency assuming the 'onlive' micro console does what it's suppose to do, the MS wouldn't be the problem.
Soldato
Online gaming as it stands:
Keypresses and mouse movements are sent from each client to the server, which distributes this information amongst clients so that they can locally update their individual game. The server just tells the clients how to synchronise this information.
This:
The clients have to send key presses to the server, which at the same time is rendering your game, the server then has to compress your screenshot so that it can make it across the internet fast enough to cause as little delay as possible.
With multiplayer gaming, rendered locally, you're only sending and receiving tiny pieces of data in online games (probably significantly less than a kilobyte each frame), and the server, for each individual gamer, doesn't have to do that much work for synchronisation. With OnLive, you send a tiny piece of data, but the data you receive and the server has to send you is absolutely massive. A 1280x720 compressed image + audio + any force feedback information, the bandwidth for them has to be absolutely massive to provide playable gameplay to everyone using the service.
But as I said before, physical limitations of servers and internet connection speeds in terms of playability and speed isn't the main problem, it's reliability through and through. The only realistic usage for this is MMO games, which are already bound to online gameplay.
Keypresses and mouse movements are sent from each client to the server, which distributes this information amongst clients so that they can locally update their individual game. The server just tells the clients how to synchronise this information.
This:
The clients have to send key presses to the server, which at the same time is rendering your game, the server then has to compress your screenshot so that it can make it across the internet fast enough to cause as little delay as possible.
With multiplayer gaming, rendered locally, you're only sending and receiving tiny pieces of data in online games (probably significantly less than a kilobyte each frame), and the server, for each individual gamer, doesn't have to do that much work for synchronisation. With OnLive, you send a tiny piece of data, but the data you receive and the server has to send you is absolutely massive. A 1280x720 compressed image + audio + any force feedback information, the bandwidth for them has to be absolutely massive to provide playable gameplay to everyone using the service.
But as I said before, physical limitations of servers and internet connection speeds in terms of playability and speed isn't the main problem, it's reliability through and through. The only realistic usage for this is MMO games, which are already bound to online gameplay.
Latency is one of the biggest issues...
This type of service can't do ANY client side prediction its all upto tricks in the returned image(s) to blur the time between inputing a command and it having an effect and except for very casual gamers its just going to feel horrid... we'd need sub 8ms ping times to the host and less than 2ms processing time to offset this...
The other problem is going to be encoder lag... there is no way the encoder is going to be able to spit out heavily compressed high quality images in a short enough time to not compound the already severe latency issues.
This type of service can't do ANY client side prediction its all upto tricks in the returned image(s) to blur the time between inputing a command and it having an effect and except for very casual gamers its just going to feel horrid... we'd need sub 8ms ping times to the host and less than 2ms processing time to offset this...
The other problem is going to be encoder lag... there is no way the encoder is going to be able to spit out heavily compressed high quality images in a short enough time to not compound the already severe latency issues.
Associate
Soldato
Simply will not work in the real world for fast games like FPS. There's layer upon layer of lag between something happening in the game, you reacting to that, and the change in state being reflected back to you..
At moment wow and the rest are processed on your pc which is a few k back and forth to the server but they want it all processed on their machines and then send to you.
They trying to tell me they will able to send 720p back to you every time you input something with hardly any lag within the next few years i think not.
Video/films are one thing,a game is another as you interact with that game and other people in that game.
what they saying is you have a tv or a very basic pc and their servers do all the work and you use the screen and input devices, like having a base unit in the other room and you got the keyboard and mouse and screen in your room only it is over a much longer distance.
They trying to tell me they will able to send 720p back to you every time you input something with hardly any lag within the next few years i think not.
Video/films are one thing,a game is another as you interact with that game and other people in that game.
what they saying is you have a tv or a very basic pc and their servers do all the work and you use the screen and input devices, like having a base unit in the other room and you got the keyboard and mouse and screen in your room only it is over a much longer distance.
Soldato
It's essentially playing games via Remote-Desktop/VNC over the internet.
The network stuff isn't analogous to the flow of data in multiplayer games. Just think of it like playing a standard single player game, only with a ton of lag between your eyeballs/hands and the TV screen.
The network stuff isn't analogous to the flow of data in multiplayer games. Just think of it like playing a standard single player game, only with a ton of lag between your eyeballs/hands and the TV screen.
Last edited:
You every tried that? it doesnt work its far too jumpy.
10 million users playing at one time?
Looking at the Counterstrike: Source statistics... at peak today there were 111,309 users online at the same time.
Looking at the Counterstrike: Source statistics... at peak today there were 111,309 users online at the same time.
Thats pc only. Much more people play consoles.
The other fairly basic thing to consider is that right now no games run on 3 or more 4 cores without lots of bugs as the complexity is too high to properly debug so how on earth do they expect a game to run on their server farms which is a whole new level of complexity again. Nvidia/ATI are unlikely to let them take their gaming business model either and they can just block it at the driver level so lets assume they are targetting existing hardware only they still need an OS and MS are unlikely to destroy their OS licence model & 360 + PC LIVE platforms so no MS co-operation either.
Ok they have to use Linux so back to drivers again and unless they can write their own (unlikely) Nvidia/ATI will just stop this from happening somehow. Also they would need to convince the people who control the 8 figure budgets for AAA games that they should support Linux or whatever OS they are using with their unproven business model
thats not going to happen either.
Its pretty obvious that MS, Sony,ATI, Nvidia, Intel, IBM and anyone else with big investments in PC & console hardware is not going to give this any serious attention so that only leaves tiny niche players which means its doomed to fail.
You could pick holes in this thing forever its pie in the sky and the people behind this must be seriously deluded wasting 7 whole years on it
Ok they have to use Linux so back to drivers again and unless they can write their own (unlikely) Nvidia/ATI will just stop this from happening somehow. Also they would need to convince the people who control the 8 figure budgets for AAA games that they should support Linux or whatever OS they are using with their unproven business model
thats not going to happen either.Its pretty obvious that MS, Sony,ATI, Nvidia, Intel, IBM and anyone else with big investments in PC & console hardware is not going to give this any serious attention so that only leaves tiny niche players which means its doomed to fail.
You could pick holes in this thing forever its pie in the sky and the people behind this must be seriously deluded wasting 7 whole years on it
Sorry but I have to laugh... input latency as much as 16ms is too much for many hardcore players... and deffinatly once your over 30ms even many casual players are going to complain... there was one console game with 120ms built in latency and they were forced to fix it in a patch because literally every player bitched about it...
You might get away with it in some games i.e. rts, but in a driving or fps game its going to be very noticeable...
Associate
http://uk.gamespot.com/pages/unions/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26742017&union_id=11552
AMD are doing this so i read
AMD are doing this so i read
Soldato
Seeing it's barely possible to normally use remote desktop over a 100mbit lan connection without some lag, I highly doubt it'll work for games, even with a good connection you're still going to get input lag.
Permabanned
- Joined
- 20 Aug 2008
- Posts
- 416
it will never work, you imagine how much data the server would need to provide and to each users computers/macs, the servers would have to be like 100 core i7 with major gfx performance to, let alone the internet .
Good idea tho but pc gaming still has a few years yet
Good idea tho but pc gaming still has a few years yet
Soldato
Getting 1/2mb connection on a good day here
. Only needs to be 10x better - easy