OnLive Games: The Cloud Is Coming

[Guest]

Are Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo Trying to Wave Off the Cloud? OnLive believes its web-based gaming platform is the future of mainstream gaming.

OnLive Games: The Cloud Is Coming : Read more

 

[builderbobftw]

"OnLive assumes the brunt of all hardware costs"

I bet Crysis isn't gonna look good... Unless they want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on Servers.

 

[enzo matrix]

Ping?

 

[Guest]

This device is about a year or two late. Possibly even 3. I see it as nothing short of a massive waste of time and money. Plainly put, PC's sold last year at retail, have better performance abilities that what OnLive is offering. 720p on Computer Games? Really?? The other issue is, you don't ever actually have the software on your system. The Game itself, is never in your possession. Which means, modding is out the window, an integral slice of the PC offering imo. Because really, if you lock PC's @ 720p and lock modding out. You're really just stuck with a console.

OnLive's other two bigger problems however are: Zero internal developers, so there's no real _reason_ to get it. And the fact that their direct competition have 30 or 40 internal studios between them.

 

[4ILY45]

[citation][nom]enzo matrix[/nom]Ping?[/citation]
Is all here fellas:
http/www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.164873-OnLive-Fully-Detailed-in-Columbia-University-Presentation

 

[jamezrp]

Mornelithe, they don't need internal developers because they're not a game publisher. I agree that 720p is weak for PC gaming, but they also plan to have 1080p game streaming by the next year.

I do agree with you about them being late though. Had they released a year ago, they would be much better off.

As for modding, that's really up to the developer. All data is stored on servers, but level mods aren't memory hogs generally. But once again, it's a service that isn't intended to replace home consoles and pc's just yet, but rather to supplement it for those who would rather have it because of the simplicity.

 

[enzo matrix]

[citation][nom]4ILY45[/nom]Is all here fellas:http/www.escapistmagazine.com/fo [...] esentation[/citation]
Good find. So total delay of 0.008s dependent on internet connection of course. I assume this would be ideal. At least 0.01s for the compression on their server end. Any ideas if that would be good enough?

 

[enzo matrix]

Edit: I meant 0.08s

 

[killerclick]

All the rendering and processing is done on the server, reducing what you have at home to a dumb terminal. I suppose it will be cheaper for the customers on a large enough scale and if the infrastructure is there.

 

[jamezrp]

[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]All the rendering and processing is done on the server, reducing what you have at home to a dumb terminal. I suppose it will be cheaper for the customers on a large enough scale and if the infrastructure is there.[/citation]

Agreed. I don't know that our country's internet infrastructure is really there yet, and I am somewhat surprised that OnLive didn't open, or at least test first, in smaller countries with better overall internet access, like Japan or South Korea. But I suppose we'll see.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

I'm pretty sure internet service providers are going to be a problem. Typically the service they provide does not live up to expectations.

 

[Kami3k]

Sorry but I like actually OWNING the game I'm playing, even if it is just a license to use it.

 

[jamezrp]

[citation][nom]kami3k[/nom]Sorry but I like actually OWNING the game I'm playing, even if it is just a license to use it.[/citation]

Understandable, but the advantages to a service that encompasses all of your gaming needs is also worth looking into. Whether it's worth it or not remains to be seen.

 

[moazbhutta]

what will happen to people living in poor nations i mean its not clear if with 14$ a month you can play any game you want or its just service charge to use the service and then still pay 60$ for each title..why not drop the regular price of an original software to say 99cent and i bet the billion + audience a publisher can reach makes far more economic sense..as no body would give to shits about pirating something thats worth so less..yet the original content maker through digital distribution can make a billion dollars! alas we need need some harward less back bencher in these companies to make sense in the new world!

 

[Guest]

Even if all the rendering etc is done on there servers, are they seriously suggesting it will work on any old computer. What happens if you have a pentium 3 with 64mb ram? Is it still going to run perfectly on that?

How long before "Any Computer" is redefined to mean a minimum of 2gb ram and a really decent video card?

 

[Ramar]

I'm too lazy to look for sources, but it shouldn't be hard to find the information if you look; this service is physically impossible. The BEST response time for a 30fps game just controller/keyboard to CPU to video is automatically 100-150ms, three frame [or more] loss. 60fps is much better, at 66-100ms, and the three frame loss equating to 1/20th of a second instead of 1/10th. For this reason every multiplayer game since Quake has had predictive netcode. If it didn't, even with a desirable

 

[math1337]

$15/month * 2 years = $360 = new graphics card = latest games
$15/month * 3 years = $540 = new console = latest games

The cost of the service just doesn't add up to being less than the cost of new hardware.

The games should come with the monthly fee, because there is a certain possible market segment full of people who tend to not pay for their games.

 

[Ramar]

Not sure why that got cut off, but:

Even with a desirable

 

[rbarone69]

wow... Their sending commands over UDP? I mean that doesn't sound smart to me. Packet loss wouldnt be such a problem if they were using TCP for commands and UDP for streaming vid.

What would seem to be more of an issue is latency caused by full queues at the receiver end dropping packets because of congestion.

In any case, I'd be impressed to see a FPS playing well without considerable input lag. I'll probably sign up for this to try it out!

 

[Ramar]

Okay tom's this is ridiculous. Stop cutting me off. Your overall lag would be 166-250 ms with a 100ms connection, for a 1/5th of a second delay from keypress to on-screen response. That's assuming that nothing else goes wrong or takes any time at all. The fact that anyone is feeling heat from this service is a joke.