Wednesday, March 25th 2009
New On-Demand Gaming Platform Threatens to Kill Gaming PC Upgrades
We all regard PC games, as an entertainment medium, but spend hundreds to even thousands of Dollars regularly, to keep our PCs up to date, to be able to play the latest PC games. Imagine a medium that rids us of that, and we are able to consume PC gaming like any other content, like the TV or radio. Well, that the potential a new on-demand gaming platform holds - to make you never have to buy/upgrade a gaming PC again.
Called OnLive, the on-demand platform consists of a web service, an internet connection, and a thin-client, called "micro-console" that connects your input (game controllers), and output (monitor/TV/HDTV). You control the game - whichever you're subscribed to and playing - the client relays your input to the OnLive servers, that do the processing, including graphics rendering, and send back output to your client. The client then displays the output. Sounds familiar? Cloud computing? Exactly, but for PC gaming. The platform is conceptualized to be advanced-enough to handle any of today's games, Crysis included. The work-model of this platform is what makes it tick with any game, and is far more future-proof than the present mode of PC gaming (where people own expensive hardware that are in requirement of upgrades, the costs of buying games, buying gaming services separate).
For standard definition television quality, a broadband connection of at least 1.5 megabits per second is required. For HDTV resolution, a connection of at least 5 mbps is needed. The service uses patented algorithms that work to counter lag caused by network constraints. The technology is already gaining attention from major publishers, including EA, THQ, Codemasters, Ubisoft, Atari, Warner Bros., Take-Two, and Epic. People can buy or rent a game to play it, the usage fees are expected not to be much more than the subscription fees for Xbox Live.
Source:
Kokatu
Called OnLive, the on-demand platform consists of a web service, an internet connection, and a thin-client, called "micro-console" that connects your input (game controllers), and output (monitor/TV/HDTV). You control the game - whichever you're subscribed to and playing - the client relays your input to the OnLive servers, that do the processing, including graphics rendering, and send back output to your client. The client then displays the output. Sounds familiar? Cloud computing? Exactly, but for PC gaming. The platform is conceptualized to be advanced-enough to handle any of today's games, Crysis included. The work-model of this platform is what makes it tick with any game, and is far more future-proof than the present mode of PC gaming (where people own expensive hardware that are in requirement of upgrades, the costs of buying games, buying gaming services separate).
For standard definition television quality, a broadband connection of at least 1.5 megabits per second is required. For HDTV resolution, a connection of at least 5 mbps is needed. The service uses patented algorithms that work to counter lag caused by network constraints. The technology is already gaining attention from major publishers, including EA, THQ, Codemasters, Ubisoft, Atari, Warner Bros., Take-Two, and Epic. People can buy or rent a game to play it, the usage fees are expected not to be much more than the subscription fees for Xbox Live.
246 Comments on New On-Demand Gaming Platform Threatens to Kill Gaming PC Upgrades
The way this works, is that its got a little ID box and nothing more locally. The 3D rendering is done remotely, online. You move your mouse left, the signal goes up to these guys, they render it moved left, it comes back down.
While this may not worry some people, the average ping for people in Au is 60ms at best - so even throwing out the high bandwidth usage (and low download limits), controller lag is going to be nasty.
Speed can go up, download limits can go up - but they cant fix ping. ping is related to the distance, and they cant do squat about that!
The only way this system will work is if you have a low ping ISP (local datacenter) and these guys datacenter just as close. Otherwise the mouse lag will be nuts.
You dont download shit. This is all STREAMED.
www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1090
The author played through some chapters in BioShock , the menu was responsive , but the gameplay suffered from noticeable lags during fast mouse turns , and above all the picture quality was terrible ,well not that terrible , but not what he expected , he said that the signs of compression really marred the experience .
Besides , What's wrong with upgrading your PC every now and then ? a careful planner could only spend 800$ on an average PC that lasts for 3 Years (one with a decent C2D and an HD 4850 or 9800GTX+ for example , spending more will extend this period even further !
i could somewhat see this working, for turn based games.... BUT, for games like crysis they would basically need a computer to run the game AND send you the "results" of your imput..... maybe i should read more from the source link...
Its like playing a game via remote desktop.
I can see this being a great tech for LAN use - one server in the house running virtual machines, connected to four of these "mini" consoles for people to use, or for an internet cafe/LAN hall.
The tech sure has potential, its just got some serious flaws in implementation.
There's something about building, overclocking, tuning and running a custom-built PC that consoles don't provide and won't, sure this idea is great for the plug-and-play which is nice at times and part of why I keep my consoles, there are just times I just want to game and not tweak with anything at all, but streaming over current interenet probably won't work out too well. I could see this becoming popular in the future though, but I think it'd take out or become the next Xbox/Playstation/Nindendo whatever instead before it hurt PC gaming seriously...just my opinion though.
And besides! I personally consider building the computer and setting the settings to be at the very least half the enjoyment factor of playing a high-end video game. Not to mention that with this console, all you can do is game. The world has never looked any better with my monitors, and the power to run them even while writing this post, using up about a tenth of the desktop space.
EDIT: Post 666 !