OnLive

There's something disconcerting about knowing that the little box near my TV isn't actually doing much of anything anymore except pulling in video like a dumb terminal. :curse: :lol:

Anyway, what kind of a ridiculous server cluster would you need to support 10,000 instances of Crysis? Might make more sense for casual games in the long run...

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

You have no idea what you're talking about. I don't think you quite get the concept of how this works. I watched two dudes play Crysis against each other on two independently running platforms. There was no lag and it worked fine. .

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I get it perfectly fine.

They showed you a controlled demo, which "proved" that under optimal conditions the system works.

Again that may impress investors and the press, but it doesn't mean it would work under the stress of millions of players, with wildy varying Internet speeds.

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

...both are networked directly in a way that has far less lag than standard net gaming. No problem.

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And what magical network config is that? SegaNet?

Man you really got marketed if you think it's "no problem."

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

You're thinking about this all wrong. The actual computers (and thus the networking thereof) are somewhere else and are wholly unaffected by the way the image is getting to your TV. Think of it like two terminals of a LAN party being streamed to two different locations. No one has to code anything differently, it's just a way for two people to access their PCs, it doesn't affect how the games themselves work or network.

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Since players are reacting to a video streamed to their machine, you better damn well believe that the server is affected by the video encode/decode, latency, and input lag -- the server has to make sure the game is in sync for all players. You can't simply install a peer-to-peer multiplayer game on this server out of the box and expect it to magically work "no problem" -- the game wasn't written to perform in this environment.

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Originally Posted by bbobb

They're talking 480p + video files that have to transmit and display on your computer in real time (you don't install the games on your computer or anything). It's not possible.

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Exactly.

Remember, most of us can't stream a crappy quality Youtube video without waiting a bit for buffering.

1080p gaming on this system is silly to even think about.

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

But it is possible because they have it working. You can raise doubts about profitability, reliability, and sustainability, but what they're showing is VERY impressive and it's not just something on paper.

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They have it working in a demo -- which means a very controlled environment, with hardly any server load, on an ideal Internet connection.

Plus you have no idea of the smoke and mirrors that they may be using behind the scenes to show the demo. Is the server in the building?

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Originally Posted by PBmax

Remember, most of us can't stream a crappy quality Youtube video without waiting a bit for buffering.

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Shitty example. There's plenty of high-def streaming services available right now.

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Originally Posted by PBmax

the game wasn't written to perform in this environment.

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What, the environment where nothing has changed other than the video stream being shot from a cloud to your PC?

Obviously there's a lot of hype here, and it very well could suck once there's an actual server load.

Skeptics and horrible counter examples from PBMax be damned, this is VERY impressive technology whether it can perform on a large scale or a small scale like demonstrated at GDC. It's obviously real, and even if it stutters on first release, based on what they have demonstrated and said it has the best chance in comparison to other similar technologies at succeeding. I've watched about half of the presentation from GDC and of course it's full of marketing gibberish, but it's still damn impressive.

edit: It's kind of ironic though that my steam of the presentation is having latency issues. LOSE.

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Originally Posted by FirstBlood

Shitty example. There's plenty of high-def streaming services available right now.

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Maybe so, but it's the most used so it makes the most sense.

Internet Explorer is the most used web browser, so is that a good example to use as a benchmark for web browser technology?

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Originally Posted by Chux

Maybe so, but it's the most used so it makes the most sense.

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You having to buffer an HD stream has very little to do with your connection and everything to do with Youtube not wanting to give out that much bandwidth.

A pay service based upon the foundation of giving you enough bandwidth to play a game as if you have a console in front of you has to allot that much bandwidth, or else it just doesn't work.

I can't believe people are actually buying into this. There's gonna be a slight delay before the pre-processed game gets to your tv, then theres gonna be lag before user input gets back to the remote computer.....bam!!!!! Double lag.....from all players involved. Shouldn't be much of a problem for non-competitive slow games, but fps's, no way.

I dunno, I think you could play "Black" and not notice the lag as-is...

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Originally Posted by Kbuchan

....

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So this will be like Turok 2 then?

I don't think anyone has said this will be the end all be all solution to this problem, or that it will work perfectly. But to dismiss this as something that isn't a big deal is just foolish, this IS impressive technology IF works as demonstrated, and it will be a huge deal IF it works as demonstrated. Though your expert analysis of how this specific client server technology works was very eye opening. :rolleyes: