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Onlive is a newly unveiled project that has the potential to revolutionize the entire gaming industry. To use the service, you hook up your computer to a purchased "OnLive Box." The box connects to a server somewhere far away and you play games off that server! In essence, you don't need to have ANY good hardware on your computer at ALL. All the processing is outsourced!
What's amazing about this is that they use a hyper-compression algorithm to transfer the information ultra fast with no latency. Games like Marvel vs Capcom 2 or Street Fighter previously couldn't be played online because even 1-2ms delay times completely screw gameplay up. However, with this stunning new algorithm, you can play games latency free! Moreover, you can even play super out of control processor intensive games on a shitty computer!
www.onlive.com (At 7:16 PST they are having the official press release streamed!!!)
http://nerdworld.blogs.time.com/2009/03/24/is-onlive-the-new-fourth-game-console-actually-maybe/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/161852/onlive_stream_games.html
http://venturebeat.com/2009/03/23/steve-perlmans-onlive-could-turn-the-video-game-world-upside-down/
I'm personally super pumped because many of my friends work at OnLive and couldn't tell me what they've been working on. Now that I know, I'm pumped  .
UPDATE
costs for the microprocessor are "significantly cheaper than most consoles" and the subscription fee is "~50$ a year." yipee
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I read about this on IGN. questions that come up immediately are:
- does onlive have the immense bandwidth that is needed for this?
- does onlive have the immense computing power that is needed for this?
- lag? especially once they have thousands of users?
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I read about this myself and I was blown away.
It sounds literally incredible, at first I thought it was a hoax.
Is it possible in one move the entire console market has been wiped out?
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I really don't see this taking off. I seriously doubt people who cant afford a good machine will buy a service and hardware package just to play games that will inevitably have some kind of delay.
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On March 25 2009 06:31 distant_voice wrote:
I read about this on IGN. questions that come up immediately are:
- does onlive have the immense bandwidth that is needed for this?
- does onlive have the immense computing power that is needed for this?
- lag? especially once they have thousands of users?
"The current solution only introduces one millisecond of lag to encode the video, which alone is completely unnoticeable to you. Obviously, a fast internet connection is required on your end to stream the gameplay video. A 1.5 mbps connection (which is usually what base-level DSL is rated at) is required for standard-definition video (480p), while a 5.0 mbps connection is required for HD (720p)"
IGN.com
I don't understand how that is possible.
How can you have 1ms of lag from an internet connection?
Usually you get at least 35ms from a server.
I'm trying to think of someway they could send all possible moves to your computer, so all it has to do is make a choice, but that's all I can think of.
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but see, this is the nuts part:
all of you are ASSUMING that there's a delay. THERE ISNT!!! You can play crysis on a MACBOOK AIR w/ no lag and it looks great!
I have super smart friends who've been working on this for almost a year now (company has been in the works for about 7 years) and it's just as amazing as it sounds. Isn't that sick???
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that is, its just as amazing as you'd want it to be! ^_^
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On March 25 2009 06:36 MannerGent wrote:
I really don't see this taking off. I seriously doubt people who cant afford a good machine will buy a service and hardware package just to play games that will inevitably have some kind of delay.
It's called the console market.
EA and other top games manufacturers have already signed up to this system, because it saves them money also. All OnLive have to do is sell you some cheap piece of hardware and you can play Crisis on full graphics on your TV!
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On March 25 2009 06:27 Day[9] wrote:I'm personally super pumped because many of my friends work at OnLive and couldn't tell me what they've been working on. Now that I know, I'm pumped .
That's because if they told you they would have to kill you!
This sounds absolutely amazing.
I hope this will be an exception from the old adage - If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
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If it works, this could be the best thing, for poor people like me.
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Amazing if it works.. their stock must have gone up a lot when they announced this
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"Update: GameDaily's quote of 1-ms latency is in reference to encoding/decoding video, not Internet delay."
I thought at the time of reading it was a mistake. So I guess there will be noticeable lag on games.
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must be fucking expensive if it can do that
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holy shit
edit: Let's wait until pricing 
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APRIL FOOLS! This has epic fail written all over it. Most countries don't have the required internet connections to make this possible. Korea maybe but Usa/Uk/Canada no way.
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This means F91 can destroy even more people in Liquibitions without lag 
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On March 25 2009 07:05 ibutoss wrote:
APRIL FOOLS! This has epic fail written all over it. Most countries don't have the required internet connections to make this possible. Korea maybe but Usa/Uk/Canada no way.
if this was happening 7 days from now maybe.....
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On March 25 2009 07:05 ibutoss wrote:
APRIL FOOLS! This has epic fail written all over it. Most countries don't have the required internet connections to make this possible. Korea maybe but Usa/Uk/Canada no way.
What you talking about?!
The UK standard is 8Mb, you only need 5. I'm sure USA is the same.
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I literally cannot actually believe this. There must be something wrong. Either way, you couldn't do it in my country.
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Wow this is exactly what I thought of like a month ago when I was wondering If I could run Fallout 3 on my home comp then setup a remote computer control from work and play at work.
I wasn't sure if the specs at work had to be equal since all I am doing is viewing the screen and not actually processing the shit. It should still display everything fine since the monitor doesn't matter right?
I guess I was right, Maybe I should do this now except I forget the site, It was like http://showmypc.com/ Yea that's it!
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ok i was totally wrong about something:
there will be some latency that's inherent with your own internet connection.
shouldn't be more than b.net though! should be really sick!
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On March 25 2009 07:05 ibutoss wrote:
APRIL FOOLS! This has epic fail written all over it. Most countries don't have the required internet connections to make this possible. Korea maybe but Usa/Uk/Canada no way.
so are you stating that people don't have 1.5 MBit connection?
My only fear that this would be an USA only service.
Btw I think this is really the future of gaming.
I have read a lot about similar things in scifi books and works of futurologist.
You just have an input and an output device, for everything else you get the processing from somewhere else.
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It's absolutely not an April Fool's joke, but I don't think this is going to replace PC gaming. 5mbps for 720p video kinda sucks - that's a lot of bandwidth and no one wants to play Crysis at that resolution, at least not on a PC. The latency required to transmit your action, wait for processing on the server, and send the result back to your monitor is easily going to be 50ms minimum. Playing Crysis at 20fps in 1280x720? Not that great. As a replacement for consoles? That's not bad at all.
Oh, and for anyone who's really curious, here are all their published patents/applications. You can type the numbers into the search at http://mpepsearch.org/
+ Show Spoiler +
US7493078 Antenna assembly for satellite and wireless services Onlive 2009-02-17
US7471665 Single transceiver architecture for a wireless network Onlive 2008-12-30
US20050073968 Self-configuring, adaptive, three-dimensional, wireless network Onlive 2005-04-07
US7215660 Single transceiver architecture for a wireless network Onlive 2007-05-08
EP1447939 Selbstkonfigurierendes, adaptives, dreidimensionales drahtloses netz Onlive 2008-01-23
US20040110466 Wireless network providing distributed video / data services Onlive 2004-06-10
US20040160928 Single transceiver architecture for a wireless network Onlive 2004-08-19
US20050176452 Self-configuring, adaptive, three-dimensional, wireless network Onlive 2005-08-11
US20050174960 Method of operation for a three-dimensional, wireless network Onlive 2005-08-11
NZ550347 Apparatus and method for performing motion capture using a random pattern on capture surfaces Onlive 2008-05-30
US20040110463 Antenna assembly for satellite and wireless services Onlive 2004-06-10
US20040110464 Mass storage repository for a wireless network Onlive 2004-06-10
US20040111755 Apparatus and method for wireless video gaming Onlive 2004-06-10
US20040160907 Self-configuring, adaptive, three-dimensional, wireless network Onlive 2004-08-19
US20040160908 Method of operation for a three-dimensional, wireless network Onlive 2004-08-19
US20060055699 Apparatus and method for capturing the expression of a performer Onlive 2006-03-16
US20060055706 Apparatus and method for capturing the motion of a performer Onlive 2006-03-16
US20060192854 Apparatus and method improving marker identification within a motion capture system Onlive 2006-08-31
US20060203096 Apparatus and method for performing motion capture using shutter synchronization Onlive 2006-09-14
US20070091178 Apparatus and method for performing motion capture using a random pattern on capture surfaces Onlive 2007-04-26
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On March 25 2009 07:12 H wrote:
I literally cannot actually believe this. There must be something wrong. Either way, you couldn't do it in my country.
Well there are obvious downsides... like the fact it's going to use up most of your internet connection stopping you from DLing other stuff.
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On March 25 2009 06:38 Klive5ive wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 06:31 distant_voice wrote:
I read about this on IGN. questions that come up immediately are:
- does onlive have the immense bandwidth that is needed for this?
- does onlive have the immense computing power that is needed for this?
- lag? especially once they have thousands of users? "The current solution only introduces one millisecond of lag to encode the video, which alone is completely unnoticeable to you. Obviously, a fast internet connection is required on your end to stream the gameplay video. A 1.5 mbps connection (which is usually what base-level DSL is rated at) is required for standard-definition video (480p), while a 5.0 mbps connection is required for HD (720p)" IGN.com I don't understand how that is possible. How can you have 1ms of lag from an internet connection? Usually you get at least 35ms from a server. I'm trying to think of someway they could send all possible moves to your computer, so all it has to do is make a choice, but that's all I can think of.
It says they only INTRODUCE one millisecond of lag w/ video encoding. They obviously can't speak for lag oover the various tubes of the interweb on which your data travels. And asking about whether or not they have ample hardware is irrelevant - hardware is cheap, scalable, and I'm sure there are smarter people than you at this place with expansion planned out well into the future.
This looks fucking awesome.
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On March 25 2009 07:10 Klive5ive wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 07:05 ibutoss wrote:
APRIL FOOLS! This has epic fail written all over it. Most countries don't have the required internet connections to make this possible. Korea maybe but Usa/Uk/Canada no way. What you talking about?! The UK standard is 8Mb, you only need 5. I'm sure USA is the same.
ADSL/ADSL2+ yes they sound great, 8mb/24mb. However the further you are away from the exchange the slower your actual sync speed will be. Any connection lag will definitely affect this no matter how super their technology is.
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On March 25 2009 07:14 Day[9] wrote:
ok i was totally wrong about something:
there will be some latency that's inherent with your own internet connection.
shouldn't be more than b.net though! should be really sick!
Yeah i was just going to say this. Whatever your own internets ping is is the latency you will have. I dunno about most people but i normally dont get a ping better than 30ms going to most places.
Almost all of my computer knowledge is telling me that this wont work. We simply dont have the technology yet but i'd be super happy to be proven wrong.
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On March 25 2009 07:14 Day[9] wrote:
ok i was totally wrong about something:
there will be some latency that's inherent with your own internet connection.
shouldn't be more than b.net though! should be really sick!
So basically it's a high quality streaming video that updates according to your actions which are processed on the server end. Very cool idea and it's the first truly marketable cloud computing idea I've heard of. However, the internet latency will range from annoying to terrible in the USA. I can't imagine an fps being fun with a 250ms latency.
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Yeah, if you want to play every single one of your games with lag, have fun with that.
~Seriously, there are way too many initiatives to "revolutionize" things nowadays when really all they're doing is hiding the same old system behind a few layers of needless complexity.
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If they can do a GGPO like networking than it will be playable
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On March 25 2009 07:14 Day[9] wrote:
ok i was totally wrong about something:
there will be some latency that's inherent with your own internet connection.
shouldn't be more than b.net though! should be really sick!
It's called "cloud computing" day and it's the new rave.
I don't think this is the future of just games, it's the future of computing! Basically, in the future all "computers" will be dumb terminals with an internet connection ready to "log you in" to your account (i.e. operating system). From there you can do whatever you'd normally do as though you were running the operating system locally.
I hate it when Prophecies come true but in striving to centralise computer power in order to increase efficiency we're raising SERIOUS privacy issues. Sometimes cheaper isn't better. I want my own PC.. F*ck off cloud computing!!!!! What's wrong with a little bit of latency?
Say NO to concepts such as this. YOUR PRIVACY IS AT STAKE!
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Crisis on a Mac Book Air? Sounds too good to be true.. I'm definitely looking into this.
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There is no way this is the future of games. It will soon be known as yet another failed concept.
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Perdon for being a spoilsport but..
You know this would 10 times worse than lag you usually have on online games, as lag will be on INTERFACE LEVEL EFF EFF ESS!
turn left
didn't I just press left?
TURN EFFING LEFT ALREADY!
Ohhh, sweet.
We go left.
wait..
hey no, stop this shit. Stop going LEFT ALREADY!
I died a little inside when I heard about this myself. I mean this means that games made for this platform HAS to be shit by definition. Well okay, there are games that don't require any real time interface input accuracy (and if your ping was low and stable it might not be that badbut come on..
Who's along for teH Buzzword ride?
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with this ppl would actually have to buy games again :>
if it actually works...
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nice i hope its not expensive as fuck
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Only problem I see is internet bandwidth for all these cloud computing centers. I remember when major ISPs in Europe couldn't handle WoW users for first few months, but I guess they have some plan for this.
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On March 25 2009 06:41 Day[9] wrote:
but see, this is the nuts part:
all of you are ASSUMING that there's a delay. THERE ISNT!!! You can play crysis on a MACBOOK AIR w/ no lag and it looks great!
Wow that is quite amazing. Even if there is lag initially, if this is carried out for a few more years, as internet speed increases worldwide, it would be an eventual future @_@
That said, there would be no reason to buy alien ware computers anymore. If this works out, PC would stop getting their price jacked up by crazy grafix cards and i wouldnt have to hear anymore gforce versus radeon debates. We'd just all hook up to the mother brain server and play.
YESS THIS WILL PROGRESS HUMANITY TOWARDS BECOMMING THE ZERG SWARM!
now they just need to name one of the servers *cough overminds* Kerrigan.
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Whaaa, scary scenario hacking will be to easy and god forbid if someone gets a single trojan or something onto their networks servers :O Blackhatftw!
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this will be good for multiplayer games, but it'll be definitely be worse for single-player games unless your internet connection is considerably better than your computer (relatively speaking)
the one benefit I can see is that it'll allow access to a much larger variety of games, but other than that you won't see any improvements in games that already have good servers or don't use a centralized server to run their games (ie starcraft)
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I still don't understand how the fuck this would work, but then again, I suck at IT. Anyway this sounds too good to be true but yea, I'd be really happy to be proven wrong.
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This uses the internet. Connecting to anything over the internet has delay regardless of bandwidth capabilities simply due to distance and hops required over numerous amounts of routers. There is no such thing as lagless gaming over the internet.
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On March 25 2009 08:22 azndsh wrote:
this will be good for multiplayer games, but it'll be definitely be worse for single-player games unless your internet connection is considerably better than your computer (relatively speaking)
Lag in multiplayer games would actually be probably be much more noticeable, because as Luhh mentioned, there's lag between your own input and the client. Most modern netcode for games can hide smaller amounts of latency; even if the game client doesn't have all the information necessary to instantly resolve a player's actions, through a combination of extrapolation and other fancy stuff it can make it seems as if the reaction is instant. When lag becomes slightly higher, rather than the player's actions being delayed onscreen, you'll just have some inconsistencies between the client and the server; ie. the player's bullets appear to hit on-screen but the they didn't on the server so no damage is registered.
There's no similar way to hide lag between your own input and the client; it's simply impossible. That lag will always be noticeable, in addition to the normal lag between two clients/the server and the clients. Although that latter bit could probably be eliminated if all players were connected to the same Onlive server farm.
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sounds like it isn't going to work at all
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On March 25 2009 08:29 cava wrote:
This uses the internet. Connecting to anything over the internet has delay regardless of bandwidth capabilities simply due to distance and hops required over numerous amounts of routers. There is no such thing as lagless gaming over the internet.
Yet.
But see, we manage to play relatively lagless gaming on the internet right now. Even if it's not 100% lag free. Have you tried quake live? It's great, even if it's a FPS.
Also, if someone were to tell you 10 years ago what the internet will be like in 2009 you wouldn't believe him/her. Technology and internet speeds are improving each year. This kind of thing may not look so insane next year. And maybe in 3-4-5 year it will start taking over consoles and so on.
Have some faith. There's no other we're able to evolve if people aren't at least TRYING new things.
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Wow, if this works.. Amazing.. But still i think it's a little too soon for this type of shit.
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
On March 25 2009 07:14 Day[9] wrote:
ok i was totally wrong about something:
there will be some latency that's inherent with your own internet connection.
shouldn't be more than b.net though! should be really sick!
This should be quite obvious, especially for someone related to math/computing like you No hyper-duper-compression is able to eliminate signal latency.
It seems to me that this is one of those things that are really cool on paper, but fail in practice.
A very important implication of such setup is that you will have considerable input delay, which is quite different from in-game network delay, especially in fast-paced games such as FPS. Even in laggy network conditions these games emulate immediate response to your input, e.g. in Quake/CS the weapon firing animation happens instantly whenever you press the fire button. In addition, a great deal of motion prediction logic is used in network games, which eliminates visible lag even more.
Starcraft is a good example too. Even if the network delay is 100ms, it is very much playable. However, would it be as much playable if the mouse cursor responded to your mouse movements with a 100ms delay?
Plus, this input delay would in effect be added to the network delay if you were playing a multiplayer game, making the game experience very bad.
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Hey Day[9].
Much respect for your podcasts, but, are you trolling?
1. The concept is not new, and there's nothing to revolutionize
Client-server, dumb-terminal, cloud-computing models have been around for 30 years. To any programmers here, RPC and how often it's used should be familiar. (Cloud computing is a marketing droid term that's come up recently)
I read on a game physics programmer's blog how he found it idiotic that every time the games industry gets something new, it's heralded as the dawn of man, when it's in fact been around in the software industry for a long time. This is more to deal with programming than these types of high level client-server models. I will try to dig up his blog.
2. Latency will kill this
and I kind of chuckled when you threw in:
ok i was totally wrong about something:
there will be some latency that's inherent with your own internet connection.
shouldn't be more than b.net though! should be really sick!
This is THE REASON why this hasn't been done, and why it will fail. Compression or not, if you scroll your mouse around, you will get latency. I am surprised you haven't considered this yourself and started asking questions right away regarding this.
Not worse than bnet latency? You shouldn't be new to players who prefer to play at more than 60 frames per second when they play FPS games.
You can tout this megalomaniac compression algorithm, but you can't tell me that all the data will arrive, uncorrupted. Some of the data will be dropped and it will have be resent. It happens in Starcraft, Warcraft, Quake, Unreal Tournament and even in your very own browser. It's nothing new, its just that games like Quake have to go through extra means of simulating what's not there. Can a computer without any hardware simulate up to 200ms of Crysis? Not at all.
3. North American connections suck
Awhile back the government handed out $200B to telecommunication companies to upgrade the infrastructure and lay down the fiber-optic cable, but they never did. Word is they blew it on coke, hookers, and fast cars. I wouldn't doubt it. More information on the subject.
As you are no doubt aware most of us still have, at the most, up to 10 Mbps, and are restricted to less than 100 GB bandwidth per month. I'm interested in as to how what kind of algorithm they've developed to compress this so much that I can play 1920x1200x60 game for about 7 hours, every day, for a month, and not run out of bandwidth.
Conclusion
You're being scammed and you won't get to play Crysis without buying your own hardware. I left out some other parts, but those three are the big three.
Edit
The basement dwellers over at Slashdot have a copy of the story.
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
On March 25 2009 08:41 CubEdIn wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 08:29 cava wrote:
This uses the internet. Connecting to anything over the internet has delay regardless of bandwidth capabilities simply due to distance and hops required over numerous amounts of routers. There is no such thing as lagless gaming over the internet. Yet. But see, we manage to play relatively lagless gaming on the internet right now. Even if it's not 100% lag free. Have you tried quake live? It's great, even if it's a FPS. Also, if someone were to tell you 10 years ago what the internet will be like in 2009 you wouldn't believe him/her. Technology and internet speeds are improving each year. This kind of thing may not look so insane next year. And maybe in 3-4-5 year it will start taking over consoles and so on. Have some faith. There's no other we're able to evolve if people aren't at least TRYING new things.
A signal cannot travel faster than light. Even under ideal conditions, i.e. speed of signal propagation = speed of light (which is obviously impossible when there is a number of mid-points, or "hops" that require the data packet to be processed and routed accordingly), the minimum time it would take for a signal to travel from say England to Eastern China would be ~50 ms.
Bandwidth will continue to improve, but latency not as much.
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On March 25 2009 08:41 CubEdIn wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 08:29 cava wrote:
This uses the internet. Connecting to anything over the internet has delay regardless of bandwidth capabilities simply due to distance and hops required over numerous amounts of routers. There is no such thing as lagless gaming over the internet. Yet.
No, there's simply no way to completely eliminate lag. Internet speed has already ceased to be a major limiting factor in terms of latency; the bandwidth available to the average person is more than enough for a videogame. The problem is simply moving the data from point A to point B, and even if you're doing so at the speed of light straight across the circumference of Earth there is still latency. Of course it's not very noticeable then unless you're pretty much on opposite sides of the planet, but taking physical topography, the cost of simply building the physical infrastructure necessary, and the transfer of data between different routes into account, lowering latency to the point where it's not noticeable just isn't realistic.
Edit: Damnit Random(). At least I beat you on the other point. ;P
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On March 25 2009 08:21 Lobbo wrote:
Whaaa, scary scenario hacking will be to easy and god forbid if someone gets a single trojan or something onto their networks servers :O Blackhatftw!
Actually, one huge advantage of this is that hacking will be virtually impossible because your computer/console won't have any game state information to read or manipulate. That's pretty awesome. In fact, this solution has always been the holy grail of cheat-free gaming; it just hasn't been feasible.
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On March 25 2009 09:01 ShadowDrgn wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 08:21 Lobbo wrote:
Whaaa, scary scenario hacking will be to easy and god forbid if someone gets a single trojan or something onto their networks servers :O Blackhatftw! Actually, one huge advantage of this is that hacking will be virtually impossible because your computer/console won't have any game state information to read or manipulate. That's pretty awesome. In fact, this solution has always been the holy grail of cheat-free gaming; it just hasn't been feasible.
cheating free yeah, but you still have to connect to their servers, and if there is a trigger happy virus on there you will also have it transferred back.
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On March 25 2009 09:04 Lobbo wrote:
cheating free yeah, but you still have to connect to their servers, and if there is a trigger happy virus on there you will also have it transferred back.
No, if you think this you lack a basic understanding of how this works(and I suspect of how virus' work in general.)
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On March 25 2009 08:29 cava wrote:
This uses the internet. Connecting to anything over the internet has delay regardless of bandwidth capabilities simply due to distance and hops required over numerous amounts of routers. There is no such thing as lagless gaming over the internet.
This is true to an extent but do keep in mind that the internet is consistently getting better and better.
I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a very near sub 5ms internet connection within the next 5 years. The closer to the speed of light information can travel and all.
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On March 25 2009 09:07 armed_ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 09:04 Lobbo wrote:
cheating free yeah, but you still have to connect to their servers, and if there is a trigger happy virus on there you will also have it transferred back. No, if you think this you lack a basic understanding of how this works(and I suspect of how virus' work in general.)
Someone could hack into the Onlive servers, alter their compression program to encode a virus into the video stream, and then exploit a bug in the local decompression algorithm to execute the virus on your machine. This would only be a few orders of magnitude more difficult than spreading a virus in a normal method. 
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On March 25 2009 08:57 Random() wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 08:41 CubEdIn wrote:On March 25 2009 08:29 cava wrote:
This uses the internet. Connecting to anything over the internet has delay regardless of bandwidth capabilities simply due to distance and hops required over numerous amounts of routers. There is no such thing as lagless gaming over the internet. Yet. But see, we manage to play relatively lagless gaming on the internet right now. Even if it's not 100% lag free. Have you tried quake live? It's great, even if it's a FPS. Also, if someone were to tell you 10 years ago what the internet will be like in 2009 you wouldn't believe him/her. Technology and internet speeds are improving each year. This kind of thing may not look so insane next year. And maybe in 3-4-5 year it will start taking over consoles and so on. Have some faith. There's no other we're able to evolve if people aren't at least TRYING new things. A signal cannot travel faster than light. Even under ideal conditions, i.e. speed of signal propagation = speed of light (which is obviously impossible when there is a number of mid-points, or "hops" that require the data packet to be processed and routed accordingly), the minimum time it would take for a signal to travel from say England to Eastern China would be ~50 ms. Bandwidth will continue to improve, but latency not as much.
why on earth do you think people in europe will have to play on servers in eastern china? You will play on your closest server. I can typically play left 4 dead at less than 5ms lag in the uk to a uk server (i have a reasonably good connection). I'm sure that would be fine no? And as for playing other people online, couldnt your just play people also connected to the server you are already streaming from? Hence giving you no additional lag? I'm no expert by any means and if someone else could tell me where im wrong please do, i just dont see why ppl argue about the whole lagging issue with playing ppl the other side of the world. The answer is you simply dont.
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The thing I thought of, as has been said, is the qty of bandwidth per month people will be using. Just 1Mbps for 1 hour a day is 3600 x 30 = 108 gigs a month. You can't play too much with that, unless you're lucky to have an unlimited contract, and if so, your internet provider may be in trouble soon.
Seemed like a great idea when I started reading the thread, then p3 is not so great :O...
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On March 25 2009 09:15 blapsd wrote:
I can typically play left 4 dead at less than 5ms lag in the uk to a uk server (i have a reasonably good connection). I'm sure that would be fine no?
If you're lucky enough to live next door to the Onlive server farm, sure.
On March 25 2009 09:12 Jayme wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a very near sub 5ms internet connection within the next 5 years. The closer to the speed of light information can travel and all.
Would you really? Because even if you're transferring data at the speed of light in a straight line between two computers, you wouldn't be able to get a 5ms ping from anything more than ~750 km away.
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
On March 25 2009 09:15 blapsd wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 08:57 Random() wrote:On March 25 2009 08:41 CubEdIn wrote:On March 25 2009 08:29 cava wrote:
This uses the internet. Connecting to anything over the internet has delay regardless of bandwidth capabilities simply due to distance and hops required over numerous amounts of routers. There is no such thing as lagless gaming over the internet. Yet. But see, we manage to play relatively lagless gaming on the internet right now. Even if it's not 100% lag free. Have you tried quake live? It's great, even if it's a FPS. Also, if someone were to tell you 10 years ago what the internet will be like in 2009 you wouldn't believe him/her. Technology and internet speeds are improving each year. This kind of thing may not look so insane next year. And maybe in 3-4-5 year it will start taking over consoles and so on. Have some faith. There's no other we're able to evolve if people aren't at least TRYING new things. A signal cannot travel faster than light. Even under ideal conditions, i.e. speed of signal propagation = speed of light (which is obviously impossible when there is a number of mid-points, or "hops" that require the data packet to be processed and routed accordingly), the minimum time it would take for a signal to travel from say England to Eastern China would be ~50 ms. Bandwidth will continue to improve, but latency not as much. why on earth do you think people in europe will have to play on servers in eastern china? You will play on your closest server. I can typically play left 4 dead at less than 5ms lag in the uk to a uk server (i have a reasonably good connection). I'm sure that would be fine no? And as for playing other people online, couldnt your just play people also connected to the server you are already streaming from? Hence giving you no additional lag? I'm no expert by any means and if someone else could tell me where im wrong please do, i just dont see why ppl argue about the whole lagging issue with playing ppl the other side of the world. The answer is you simply dont.
This is true of course, I just used that as an extreme example to illustrate that no matter how clever you are, there always exist certain physical limitations that you cannot overcome.
Your example is another extreme, however. 5ms latency means that the server is very likely in the same city as you are, which makes it more of a LAN connection, which is not the purpose of Internet as a world-wide web, is it? I think if you try to play with people from Europe, 40-100ms is a more realistic estimation.
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I did read all the articles, and unless I missed something, none of them address the issue. Care to quote?
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On March 25 2009 09:31 Random() wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 09:15 blapsd wrote:On March 25 2009 08:57 Random() wrote:On March 25 2009 08:41 CubEdIn wrote:On March 25 2009 08:29 cava wrote:
This uses the internet. Connecting to anything over the internet has delay regardless of bandwidth capabilities simply due to distance and hops required over numerous amounts of routers. There is no such thing as lagless gaming over the internet. Yet. But see, we manage to play relatively lagless gaming on the internet right now. Even if it's not 100% lag free. Have you tried quake live? It's great, even if it's a FPS. Also, if someone were to tell you 10 years ago what the internet will be like in 2009 you wouldn't believe him/her. Technology and internet speeds are improving each year. This kind of thing may not look so insane next year. And maybe in 3-4-5 year it will start taking over consoles and so on. Have some faith. There's no other we're able to evolve if people aren't at least TRYING new things. A signal cannot travel faster than light. Even under ideal conditions, i.e. speed of signal propagation = speed of light (which is obviously impossible when there is a number of mid-points, or "hops" that require the data packet to be processed and routed accordingly), the minimum time it would take for a signal to travel from say England to Eastern China would be ~50 ms. Bandwidth will continue to improve, but latency not as much. why on earth do you think people in europe will have to play on servers in eastern china? You will play on your closest server. I can typically play left 4 dead at less than 5ms lag in the uk to a uk server (i have a reasonably good connection). I'm sure that would be fine no? And as for playing other people online, couldnt your just play people also connected to the server you are already streaming from? Hence giving you no additional lag? I'm no expert by any means and if someone else could tell me where im wrong please do, i just dont see why ppl argue about the whole lagging issue with playing ppl the other side of the world. The answer is you simply dont. This is true of course, I just used that as an extreme example to illustrate that no matter how clever you are, there always exist certain physical limitations that you cannot overcome. Your example is another extreme, however. 5ms latency means that the server is very likely in the same city as you are, which makes it more of a LAN connection, which is not the purpose of Internet as a world-wide web, is it? I think if you try to play with people from Europe, 40-100ms is a more realistic estimation.
I see what you're saying and you're right. It would never be really global, like the world wide web is at the moment. However I'd be perfectly content playing people from around UK or close by in europe only, not sure how many other people would be. Could someone answer this for me though?...Would playing other people online using this method cause any ADDITIONAL lag if you are simply both playing it through the same server? Because surely its just sending everyone the same information at the same time, and information that you send yourself has to go through a server usually anyway.
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Holy shit if this is actually as good as they say it is that's insane... could revolutionize not just the gaming industry, but if this compression algorithm is that amazing they could use it for streaming video on the internet, download hosting, etc....
could monopolize all data transfer on the internet with liscensing fees for hosting and make a fortune with it being so much faster than normal downloads.
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As you are no doubt aware most of us still have, at the most, up to 10 Mbps, and are restricted to less than 100 GB bandwidth per month
Who the hell are these people I keep reading about on TL with ridiculous restrictions on their internet? I pay $40 a month to Time Warner and I plug in a cable modem, that's it. I don't get my downloads 'measured' or my 'speed' capped. WTF? Who would EVER pay for internet that did this? (Besides australia where that level of service is actually a miracle)
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The great part about this system is that there is seriously NOWAY you can cheat since the games are not installed on your pc or anything,
NO CHEATING ANYMORE FOR THE WINNNNNNNNNNNN
besides that i hate console shit and will probably be playing sc2 for the comming 10 years ( i hope) so shit sucks anyway -.-
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This sounds too good to be true. I mean you just said that we will be able to:
1. Have awesome quality with crappy hardware.
2. Have almost no lag.
3. Pay $50 a year.
I wish it were true but my imagination isn't that active. I mean is the graphic displayed on your computer going to be processed and produced by the far-away server's processor and graphic card and then sent back to you via your internet connection? This sounds like crazy amounts of bandwidth. But hey, if the algorithm stuff is true won't is affect all types of internet transmission? Can you say 1080p youtube videos that load instantly lol!
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they are going to need some massive upstream bandwidth
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On March 25 2009 14:04 garmule2 wrote:Show nested quote +As you are no doubt aware most of us still have, at the most, up to 10 Mbps, and are restricted to less than 100 GB bandwidth per month Who the hell are these people I keep reading about on TL with ridiculous restrictions on their internet? I pay $40 a month to Time Warner and I plug in a cable modem, that's it. I don't get my downloads 'measured' or my 'speed' capped. WTF? Who would EVER pay for internet that did this? (Besides australia where that level of service is actually a miracle)
Australians T_T
Edit: didnt see the "besides australia"
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On March 25 2009 10:51 -orb- wrote:
Holy shit if this is actually as good as they say it is that's insane... could revolutionize not just the gaming industry, but if this compression algorithm is that amazing they could use it for streaming video on the internet, download hosting, etc....
could monopolize all data transfer on the internet with liscensing fees for hosting and make a fortune with it being so much faster than normal downloads.
Mehh I probably would have heard about this amazing 'new' algorithm already if it really was so amazing since streaming and compression is what my dad works on for a living. This entire thing seems like it really getting blown out of proportion.
I'm still waiting for additional information at this power, however.
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WOW JESUS
GO WATCH THE GDC PRESENTATION!!!!
it's like 100x better than i imagined
holy fuck!!
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On March 25 2009 08:57 Random() wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 08:41 CubEdIn wrote:On March 25 2009 08:29 cava wrote:
This uses the internet. Connecting to anything over the internet has delay regardless of bandwidth capabilities simply due to distance and hops required over numerous amounts of routers. There is no such thing as lagless gaming over the internet. Yet. But see, we manage to play relatively lagless gaming on the internet right now. Even if it's not 100% lag free. Have you tried quake live? It's great, even if it's a FPS. Also, if someone were to tell you 10 years ago what the internet will be like in 2009 you wouldn't believe him/her. Technology and internet speeds are improving each year. This kind of thing may not look so insane next year. And maybe in 3-4-5 year it will start taking over consoles and so on. Have some faith. There's no other we're able to evolve if people aren't at least TRYING new things. A signal cannot travel faster than light. Even under ideal conditions, i.e. speed of signal propagation = speed of light (which is obviously impossible when there is a number of mid-points, or "hops" that require the data packet to be processed and routed accordingly), the minimum time it would take for a signal to travel from say England to Eastern China would be ~50 ms. Bandwidth will continue to improve, but latency not as much.
You'll eat your words when PPPoW (PPP over Wormhole) comes out!
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United States3824 Posts
This is pretty cool.
To Bob: You'll eat your words when subspace data stream comes out
That's from Star Trek Voyager BTW
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This sounds exactly like ggpo.
Except a big company decided to streamline it and market on a larger scale to make money.
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On March 25 2009 16:13 ZoW wrote:
This sounds exactly like ggpo.
No. No it doesn't.
The only similarity it bears to GGPO is that both involve games and the internet.
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great now i can play halo without buying a 360 =]
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You've got to remember that hc players are the niche and casual players are the vast majority. This opens excellent business plans aimed for families and casual players, not unlike cable/satellite television packages etc.
Of course the technology itself is not geared towards hc gamers (which begs the question why a hc gamer like day would praise the solution here, eventhough he should be tech savvy enough to know it doesn't work for the target audience of this site. Peer to peer marketing mayhaps?
Anyhow, it's a brilliant business plan. It's just not aimed for us.
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For 50$ a year, I'd rather just add a kickass video card to the computer I'm going to have already anyways.
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On March 25 2009 15:18 SonuvBob wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 08:57 Random() wrote:On March 25 2009 08:41 CubEdIn wrote:On March 25 2009 08:29 cava wrote:
This uses the internet. Connecting to anything over the internet has delay regardless of bandwidth capabilities simply due to distance and hops required over numerous amounts of routers. There is no such thing as lagless gaming over the internet. Yet. But see, we manage to play relatively lagless gaming on the internet right now. Even if it's not 100% lag free. Have you tried quake live? It's great, even if it's a FPS. Also, if someone were to tell you 10 years ago what the internet will be like in 2009 you wouldn't believe him/her. Technology and internet speeds are improving each year. This kind of thing may not look so insane next year. And maybe in 3-4-5 year it will start taking over consoles and so on. Have some faith. There's no other we're able to evolve if people aren't at least TRYING new things. A signal cannot travel faster than light. Even under ideal conditions, i.e. speed of signal propagation = speed of light (which is obviously impossible when there is a number of mid-points, or "hops" that require the data packet to be processed and routed accordingly), the minimum time it would take for a signal to travel from say England to Eastern China would be ~50 ms. Bandwidth will continue to improve, but latency not as much. You'll eat your words when PPPoW (PPP over Wormhole) comes out!
Rofl.
But seriously, I never said it will be completely lag-free. I'm saying it will be as good (if not better) then it is now. You can play 90% of the games at a competitive level with <100ms latency, and even if I play, say, dota with Testie, I get 150-200 ms from a host in Canada, which is on the other side of the globe. I'm thinking that if various factors manage to drop this to about 100, we'll have no problem playing any game online.
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
I've read some of the articles, and they actually bring up another issue: the amount of traffic this thing requires.
Okay, let's assume that somehow they managed to set up a server cluster in every major city and the latency is indeed negligible.
But how many users such cluster would be able to support? I think 10,000 simultaneous users (in a big city) is a reasonable number. Then, if it is 5 Mbps per user, it becomes 50 Gbps per cluster (sustained transfer rate). This is comparable to the capacity of a national backbone. For example, the trans-atlantic backbone between NY and London is something in the order of 300Gbps (my data may be old though). Where are they going to get such infrastructure?
Bandwidth aside, this would generate 16.2 petabytes of traffic per month per cluster. This has to cost something too.
I don't know, maybe I am too old and sceptical to beleive that something like this is going to work, but I really cannot see how.
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Like its been said alredy in this thread, no revolutionary technology is going to do anything for lag until we can break the speed of light. This will fail simply because of that fact. Even very small latency will become very difficult to play with if there is latency between your mouse and the screen
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Let me see if I've got this right.
"New JIT Compiler bounds the bottleneck of thin-client console gaming to the throughput of the highest-latency player."
[ ] Sensational
[x] Succinct
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My friend told me about this a few days ago and holy shit, if this works like they say it does, it'll be nuts. still, i'm skeptical that it will work flawlessly right off the bat so it may take a few weeks/months to work out the kinks. but this seems like a really really great idea.
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Wow this sounds like an effective way to reduce piracy, and make gaming (especially pc gaming) more accessible to casual players.
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This does sound like the holy grail and if it works as well as advertised then it will do great things, not just for the game community. It sounds like it's centralized around some crazy powerful compression algorithm which can allow for streaming of tons of data without lag which could easily be applied to tons of things. If it does what I think it does, Youtube should be interested in this for example.
However, I'm honestly still very skeptical. I predict there to be lag. Enough that the really lag sensitive genres like FPS and fighting games won't want to deal with it. I have a co worker that was at GDC and tried OnLive's demo and he said he noticed lag. So again, this sounds like a massive game changer for the games industry and possibly the internet as a whole but let's not get too ahead of ourselves until we try it.
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The catch: 480p is only 640x480 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/480p ). That is starcraft resolution. That is fkin low.
Combined with "If you compress game data so much that it can be sent instantaneously over the Internet" leads me to think they send you the graphics in some kind of video format: It is as if you watch the live stream of your own game in low res.
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United States3824 Posts
How's the disbelief in the community going so far?
This is one of those news threads that you have to keep coming back to to see how everyone is doing.
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I don't believe it. Phantom showed up at things like GDC as well. The whole thing hinges on some sort of magic compression that they don't explain how it works, that their servers are going to be able to perform on the fly while also playing the game
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I'm interested to see how this is gonna play out. I hope it isnt a flop and actually works as described. It is a very cool idea seeing as not everyone has or can afford a super computer.
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If it works as advertised it would be amazing. Man sounds too good to be true though.
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I think this service would be totally viable for turn based games or RPGs.
FPS, fighter games or games like Starcraft? I doubt it.
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On March 29 2009 07:13 floor exercise wrote:
I don't believe it. Phantom showed up at things like GDC as well. The whole thing hinges on some sort of magic compression that they don't explain how it works, that their servers are going to be able to perform on the fly while also playing the game
You win the internet.
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streammygames does the same thing right ? :D
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If it works, it will save the pc gaming industry. If it fails, consoles will continue to rule until it actually works.
Pros:
1. Save the pc gaming industry.
2. Eliminate hacking/cheating.
3.Reach the macs
4.Reach the casuals for pc gaming.
5.No more upgrades for hardware.
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On March 29 2009 06:39 Navane wrote:
Combined with "If you compress game data so much that it can be sent instantaneously over the Internet" leads me to think they send you the graphics in some kind of video format: It is as if you watch the live stream of your own game in low res.
Uh, yes? This is blatantly stated in most of the press about it, since that's simply how it works? How did you expect them to send you the graphics data, if not in some kind of image format? -_-"
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aside from the bandwith problem, this CAN work for most singleplayer games on console/pc currently developed/released. think of gears of war 2. where the FUCK would you need low latency for the singleplayer to work?
THIS IS NOT INTENDED FOR HIGH END MULTIPLAYER and therefore, i can't see why you guys try to cast it into this way.
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Put me in the super skeptical camp.
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This will not feel responsive at all, with regards to seeing a response on the screen corresponding with a particular keystroke or button press. It will just feel like shit. Not that it's a bad idea, it's obviously very creative. But even playing StarCraft with a wireless mouse for me is annoying (slight delay between moving the mouse with ur hand, and seeing it move on screen, but still noticable and annoying)
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As I see it, every game would need extra coding for somehow making the user input not lag.
For me, living in the middle of nowhere in Germany, my ping is 60 in the average-good case. Let's take the FPS case. I press w and try to move forward. The command goes to the server, takes 60 ms. Then the server computes my command and moves my character. Let's say that does not create any delay, and the video is sent back. It then has another 60 ms. This is a 120ms delay, which you have by default. And it is not the standard lag you would get on a server, your own movements are delayed, which is very hard to deal with and very noticable at 120 ms.
In a regular FPS, you move client side, sending the information to the server as you move. You don't have a delay between you input and your actual actions. The server only gets your commands after your ping, 60 ms, for example. It's the same way for your opponents. On their Pc, they will be at some place. On the server, they will be 60 ms behind, on your Pc, they will be 120 ms (their ping+your ping to the server) behind. This leads to missing shots, because your opponent is not actualy at the position where you see him.
I am not really into this, but how I understand the anti-lag code usualy works is, that it calculates the time backwards, so that when you shoot your opponent, you actualy hit him.
The way it works in Starcraft is, that every action you do is delayed by a certain time period, depending on the latency (lan - bnet / each with low - extra high). The commands are sent to the other person, where the units then execute the commands. If the packages with the commands need longer than the preset latency (i.e. lan latency is 100ms, your latency to opponent 150), the game will lag.
Those solutions are however game specific, and only fix the lag between two players. I have no clue how you would fix the lag between client and server for the streaming games, and I don't think it would be playable with the lag.
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On March 25 2009 07:10 Klive5ive wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 07:05 ibutoss wrote:
APRIL FOOLS! This has epic fail written all over it. Most countries don't have the required internet connections to make this possible. Korea maybe but Usa/Uk/Canada no way. What you talking about?! The UK standard is 8Mb, you only need 5. I'm sure USA is the same.
I got a 7.5 in canada and its the "standard high-spped version"
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On March 30 2009 04:02 h3r1n6 wrote:
As I see it, every game would need extra coding for somehow making the user input not lag.
This is absolutely impossible.
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wow this is awesome, especially for us new zealanders and Australians and South Americans.
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On March 30 2009 07:42 armed_ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2009 04:02 h3r1n6 wrote:
As I see it, every game would need extra coding for somehow making the user input not lag. This is absolutely impossible.
Who knows, maybe they'll break laws of physics.
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On March 30 2009 09:03 stroggos wrote:
wow this is awesome, especially for us new zealanders and Australians and South Americans.
Actually the technology, if it did work would still be useless for us. You need reliable internet for this to be viable at all 
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i am highly skeptical that this thing will actually be able to manage hundreds (if not thousands) or people playing crysis with no lag. the hardware needed would be ridiculous, let alone the bandwidth that is required.
edit: ok just looked at the list of "current partners" and must admit that it is quite a list. thought i don't believe onlive (yet) i trust the partners enough that i would give it a shot.
link to list: http://www.onlive.com/partners.html
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The whole idea is stupid and doesn't make sense.
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wow, as mentioned before this does sound way to fuckin good to be true. i'll take another look at this in a few years, currently my computer can run pretty much all the games on high (except gta iv and crysis). but damn, this mite encourage me to go actually purchase games lmao.
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On March 30 2009 07:42 armed_ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2009 04:02 h3r1n6 wrote:
As I see it, every game would need extra coding for somehow making the user input not lag. This is absolutely impossible.
Actually, the game will run server side as a single instance (per match at least), so all the player's inputs can be put in sync by the onlive server side process, before passing it to the game instance.
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On March 30 2009 04:02 h3r1n6 wrote:
As I see it, every game would need extra coding for somehow making the user input not lag.
For me, living in the middle of nowhere in Germany, my ping is 60 in the average-good case. Let's take the FPS case. I press w and try to move forward. The command goes to the server, takes 60 ms. Then the server computes my command and moves my character. Let's say that does not create any delay, and the video is sent back. It then has another 60 ms. This is a 120ms delay, which you have by default. And it is not the standard lag you would get on a server, your own movements are delayed, which is very hard to deal with and very noticable at 120 ms.
In a regular FPS, you move client side, sending the information to the server as you move. You don't have a delay between you input and your actual actions. The server only gets your commands after your ping, 60 ms, for example. It's the same way for your opponents. On their Pc, they will be at some place. On the server, they will be 60 ms behind, on your Pc, they will be 120 ms (their ping+your ping to the server) behind. This leads to missing shots, because your opponent is not actualy at the position where you see him.
I am not really into this, but how I understand the anti-lag code usualy works is, that it calculates the time backwards, so that when you shoot your opponent, you actualy hit him.
The way it works in Starcraft is, that every action you do is delayed by a certain time period, depending on the latency (lan - bnet / each with low - extra high). The commands are sent to the other person, where the units then execute the commands. If the packages with the commands need longer than the preset latency (i.e. lan latency is 100ms, your latency to opponent 150), the game will lag.
Those solutions are however game specific, and only fix the lag between two players. I have no clue how you would fix the lag between client and server for the streaming games, and I don't think it would be playable with the lag.
Ping is the time for the packet to travel to other peer and back, so 60ms ping is 60ms delay.
The server you play on will be hosted on the same pc/cluster that streams the game to you, so after the input delay, there will be no extra client-server delay. Still input delay is much worse than server lag, because it fells awkward and affects single player games as well.
As I see it this will be mostly for casual gamers that don't want to pay upfront for a console or a high end pc.
On March 30 2009 04:29 FaCE_1 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 07:10 Klive5ive wrote:On March 25 2009 07:05 ibutoss wrote:
APRIL FOOLS! This has epic fail written all over it. Most countries don't have the required internet connections to make this possible. Korea maybe but Usa/Uk/Canada no way. What you talking about?! The UK standard is 8Mb, you only need 5. I'm sure USA is the same. I got a 7.5 in canada and its the "standard high-spped version"
You can get 20mbit/s ADSL for 10-12 euro/month around here.
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most of the cs majors in my school agrees that this idea won't float and even if it did
there's no way there would be no lag time... there's still internet lag
esp if u r talking about using wifi...
and plus this isn't really legit cloud computing in that they rn't' gonna use other ppl's comp do run their games now r they? say it get popular that they have more ppl playing games at any given time then they have processes for then wat? it's just like playing on ur own desktop now...
the idea sounds cute and would be cool but im not putting any money down till it comes out and at least is patched once or beaten by another company in a competitive market
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Wow, If I had a ping that stayed reliably on 150 I would be one happy Brazilian, and I see people complaining about the possibility of playing with 120 lol.
/remembers tons of defeats in WC3 because the fucking TP never came out in time because I played with 250+ ms
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Germany2896 Posts
Unreal Networking Architecture document on the history of game networking architecturesNext came the monolithic client-server architecture, pioneered by Quake, and later used by Ultima Online. Here, one machine was designated "server", and was responsible for making all of the gameplay decisions. The other machines were "clients", and they were regarded as dumb rendering terminals, which sent their keystrokes to the server, and received a list of objects to render. This advancement enabled large-scale Internet gaming, as game servers started springing up all over the Internet. The client-server architecture was later extended by QuakeWorld and Quake 2, which moved additional simulation and prediction logic to the client side, in order to increase visible detail while lowering bandwidth usage. Here, the client receives not only a list of objects to render, but also information about their trajectories, so the client can make rudimentary predictions about object motion. In addition, a lock-step prediction protocol was introduced in order to eliminate perceived latency in client movement.
Yeah go back to Quake 1 level of networkcode. Sounds like progress to me. Only difference is the reduced client hardware requirenment when rendering on the server. And since the server requires a lot of rendering hardware then, I see no real gain.
So
+ Less hardware required on the client
- More hardware required on the server (graphicscard wise about as much as you safe on the client, processorwise it is more efficient)
- Bad latency characteristics for servers more than a few ms away
- Insane bandwidth requirenments
- Probably worse graphics due to badwidth limitations
50$ a year does not sound realistic. At 500MB/h (HD quality, bandwidth might be even worse due to severe timeconstraints when encoding) and 10ct/MB this corresponsds to 1000h a year. And it does not yet include the energy burned by their computer center, or even the hardware costs.
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its a great idea (FINALLY I CAN PLAY HL2 PROPERLY ON THIS PIECE OF ..)
but what about hardware companies. I do not think they will support this because companies like Alien ware cater to PC gamers, selling hi-end hi level computers.
As a gamer I like this. As someone who works at a company like Alien ware.... not so much
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Steve Perlmen, one of the people behind OnLive is quoted as saying:
"Perceptually, it appears the game is playing locally... what we have is something that is absolutely incredible. You should be sceptical. My first thinking was this shouldn't work, but it does." [sic]
This article discusses some of the reasons why it's not going to work. They are very valid reasons, because thus far OnLive has only been tested in a controlled environment, not in a real one.
Videos are pretty and all, but lets not forget the reason why Quakeworld was made: LAN and internet play are very very different. Latency and packet loss are things that need to be taken into account, and this is where the "controlled" environment is no longer controlled.
Welcome to the real world.
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I dunno why, but I'm afraid.
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This can end in nothing but epic failure, or an April Fools joke.
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sure does look like the future. pretty cool
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If this is truly everything it is cracked up to be it is simply amazing. I had never heard of this before so thanks for the bump. It sounds like they are getting some game developers on board and all those type of things. If it is truly as great as it sounds - I hope it takes off. It sounds like a big revolution for gaming.
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On March 25 2009 06:41 Day[9] wrote:
but see, this is the nuts part:
all of you are ASSUMING that there's a delay. THERE ISNT!!! You can play crysis on a MACBOOK AIR w/ no lag and it looks great!
I have super smart friends who've been working on this for almost a year now (company has been in the works for about 7 years) and it's just as amazing as it sounds. Isn't that sick???
haha that's pretty fuunny
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Weird first post, but I'm really curious about this ... so:
Am I getting it wrong or is 1 ms latency merely the time they need to generate the frame not the actual latency?
Because he proudly talks about that within 1000 miles the latency would be less than 80 ms and therefore not noticeable ... that's fine for most games, but I remember when I played q3 cpma 80 ms lag was just unacceptable, no need for even trying to use the railgun.
Well, still pretty amazing stuff except for fast paced mp games
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I'm actually in the beta for this service right now. It works as advertised and isn't vaporware in case anyone was still wondering, but due to NDA I can't talk about it.
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This truly will be a new era of video games... I can see it easily spreading around the world.
It is also great for games' developers since this is a 100% safe way to end piracy. The device will play only games, you have bought the right to play, that are online on a server somewhere.
On March 25 2009 07:05 ibutoss wrote:
APRIL FOOLS! This has epic fail written all over it. Most countries don't have the required internet connections to make this possible. Korea maybe but Usa/Uk/Canada no way.
In Germany connection types of less than 6Mbit are not offered. 16Mbit is becoming standard. Basically all of West Europe can easily support such a system.
As I was in the US three years ago, we had 1Mbit connection and we lived at some god-forgotten 800 man village somewhere in Vermont. In bigger US cities there is no problem to get a connection fast enough for this system.
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Im not sure if I understood correctly, but is he claiming that 80ms delay means that it will look instaneous?
That is soooo far from the truth, 80ms is very noticable even though you can get used to it, like said before, Quake is a prime example of this.
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Everything I know about networking tells me they can't possibly give you a completely lagfree experience because they don't own the hardware/software that gets the signal from point A to point B.
As for the awesome graphics, I have no trouble believing it. It would be like a streamed video of a game taking place somewhere else.
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in any fps 80 ms is noticeable by quite a bit. in counterstrike the mechanics and timing of your recoil/movement completely change when going from 20ms to 80
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Sounds like a lot of marketing speak to me.
For perspective, if you're playing a game at 60 fps, then the period for which every frame is displayed is one 60th of a second or 16.7 ms. So, whatever command you enter, under the worst case scenario and assuming 60 frames per second, the time between when you perform an action and the results of that action begin to be displayed to you is 16.7 ms plus the input lag of your monitor. This is considered a smooth experience.
By contrast these guys are talking about 80 ms latency for the round trip. So 80 ms after you input your command you will see your results in the average case (not the worst case which can be far worse due to traffic spikes or whatever other non-deterministic phenomena which occur in the network). 80 ms of lag on the input layer would feel as responsive as playing a game at about 13 fps! (Remember, this is lag on the input layer so there are no coding tricks that you can use to reduce the impact of this lag.) Even though you will receive more updates about the results of your action, you're still left with the fundamental lag in responsiveness and I'm pretty sure that this will be noticeable.
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oh my god.....! this is amazing!
I hope this really works out, this is good money. And finally a way to get rid of piracy, thus giving us cheaper games!
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On December 23 2009 08:48 Mutaahh wrote:
oh my god.....! this is amazing!
I hope this really works out, this is good money. And finally a way to get rid of piracy, thus giving us cheaper games!
But.. we like piracy...
This stuff is an interesting innovation to all the games that are out in console. With this lag feature, maybe dedicated servers for MW2 isn't a big deal anymore, or is it? Well I don't know, but what I do know is that I can play L4D2 in 1 ms and deadstop these noob hunters even easier. :D
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Well most Australians will probably never be able to fully utilise this service because of our suckzlah internet :<
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On December 23 2009 09:05 ToyotaDemon wrote:
Well most Australians will probably never be able to fully utilise this service because of our suckzlah internet :<
Very first thing I thought when I saw this article
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Another great thing about this is if all the hardware/software is on an untouchable server there would be no more hacking/cheating in games.
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On December 23 2009 07:07 Duke wrote:
in any fps 80 ms is noticeable by quite a bit. in counterstrike the mechanics and timing of your recoil/movement completely change when going from 20ms to 80
I dont' know I always play in 80 ms and really thats not laggy at all or anything. I can see people caring if they played on LAN all the time or something but 80 ms is good imo better then going 150 and above ^^.
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Totally depends on the game. In a fast paced FPS played at a high level, anything above 20-30 ms is unplayable. However in other games a ping of 100 or even more could still work.
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I think 80ms is no problem, that is more than enough of a standard to get the ball rolling for this company and idea.
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Although I seriously doubt this will work as well as they are claiming it will, I still hope this project turns out to be a success. If it does, it could very well singlehandedly revitalise the PC gaming industry. Assuming this technology can work the way they are claiming, it would remove a lot of the barriers and hassle people encounter when trying to delve into PC gaming.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8556874.stm
OnLive has been in development for eight years and will officially become available on June 17.
OnLive will be available for a monthly rental fee of $14.95 (£9.99) for subscribers to then buy or rent games over the internet.
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This sounds great to me. I love PC gaming but i have never had good enough hardware to run the best games out there. Hopefully this will enable me to run more of the newer games out there
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I know I wouldn't be happy. If I can't watch 1080p videos without waiting to let them load before I start. I don't think that I would be able to play a game at a reasonably high resolution. Until stories like mine are only true under unusual circumstances I don't think an idea like this can work, but It would be nice to be able to play the new hot game on my (weak) laptop.
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Seems like this service will start June 17th 2010, so soon. Wonder if they have SC2 as their selection. Oh and If check their facebook updates seems that many countries has been added to service.
http://www.facebook.com/OnLive
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Unless they have servers running this within 100m from every household in the country then there will be noticeable lag.
You cannot violate the laws of physics.
This also has the potential to kill the PC hardware market, as there would never be any need to have anything more powerful than a laptop that can play video somewhat reasonably.
This would also never work in Australia, mostly due to the fact that our internet sucks, and that we have prohibitively expensive and controlled internet connections.
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On May 24 2010 01:46 Shrewmy wrote:
Unless they have servers running this within 100m from every household in the country then there will be noticeable lag.
You cannot violate the laws of physics.
I'm extremely skeptical. How exactly are they going to stream 1600x1200 resolution video to me while I upload inputs to the server with less than noticeable input lag?
Bear in mind that input lag on some bad LCD displays can go as high as 60ms and this is already very noticeable.
Maybe for Wii games...
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Maybe in the Baltic States.
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I know this is an old thread but since it got necro'd, might as well post. I can't wait to see what kind of magic they'll pull off for this to work. I won't get to try it myself (at first) because I'm in Canada, but I can't begin to think about how they're going to make it work.
They you can be 1000 miles away from a data center. The speed of light takes roughly 5ms to travel 1000 miles, so 10ms for the back and forth... So far it's doable but add the time it takes to render and read... Man their algorithm better be impressive because even if it takes something ridiculously fast like 15ms to compress and 5ms to read you're already at 30ms and in a FPS 30ms INPUT lag is massive.
And that's not to mention the bandwidth consumption of such a setup.
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im still skeptical.... i think most serious gamers--like us nerds here who go ballistic if SC isnt on lowest lat--will definitely notice some delay
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Input lag is the worst lag possible. I'm pretty sure this will feel horrible for anyone that is not new to gaming, unless they can achieve really really really low latency somehow.
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Canada5565 Posts
Wow, very interesting, I hope it lives up to expectations!
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, going to show my friends
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I think it's an idea whose time will come eventually (I'm imagined something like this before although not with the very cool "stream with crowd" idea) but I would be very impressed if they managed to pull it off with today's technology. It doesn't really seem possible to be honest.
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....if this works than i am more pumped than a blimp.. a really full blimp
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Didnt read the whole thread so sorry if someone already poitned this out.
This is called cloud computing and is claimed to be the future of compters in general.
Best use for this is image processing software / video editing / 3d software at the moment.
Because a) you need a very good computer for this with good gpu & ram b) no high ping required (like for certain games). SO with a cheap comp you connect to a server cloud where all the programs are installed and use your device for input only.
Basically you are renting computer power :-).
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i work in the 3d industry and there is something very similar out there for us where we can renter a computer farm to do massive renders that a single computer would take potentially months on. However this is not "instant" as onlive claims... im entirely skeptical. even if it works I cannot see the onlive user to have the competitive edge on a user using their own solid pc. This alone makes me just say meh, i rather spend the bucks every couple years for a new comp.
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On May 26 2010 06:16 Destro wrote:
i work in the 3d industry and there is something very similar out there for us where we can renter a computer farm to do massive renders that a single computer would take potentially months on. However this is not "instant" as onlive claims... im entirely skeptical. even if it works I cannot see the onlive user to have the competitive edge on a user using their own solid pc. This alone makes me just say meh, i rather spend the bucks every couple years for a new comp.
Renderfarms are sth. similar as you rent the computer power & Programs on it. However you dont need a constant connection to the "cloud" or renderfarm as you can send your files via email as well :-).
The connection and amount of data it transports in a certain timeframe seems to be the basic problem, agree very much with you on the last part :-).
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On May 24 2010 01:53 theSAiNT wrote:I'm extremely skeptical. How exactly are they going to stream 1600x1200 resolution video to me while I upload inputs to the server with less than noticeable input lag?
onlive offers
854x480p or 1280x720p (depending on subscription from what i last heard) at 30fps.
and there will be noticable input lag.
THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE A SOLUTION FOR EVEN SEMI SERIOUS PC GAMERS!
they want to get console guys also beeing able to play pc games .. nothing more.
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On May 26 2010 06:23 jacen wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2010 01:53 theSAiNT wrote:I'm extremely skeptical. How exactly are they going to stream 1600x1200 resolution video to me while I upload inputs to the server with less than noticeable input lag? onlive offers 854x480p or 1280x720p (depending on subscription from what i last heard) at 30fps. and there will be noticable input lag. THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE A SOLUTION FOR EVEN SEMI SERIOUS PC GAMERS! they want to get console guys also beeing able to play pc games .. nothing more.
..... maybe blizzard should think about re-opening copper leagues... consol gamers using pads for sc2 would be so lol. Hell its not the first time blizzard ported an rts to console lol
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On May 26 2010 06:28 Destro wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 06:23 jacen wrote:On May 24 2010 01:53 theSAiNT wrote:I'm extremely skeptical. How exactly are they going to stream 1600x1200 resolution video to me while I upload inputs to the server with less than noticeable input lag? onlive offers 854x480p or 1280x720p (depending on subscription from what i last heard) at 30fps. and there will be noticable input lag. THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE A SOLUTION FOR EVEN SEMI SERIOUS PC GAMERS! they want to get console guys also beeing able to play pc games .. nothing more. ..... maybe blizzard should think about re-opening copper leagues... consol gamers using pads for sc2 would be so lol. Hell its not the first time blizzard ported an rts to console lol
lol... it would be interesting, but I don't think it would ever bring anyone into the game competitively. Custom maps would be great with controller though.
Also console guys already have consoles, so I doubt they would get onlive for just playing the others systems exclusives (since they're not many besides nintendo)
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First: They will be successful if they only cover major metro areas. They won't care about the farm belt. Second: OMFG! Third: And if it wasn't Day9 saying it I wouldn't have believed it.
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On May 24 2010 01:46 Shrewmy wrote:
Unless they have servers running this within 100m from every household in the country then there will be noticeable lag.
You cannot violate the laws of physics.
This also has the potential to kill the PC hardware market, as there would never be any need to have anything more powerful than a laptop that can play video somewhat reasonably.
This would also never work in Australia, mostly due to the fact that our internet sucks, and that we have prohibitively expensive and controlled internet connections.
If it's true that this threatens the PC market then this also threatens our personal liberty.
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Hey I just got a founding member invitation thing today, was wondering if anyone else got one or is using Onlive.
It requires a wired connection to play, so wi-fi is out. i don't feel like running 50feet of cable around the house. >.> anyone play it yet? how's it?
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Wow thats amazing but Iam sure this will cost alot >.>
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Why does this thread seem like Day9 is being paid to post about this?
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would your friends have to pay you to promote their product ?
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On June 25 2010 02:28 RoosterSamurai wrote:
Why does this thread seem like Day9 is being paid to post about this?
ihmo everything Day[9] posts feels like hes been paid to post it. He's just a really eloquent and enthusiastic guy
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so.. anyone tried yet?
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On June 25 2010 02:41 Sandrosuperstar wrote:so.. anyone tried yet?
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It's free-to-try at the moment so I thought I would see how it works.
The game selection is very limited at the moment but I played a few of the demos and rented Arkham Asylum for a few days (which turned out to be a WAY better game than I thought it could possibly be. I'm glad I played it.)
I must admit, I am quite impressed. It works largely as advertised on my (admittedly very good) broadband. I was very skeptical that they could pull it off but there has only been one instance where I had connection issues for any length of time and when it's working I do not notice any latency even in FPS games. That doesn't mean there isn't any delay, just that it's small enough that I do not notice it. I'm not sure what more I can add about it... it feels like you are playing the game locally. The real test would be to get some Unreal Tournament III Pro to give it a try on OnLive after he's used to playing the game on a "real" computer. Watching other people is neat too.
Personally, I think the most exciting aspect of the technology is the types of multiplayer games you could imagine on this new network topology. Assuming everyone in the game would be in the same OnLive server-cluster, as far as the actual game is concerned everyone would essentially be playing on a LAN. The only thing going over the congested/lossy internet would be the "streams" and I think that would eliminated a lot of the client/server synchronization issues that make, for example, FPS netcode such a black art to get to "feel right."
It seems to me like it should be possible to have complex physics interactions in a multiplayer game or do something like a twitch-based MMO or a thousand person FPS server since the only thing going over the network would be the video streams to everyone's client.
No hacking on PC games would be nice too.
Bottom line is: I was very skeptical we were ready for this but after trying it out, I think this will be the way games are played in 2-3 years instead of 5-10 now.
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I don't believe in the "no latency" bit. Instantaneous communication has not been invented yet.
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I don't believe that this will replace PC gaming as we know it, at least, anytime in the near future, but rather provide another alternative to buying retail games and digital distribution. Many PC gamers already have gaming-capable PCs, as well as a decently sized library of games, and thus don't need this service - especially considering the deals found on Steam, D2D, and other digital distribution platforms. It may, in fact, not be a viable option for some (as previously mentioned) - bandwidth limits/caps, slow internet connections, and so on.
At least, not until fiber optic lines are the norm, over broadband cable/DSL.
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I really dislike spending money on the service only to have to buy the games again. But you really aren't buying the games, youre buying the ability to play them on onLive. So if you ever cancel the service suddenly you are out all the games you bought.
Its a kind of DRM I really hate.
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Its cheap, but we'll have to wait and see. Its possible, but depends on so many things.
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Day9, since you are so kind as to let us in on this information, would you also be so kind as to get us a stock ticker and a week warning before the company goes public? 
also...
On March 25 2009 07:10 Klive5ive wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 07:05 ibutoss wrote:
APRIL FOOLS! This has epic fail written all over it. Most countries don't have the required internet connections to make this possible. Korea maybe but Usa/Uk/Canada no way. What you talking about?! The UK standard is 8Mb, you only need 5. I'm sure USA is the same.
Lmao USA standard is around 1.5mb. Regular cable is about 5 but shaky.
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On July 11 2010 00:53 Simplistik wrote:
I don't believe in the "no latency" bit. Instantaneous communication has not been invented yet.
Of course. But there is an amount that is perceptible and a level that is not. A game on your home computer isn't truly instantaneous either. You need to be within a certain physical distance (as the wire runs) of the server for it to work--they are pretty upfront about that. All I can say is that it is much better than I expected it to be and it doesn't feel to me like there is lag on the games that I have played.
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Its a real letdown if you have to buy or subscribe the games on onlive and dont actually own them. Seems like you are renting them rather than buying. Furthermore, being in a contract for whole two years while sony and microsoft are developing similar systems doesn't sound like a good choice to me. You should be allowed to cancell the contract at any given time.
There needs to be a free trial session without any obligation to contract. They should at least give you the chance to test this software before you have to pay them. Otherwise the whole thing sounds more like a scam than anything.
Also, you still have to ugrade your system from time to time so its not like you are paying less money because of onlive.
The idea seems good at first glance, but im not yet really convinced.
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Day[9], you need to correct your statement. There is ALWAYS latency. No matter how good your algorithm, the time it takes for your packet to reach the server and for the server to send you a response is always bounded at a few milliseconds simply because of the speed of light.
The fact that the video encoding/compressing can be done in 1ms, however, is very impressive, and thus the total rtt for the request will not be significantly higher than in the case of a blank echo server.
But seriously, Day[9], change the OP. You're using the word latency incorrectly. FTL communication is not possible over a traditional internet connection.
Nvm, shrewmy got to the physics argument first.
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Sounds way too good to be true. I'm very skeptical about this. When will this be released world wide?
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I dont like this.. When i go purchase a game etc.. i want the BOX. not some digits on a screen.. And.. What should i have my badass sysem for now?
All the money i spent etc will be wasted.. They should keep it the way it is..
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Anybody remember the phantom? This reminds me of that. At least they actually released it and it wasn't a hoax. Too bad having your own system is still far superior. Sorry Day 9 I know you want to be enthusiastic about your friends' works, but this is just really gimmicky and without at minimum an internet infrastructure superior to South Korea, there will be pretty bad lag problems.
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regarding OP:
how can 1-2ms delay spoil streetfighter gameplay? i thought even ping lower than 10 is irrelevant.
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I'm not too positive about this, to be honest. I like to own things, not rent, and I also don't like that there is a record of what I do all the time.
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Lol onlive is pure garbage. Take a look at some of the reviews, there is some really deep and detailed ones. Always liked day9 but promoting something like this that is pretty damn shitty is not ok in my book :/
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Ugh, it is in gamers' best interest to not buy into onlive. Imagine a game that, patches when you don't want, geographic restrictions that are not possible to get around, had unskippable ads, that is unmoddable, glitches you have to call tech support to resolve, and you don't even own the game, it can be taken from you at any time (onlive says they will only support a game for a number of years, and then it is taken out of their server farm permanently).
Besides from what I hear the game companies are giving them hassle, so you don't even get a good selection of games, you have to "buy" them one by one.
I'm not even sure what advantage this confers, no up front cost for a console? That's about it.
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This thread is from May of 09 before OnLive beta even started. At the point this thread was made there was only a demo presentation at some game developers conference thingy that boasted a ton of stuff not all of which panned out.
Day was being incredibly optimistic in his OP and most people adopted a "wait and see" or "that's not possible" attitude to it but he wasn't being shitty for making a thread about it, lots of people were interested to see if it could do what it said.
The result is far better than I thought it would be. It lets you play games at albeit bad resolutions on shitty computers. From a technical aspect it more or less succeeded where people said it wasn't possible. The biggest disappointing is the pricing model, you have to pay monthly, and then pay full price (and usually over MSRP) to license games, which you can lose at any point after their guaranteed support for the game goes away (i think its 3 years?) and you can't play if your subscription lapses and if I recall you lose everything if your subscription goes unpaid for 12 months. It's really shady in that regard, but that's nothing Day could have predicted and his friends worked on the development side of the technology not on the pricing model.
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Wow this sounds like seirous business. I think it's going to kill some companies :D
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This would hurt PC gaming AND progaming if it worked, forunately, it will suck balls so we don't have to worry.
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It is soon mid 2011 and still there is no release of any official version of Onlive nor Gaikai etc in Europe.
Do you guys think it turning into a failure possibly caused by the high server costs and latency problems or is it something else? No cooperation with game developers?
I would also see if anyone in the United States is using it and how they experience it.
And let me know about your general opinion as of mid 2011 thinking. A lot has changed - fiber is developing (eg Kansas), the newer game the more hardware requirements.
Now 3D games are about to be launched and require bad ass graphics. Streaming could be a good solution.
I know TL consists mainly of serious dedicated multiplayer gamers who wouldn't consider this option but i believe there are some single player players as well.
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I don't know a lot about computer or the requirements that people are debating, but I understand how BADASS this will be if it works.
I'm kind of praying that this as good as it sounds...
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not gonna be overly skeptical about this... just wait and see how it plays out
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Great concept but I doubt they will get the licensing for most of the big name games that draw the millions ands millions like Halo, Final Fantasy and such, due to the current "system" video games are in.
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EDIT: OMG this threa is from 09 .... wtf?
Yeah the no lag claim is plain wrong guys.
Maybe no perceptible lag but then you get a load of bf2 style we both kill each other situations.
You cannot get rid of lag only the perception of it in situations where timing within latency period is not important. the way to deal with lag is actually to slow games down and make them technically deeper.
the other thing is the image quality ... streaming data at high resolutions isnt going to work as you simply cannot compress 1920x1200 lossless and get a small data packet ... so you still need significant client side power to transform the data into image and audio - otherwise its a huge waste of bandwidth.
I dunno this is cloud computing basically - but the point is balance. the only people who would gain from this is software houses as piracy turns into an authentication/authorisation problem - I dont see how the gaming experience for customers would improve.
One interesting thing though is that you can begin to globally do things like physics and AI rather than repeating it on every client machine.
It will be interesting to see that is for sure ... I may sound skeptical but i think people are crazy to buy consoles
the hisotry of computing in a nutshell
1) computers were in warehouses
2) copmuters were in warehouses and people got dumb terminals
3) computers were in rooms and people got terminals that could start to do things
4) servers were in racks adn basically held data with some processing whilst client machines did work
5) people started writing server side internet pages and we regressed to 2
6) people realised that actually client interaction is a good thing and now we have servers thast do stuff and clients that do a lot
7) people start selling us the cloud and we regress to 2 again because we dont have balance.
I have clients that have 50 employees who are convinced the cloud is the way forward ... it is insane ... i suggest that they consider getting a mainframe and using COBOL and they begin to see my point.
processing power is the cheapest part of a computer - the costs of data transmission are LARGE because either bandwidth or tcp/ip overheads are the limiting factor in a lot of applicaitons - even though this cost is rapidly shrinking due to better infrastructure. But whilst this cost is shrinking demand is soaring as more and more noobs discover that they want to stream content. It is unsustainable and highly wasteful when you consider that my phone is more powerful than my £2500 pc from 13 years ago.
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On April 22 2011 00:16 hubson wrote:
Do you guys think it turning into a failure possibly caused by the high server costs and latency problems or is it something else? No cooperation with game developers?
I think it's and idea that died before birth, personally, on the basis that it's target audience is seems to me to be a very confused group.
Basically, it's a service aimed at...
People who're into games, and willing and able to pay for a subscription service.
People who're not fussed about playing with a lot more latency than they would locally.
People who're not fussed about playing in the same resolution as would be possible locally.
That's fair enough. I'm sure they exist. Now it gets complicated...
Those punters need an internet connection that's capable of a sustained minimum transfer rate of 5mbitsps at peak times.
Those punters also need an internet connection with a bandwidth limit that wouldn't make the a 2.2GByte per hour usage rate prohibitive.
Hmm, well, that rules out everyone I know. That said, I'm sure they exist, so we'll go on...
Leaving all that aside, here's the problem.
They appear to offer 48 games (many of which aren't exactly big name titles) at prices that offer no saving (in fact, a fair few are cheaper on Steam!) over other methods of purchase, plus the need to pay subs. The amount of money "saved" vs. buying a console is, over time, probably negative, so the argument that it's cheap doesn't even hold water. Chuck in the reduced quality of the play experience and, I have to say, this is clearly a service hanging on by it's fingernails, supported by massively optimistic investors who're happy to throw money at anything with the word "cloud" on it. When the funding runs out, it'll die. It's just completely non-sensical at every level.
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If they do this and PC gaming becomes popularised like consoles have, i will actually quit playing anything. Look how bad xbox live has gotten over the years ffs.
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Amazing concept but even with data delay to reach servers in im guessing CA that is still 100ms on input and 100ms after that til i recieve the data. Maybe one day i will live in ca and have ping times to game servers under 50ms without paying tunneling services(80ms with smoothping on some games).
Also I personally have money for a relatively top of the line comp ever ~2 years but i can see many more super high end graphics games getting released and developed in the future if this catches on.
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Just got this console.
This thing is ridiculous.
How is there no lag??
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imma stick to steam, and hard copy's of games
the cloud computing part of it allowing shit pc's run thje best games at perfect fps sounded good,
but if you will never OWN the game and have the possiblity of it being removed when onlive see fit, no, i dont want it at all
also; streetfighter 4 when i played it for almost a year on xbox live was never "unplayable due to lag", very few matches ever had significant input delays even with my shitty 2mb internet speed
unless ofc it was vs someone in USA in a custom match, but iirc you were always matched up vs people with same/close latency (i.e people in the same region as you) on the ladder
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Hi thought I`d bump this.
It`s up and running, I just tested it.
Unfortunately my net connection is kind of crappy.
Anyone care to try it out and report on latency and quality?
(You can try several games for free)
http://www.onlive.com/
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On March 25 2009 07:05 ibutoss wrote:
APRIL FOOLS! This has epic fail written all over it. Most countries don't have the required internet connections to make this possible. Korea maybe but Usa/Uk/Canada no way.
I'm in Canada and my connection is 10Mbps.
GG do your research.
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So... This sounds way to good to be true. Are you saying that I could play Crysis on a computer barely able to run SC2 on low?
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On August 28 2011 05:04 Aocowns wrote:
So... This sounds way to good to be true. Are you saying that I could play Crysis on a computer barely able to run SC2 on low?
Yeah but you will need some crazy internet connection.
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On August 28 2011 05:09 Xplitcit wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2011 05:04 Aocowns wrote:
So... This sounds way to good to be true. Are you saying that I could play Crysis on a computer barely able to run SC2 on low? Yeah but you will need some crazy internet connection.
How good?
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they recommend 5 + mbit for optimal results
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On August 28 2011 05:12 Aocowns wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2011 05:09 Xplitcit wrote:On August 28 2011 05:04 Aocowns wrote:
So... This sounds way to good to be true. Are you saying that I could play Crysis on a computer barely able to run SC2 on low? Yeah but you will need some crazy internet connection. How good?
Im on cable connection 15 mbs and it was DECENT, it was like playing with 30 fps.
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On August 28 2011 05:34 Xplitcit wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2011 05:12 Aocowns wrote:On August 28 2011 05:09 Xplitcit wrote:On August 28 2011 05:04 Aocowns wrote:
So... This sounds way to good to be true. Are you saying that I could play Crysis on a computer barely able to run SC2 on low? Yeah but you will need some crazy internet connection. How good? Im on cable connection 15 mbs and it was DECENT, it was like playing with 30 fps.
How good were the visuals? 240p ish or 720p ish?
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I just tested JustCause2 on Onlive.
I have a 10Mbit down / 1Mbit up internet connection.
The only problem i could see at the moment, is that the input is somewhat delayed, you cant play fluently ( at least not where i am, someone closer to the servers might be able to )
If i moved the mouse, there was a noticeable delay, until the character actually turned.
I would say not unplayable, but too me it felt quite frustrating, because i could not react as fast as i wanted :/
the image quality seemed to adjust to your connection. i turned the mlg stream on again, and the quality got worse, but i could still see everything properly.
the quality seemed to be between 480 and 720
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On August 28 2011 05:36 IMindI wrote:
I just tested JustCause2 on Onlive.
I have a 10Mbit down / 1Mbit up internet connection.
The only problem i could see at the moment, is that the input is somewhat delayed, you cant play fluently ( at least not where i am, someone closer to the servers might be able to )
If i moved the mouse, there was a noticeable delay, until the character actually turned.
I would say not unplayable, but too me it felt quite frustrating, because i could not react as fast as i wanted :/
the image quality seemed to adjust to your connection. i turned the mlg stream on again, and the quality got worse, but i could still see everything properly.
the quality seemed to be between 480 and 720
Do note that OnLive still only has the US servers up, I'd imagine the upcoming UK servers should improve performance in Europe. I tried it a few months ago, the lag was noticeable but it wasn't unplayable I guess. I'm excited to see how the UK server will affect it.
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On August 28 2011 05:44 Chibithor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2011 05:36 IMindI wrote:
I just tested JustCause2 on Onlive.
I have a 10Mbit down / 1Mbit up internet connection.
The only problem i could see at the moment, is that the input is somewhat delayed, you cant play fluently ( at least not where i am, someone closer to the servers might be able to )
If i moved the mouse, there was a noticeable delay, until the character actually turned.
I would say not unplayable, but too me it felt quite frustrating, because i could not react as fast as i wanted :/
the image quality seemed to adjust to your connection. i turned the mlg stream on again, and the quality got worse, but i could still see everything properly.
the quality seemed to be between 480 and 720 Do note that OnLive still only has the US servers up, I'd imagine the upcoming UK servers should improve performance in Europe. I tried it a few months ago, the lag was noticeable but it wasn't unplayable I guess. I'm excited to see how the UK server will affect it.
Thank you for the clarification.
Then i am actually pretty surprised that the delay wasnt even bigger.
UK servers will definately have an impact on the delay/playability, then it might be quite usefull for some games. Though i dont see people playing shooters on this on more then a casual level.
Rpgs and games less latency-dependant seem promising though.
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So, I have a shitty computer, barely able to run SC on low. If I upgrade to a 5+ mbps connection, I can play games like Skyrim on a decently good quality? When the UK servers get online of course.
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The line of games is quite pathetic IMO.
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Just tested it on a 200/10 connection, which is pretty much the fastest you can get in Finland in a normal house on normal cable. I tried metro 2033 and the input delay was very noticable and pretty much made the game unplayable. I can't see anyone playing realtime games with lag like that.
The stream quality wasn't really amazing either. I'm guessing it was 720p, which doesn't look that great on a big screen. Also the UI on the onlive program seems like it was designed for a console rather than a PC.
It's still a cool concept though, but they need to get more servers, if they're ever going to expect people from outside the states to play.
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On August 28 2011 05:56 Aocowns wrote:
So, I have a shitty computer, barely able to run SC on low. If I upgrade to a 5+ mbps connection, I can play games like Skyrim on a decently good quality? When the UK servers get online of course.
If your computer can handle the decompression of the videostream, probably yes. Right now it is possible to test the service for free, so if UK servers are up, you can test it
The question is, will they have Skyrim available.
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On August 28 2011 06:01 IMindI wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2011 05:56 Aocowns wrote:
So, I have a shitty computer, barely able to run SC on low. If I upgrade to a 5+ mbps connection, I can play games like Skyrim on a decently good quality? When the UK servers get online of course. If your computer can handle the decompression of the videostream, probably yes. Right now it is possible to test the service for free, so if UK servers are up, you can test it The question is, will they have Skyrim available.
That just sounds way too good to be true :O
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On August 28 2011 06:04 Aocowns wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2011 06:01 IMindI wrote:On August 28 2011 05:56 Aocowns wrote:
So, I have a shitty computer, barely able to run SC on low. If I upgrade to a 5+ mbps connection, I can play games like Skyrim on a decently good quality? When the UK servers get online of course. If your computer can handle the decompression of the videostream, probably yes. Right now it is possible to test the service for free, so if UK servers are up, you can test it The question is, will they have Skyrim available. That just sounds way to good to be true :O
Well, you will still have some delay, even with UK servers. But, i think games like skyrim could be playable, if they have good servers / a good connection on their side.
But if you consider switching to a better connection and paying for such a service, why not buy a better computer
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On August 28 2011 06:08 IMindI wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2011 06:04 Aocowns wrote:On August 28 2011 06:01 IMindI wrote:On August 28 2011 05:56 Aocowns wrote:
So, I have a shitty computer, barely able to run SC on low. If I upgrade to a 5+ mbps connection, I can play games like Skyrim on a decently good quality? When the UK servers get online of course. If your computer can handle the decompression of the videostream, probably yes. Right now it is possible to test the service for free, so if UK servers are up, you can test it The question is, will they have Skyrim available. That just sounds way to good to be true :O Well, you will still have some delay, even with UK servers. But, i think games like skyrim could be playable, if they have good servers / a good connection on their side. But if you consider switching to a better connection and paying for such a service, why not buy a better computer
Wouldnt that cost more? ;o Not long term I mean, but I don't really stay with the same game for long anyways
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The problem with this is that in current games, all of your input is processed locally (even online), so there is zero delay in it actually responding to your input, This is really important in fast paced games (FPS/RTS/fighting games), in this system the response time will be your latency even in single player modes, which can be really annoying, especially with higher latencies. It might be the future of gaming, but our internet just isn't fast enough to make this input lag unnoticeable.
Of course that really doesn't matter for games like farmville or sims, where a delay of less than 5 seconds really doesn't matter.
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On August 28 2011 06:13 Aocowns wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2011 06:08 IMindI wrote:On August 28 2011 06:04 Aocowns wrote:On August 28 2011 06:01 IMindI wrote:On August 28 2011 05:56 Aocowns wrote:
So, I have a shitty computer, barely able to run SC on low. If I upgrade to a 5+ mbps connection, I can play games like Skyrim on a decently good quality? When the UK servers get online of course. If your computer can handle the decompression of the videostream, probably yes. Right now it is possible to test the service for free, so if UK servers are up, you can test it The question is, will they have Skyrim available. That just sounds way to good to be true :O Well, you will still have some delay, even with UK servers. But, i think games like skyrim could be playable, if they have good servers / a good connection on their side. But if you consider switching to a better connection and paying for such a service, why not buy a better computer Wouldnt that cost more? ;o Not long term I mean, but I don't really stay with the same game for long anyways
Yeah, probably. They give you the option to rent the game for 3 or 5 days, or buy it for full price.
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On August 28 2011 06:15 BadgerBadger8264 wrote:
The problem with this is that in current games, all of your input is processed locally (even in online games), so there is zero delay in it actually responding to your input, This is really important in fast paced games (FPS/RTS/fighting games), in this system the response time will be your latency, which can be really annoying, especially with higher latencies. It might be the future of gaming, but our internet just isn't fast enough to make this input lag unnoticeable.
This will probably mostly become for single player games. I wouldnt mind paying 10 bucks a month to get a access to a decent amount of games (Yeah they have a spotify like deal ) instead of getting a high end computer to play Deus Ex 3, Skyrim, and so on.
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Interesting option for the people who can't afford high end rigs. I'll stay away from this.
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I really like this concept, especially as there are a lot of games I would like to just play once or twice but have no interrest in buying because mediocre / no replay / not worth fullprice. I wonder if this will ever get to Europe. Not sure if that would be at all possible. Apparently Netflix is not possible due to our laws over here. Then again Spotify is so I dunno.
Also, y'all posting in a day9 thread! :D
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Is the five megabits per second like download speed? I can barely stream 360p, and I get a ping of a few hundred milliseconds on even BW.
If you play single player, I'd hate losing my singleplayer game because my internet connection went out too... and there's a lot of stuff you can do with bought games that you can't do if you rent games. For example: there's plugins, addons, modding, editing settings (bugs appear), and I don't think it's possible to play games like broodwar on iccup using this service (iccup requires you to browse to the starcraft directory).
It's a nice concept, but in order for it to be worthwhile for me, it'd need to be more standardized. In order for it to be more standardized, it'd need to be more worthwhile to everyone. Catch 22.
I'll try it when I want to play better games.
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This does sound interesting, as long as you're online, you'll be able to play your games. Of course, those days when some construction worker (or your ISP, more probably) accidentally cuts your connection, and it takes them a day or two to get it back up, you'll be stuck with whatever you got on your low-end machine.
Also, this may deter some people to ever get a decent computer, and I could foresee problems with beta-testing indie games that haven't yet got into the monopolizing (is that even a word? You get my point) OnLive cooperation - in the coldest of hells that is.
This is a cool idea nontheless.. I wonder how the algorithm works..'
EDIT: Just tried Dirt 3 and I had about 300 ms delay on my 10mb/s connection. In Denmark, I think that's okay.
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Just tried the a few free trials.
The screen becomes blurry and the lag is horrible and this is bad for me since I'm very sensitive to it. If I'm playing a FPS and there even is a half a second delay then it feels unplayable for me.
EDIT: But like so many others has said, a cool idea indeed and with better IT in the future it might work with nearly zero lag.
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Sounds like a hoax, your internet connection has a basic lag so you can't make an "algorithm" that removes it. Light speed alone is 300.000 km/s so if your computers are 600 km away you have at least 4 ms travel time from one end to the other and back and then you have to add processing delays.
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I had somebody play this in my computer programming class and was playing single player games with little problems. Online games however are quite jumpy.
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I heard exactly the same peddle, what was it, 8 years ago, now? In Computer Shopper magazine.
It was shite then, and it's shite now, calling it.
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I want to see one of these things in action.
at the moment it sounds to good to be true,
but if it is as good as it says
???????
PROFIT!!!!
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wow i tested this and it runs great, there's a tiny input delay, so multiplayer is out of the question but for single player it worked great
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I tried it and yes there is a split second input delay which threw me off a lot. But playing all these games without having to download anything... it's pretty crazy. :O
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On August 28 2011 05:36 Grend wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2011 05:34 Xplitcit wrote:On August 28 2011 05:12 Aocowns wrote:On August 28 2011 05:09 Xplitcit wrote:On August 28 2011 05:04 Aocowns wrote:
So... This sounds way to good to be true. Are you saying that I could play Crysis on a computer barely able to run SC2 on low? Yeah but you will need some crazy internet connection. How good? Im on cable connection 15 mbs and it was DECENT, it was like playing with 30 fps. How good were the visuals? 240p ish or 720p ish?
Really bad visual
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I have a pretty decent rig but playing on Onlive is actually worst than buying the game and installing it.
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On March 25 2009 06:52 Reason wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 06:27 Day[9] wrote:I'm personally super pumped because many of my friends work at OnLive and couldn't tell me what they've been working on. Now that I know, I'm pumped . That's because if they told you they would have to kill you! This sounds absolutely amazing. I hope this will be an exception from the old adage - If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
The old adage has truth to it, but 'probably' is far from set in stone. If something is 'probably' going to be the case, that only means it will be most of the time. Most of the time is not to be confused with all of the time.
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hope this shit never gets big, i want to possess my games, not pay subscriptions all the time.
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dang son, cool shit, or coolest shit ever
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Internet goes out and my computer suddenly loses everything but the media downloaded? no ty. I'd rather still buy hardware upgrades every few years than rely on someone else and pray my internet is always stable.
Seldentar did you just reply to a post that was made 29 months ago? That user hasn't even posted in 3 months ^_^
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On August 28 2011 08:32 Probe1 wrote:
Internet goes out and my computer suddenly loses everything but the media downloaded? no ty. I'd rather still buy hardware upgrades every few years than rely on someone else and pray my internet is always stable.
Seldentar did you just reply to a post that was made 29 months ago? That user hasn't even posted in 3 months ^_^
I doubt there's an ISP in the US with less than 99% uptime...
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Remember in multiplayer games most "lag" is hidden by the client side.
If you press turn left in WOW for example your character has 0 delay in turning left, even if you have 500 MS. The client stays synced with server to make sure you never get too out of hand.
Now because all that client side processing is on a server some where all the traditional lag hiding tricks are indeed useless, so even a tiny amount of lag will be noticeable.
This will probably take another 10 years of telecommunications infrastructure upgrades before it becomes exciting
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I was first interested in this, but something like streaming video game play just seemed impossible with current internet technology.
Maybe one day, I can hope an idea like this becomes flawless. I'm in a situation where I can't really play video games...
One can only dream
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On August 28 2011 08:52 Fyodor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2011 08:32 Probe1 wrote:
Internet goes out and my computer suddenly loses everything but the media downloaded? no ty. I'd rather still buy hardware upgrades every few years than rely on someone else and pray my internet is always stable.
Seldentar did you just reply to a post that was made 29 months ago? That user hasn't even posted in 3 months ^_^ I doubt there's an ISP in the US with less than 99% uptime...
theres a few in canada. Godamn shaw >.> and telus
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I don't think it actually had much of a chance anyway. It sure was a nice invention to compress videos in half a milisecond, but it was misleading, as the data still has to travel from your home to the server and back. And if you don't live 50 miles away from the server farm your ping will still be 20-200, and at 40+ I already get in trouble playing games. Add to that the problem of missing virtualization (so they had a machine running for every user? Who is that crazy?) and how hard it is to push out yet another game platform when there are already quite a few and you notice that the whole thing was flawed. Still kinda sad how it ended and how the stock holders were scammed.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://blog.toptenreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/onlive-box-and-controller.jpg)
