xbox one Microsoft explains Xbox One cloud gaming in an effort to justify online req

[Yogurtmaster]

Are you sure you quoted the right person...?

You are correct, I grabbed the wrong quote box. I think I fixed it. ;-p

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

You can't cloud compute improved cloth simulation. it needs to be done fairly syncronous with the rendering. however by offloading AI And other calculations from the CPU the CPU can be used more for improved cloth simulation.

How would improved lighting be an issue though ? as I said before, only 3D graphics geeks like me would probably notice major difference between the existing Ambient occlusion fakery and proper photon maps.

I thought that's what they said, my mistake. What I meant was if the lighting was vastly superior then people would find an issue and complain about an inferior experience. I guess that would depend largely on how much better the lighting is with the cloud processing. I'm not a 3D graphics geek but I'm a fan of eye candy so I have the interest but lack the technical knowledge of the advanced stuff.

Anyway, as long as the vanilla (non-cloud assisted) experience is good, then people won't complain. However, if developers purposely make a game where the vanilla experience is worse than it should be... then that's not good. I don't want developers to make the vanilla experience inferior because of the cloud processing. Any improvements should be a bonus, not a necessity.

[Torolol]

Any improvements should be a bonus, not a necessity.

yes, but MS want it to be 'necessity' to justify the xbox-1 cloud-i-ness.

[libertas83]

You have to remember consoles need to think about future not just today. So cloud processing may play a larger role in 3-5 years vs. the next 2. This was all sparked by OnLive who had tech that could make consoles obsolete by doing only cloud processing. Obviously, that didn't work out well for them because they had nothing else to offer. This is where PS4 and X1 can be successful because they have something worthwhile to sell you now and when ISPs and Internet improve, people can start to take advantage of this tech. In other words, this preempts any other console from coming out with the promise of cloud, streaming games when it's actually viable.

Also, Nvidia and AMD are heavily investing in GPU server farms as well which I'm sure will play into this long-term.

And two years later servers get shut down because that game's old, you shouldn't play those old games, stupid, you should buy new ones. *That* is a greater idea.

One has to dedicate and configure servers for specific games just like any other, I presume? As new games get released, older ones will have to move out and make way, because resources aren't infinite and free even for Microsoft, twist or turn - it's been 100% definite thus far that once not enough people are playing or a fair amount of time passes, services get shut down.

I doubt that is how it will work. Azure itself is designed to be agnostic to servers. It scales the number of servers based on workload so that when peak users hit, it automatically scales up, but when demand is low, it scales back down. So games won't be on dedicated servers. You are paying for computing time, not servers. So with stuff like Xbox Live Gold and I'm sure publisher's paying for it as well, you can keep old games running on it without much issue. Old games will actually use less computing overtime because demand will be less.

That's reducing the difference between console and PC upgrades severely, if we're going that way. On the other hand, if the processing power is about to be unlimited over time - why do I need the damn box in the first place? Why not go full cloud?

You need a box to interface with your TV first. Secondly, see my first paragraph, full cloud has already failed by OnLive because not everyone could use it and it had nothing else of value to offer. X1 and PS4 will at least have something to offer in local gaming + multimedia functions.

[George P Global Moderator]

It should be a safe bet that developers will use the cloud on MP and MMOs first. Don't expect to see it used for SP for a ~2 years or so I'd say. It would be cool though to have a SP game like, I think someone used GTA for an example, where the world keeps on changing even when you're not playing so that when you come back to it it's not like time froze in the game. I think it'd be neat to see how they can use this for SP even more than the immediate MP benefits.

[Phouchg]

So with stuff like Xbox Live Gold and I'm sure publisher's paying for it as well

Wouldn't that get passed to end users and raise prices of games everywhere? I, for example, live in a backwater third world country where Live is not available (and probably won't be anytime soon). I won't be getting these awesome photon maps (I'm not entirely convinced that these are impossible on top-end hardware, but that's just a quick lookup) and other candy, anyway.

Anyway, I've been thinking about this offline and I'm starting to see myself how my other arguments are not holding up. The one above stays, though.

[HawkMan]

Wouldn't that get passed to end users and raise prices of games everywhere? I, for example, live in a backwater third world country where Live is not available (and probably won't be anytime soon). I won't be getting these awesome photon maps (I'm not entirely convinced that these are impossible on top-end hardware, but that's just a quick lookup) and other candy, anyway.

Anyway, I've been thinking about this offline and I'm starting to see myself how my other arguments are not holding up. The one above stays, though.

When I create a photon map for a simple scene in finalRender, it will take several minutes to do the simple preview map that's blobby and not nice and smooth. photon maps are effectively inverse raytracing with bouncing. do it in a complex scene like a full game level, with all kinds of different materials with different values of light an color absorption and bounce, and you're talking 10-20+ minutes on a high end i7 rig.

[MikeChipshop Member]

I fail to see how some people are seeing this as a bad thing?

Let's face it, if this isn't in the upcoming Playstation (or any other console for that matter) it soon enough will be.

It won't be at the detriment of those not playing online, after all they'll still get a top notch game, but it will be at a benefit to those playing while online.

MS have pulled an awesome move here and if it is what i think it is, they've basically semi-future-proofed the Xbox One!

[Phouchg]

When I create a photon map for a simple scene in finalRender, it will take several minutes to do the simple preview map that's blobby and not nice and smooth. photon maps are effectively inverse raytracing with bouncing. do it in a complex scene like a full game level, with all kinds of different materials with different values of light an color absorption and bounce, and you're talking 10-20+ minutes on a high end i7 rig.

That's 20+ minutes with GPU executing things? My head's already exploded while finding some whitepapers about this, though...

[HawkMan]

That's 20+ minutes with GPU executing things? My head's already exploded while finding some whitepapers about this, though...

traditionally this type of rendering is done with the cpu, the ambient occlusion you use in games today is based on a simplified version of this though it cheats a lot. hence why some shadows in corners get weird and blobby.

Effectively every light source on the room sends out light particles that bounce around untill a predetermined amount of bounces or they're out of energy or below an energy threshold. unless it's a high powered light(ie sun) 2-3 bounces is usually enough, depends on the colors it bounces of rom and how reflective the surface is as well of course. This goes up a degree on complexity when you add in area lights. and area lights is primarily why you use this technology. from HDR skyboxes where the whole skybox send out lights to computers screens and fluorescent tubes. at this point you'e not lnger sending particles form a single point, but from the whole surface of the object in question.

GPU's should be able to help with this due to their parallel nature. it's still extremely heavy calculations though. and the map needs to be updated every time something changed in the enviroment, meaning you would take over the entire processing power of the GPU for several minutes in a best case scenario, increasing loading time a lot, and you'd either break the light map with destructible environments, or have to freeze the game every time something changes.

[Phouchg]

I don't believe even the clouds are powerful enough for this exact technology then. The sheer power of the cloud would be offset by thousands of gamers playing AAA games where this might be used, at any given time. In time, definitely, but not at the moment.

Anyway, another argument of mine reduced to ashes, I can roam elsewhere. Thanks.

[HawkMan]

I don't believe even the clouds are powerful enough for this exact technology then. The sheer power of the cloud would be offset by thousands of gamers playing AAA games where this might be used, at any given time. In time, definitely, but not at the moment.

Anyway, another argument of mine reduced to ashes, I can roam elsewhere. Thanks.

Nah, the cloud will be able to handle this very well. the cloud has far more computing power available in the server clusters than some GPU's. Hence why the cloud would render the photon map in seconds, instead of minutes or tens of minutes. and since the photon map only needs to be updated on new leverl loads or certain intervals on the level. those thousands of gamers aren't going to all be calculating new photon maps at the same time.

[Emn1ty]

EVE Online has been doing this for a while now and it works nicely. I don't see the big deal...