The Future of Gaming


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I have seen this thing pop up quite a bit on different sites and it looks like a neat device for single player stuff but I have yet to see them show any kind of interaction with other players under real world conditions (ie. not over lan and with less than ideal connections) with some of the best selling games having such high sales because of their multiplayer I don't think you can take over current gaming without the ability to do online multiplayer.

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I have yet to see them show any kind of interaction with other players under real world conditions (ie. not over lan and with less than ideal connections)

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Of course not, that's where it all falls down.

It works great in controlled conditions, in normal conditions the video will be of low quality and there will be input lag.

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It works great in controlled conditions, in normal conditions the video will be of low quality and there will be input lag.

Indeed. I've said it before I've said it again, nice idea but the infrastructure isn't ready for it. In the UK nearly all ISPs have download limits and "super fast broadband" that is a meagre 2mbs. That doesn't include line quality, distance from the servers and the quality of the network at the persons home.

With everyone trying to introduce motion control I can only cringe when I imagine the amount of traffic that would add.

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This will be awesome for games that are turn based, but I can't see it working for any kind of action type game.
With everyone trying to introduce motion control I can only cringe when I imagine the amount of traffic that would add.

If people actually watch the video you can see these two things being addressed.

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Seems like a pretty obvious progression, definitely not fully possible now, but in the next 10-20 years maybe?

In 10-20 years the video would be clearer, but there would still be the lag.

You can reduce the lag, but you can't remove it entirely in a distributed system like OnLive, as long as the game logic and processing is done on a remote system there will be lag between pressing a button and seeing the result (both of which would be out of sync with the actual game logic)

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The only issue I have is the latency between updates.

In the video, it states that everything happens in under 80 ms. Lets say worst case scenario, it takes 80ms for your computer to send data to the server, the server to draw the frame, compress the image, and send it back to you. Ok, that sounds fine. But, at 80 ms per frame that is a mere 12.5 frames per second, not nearly enough for smooth video.

Now, that does not mean you are only receiving 12.5 frames per second, but your game is only updating at that speed (push a button, it takes nearly 1/10th of a second to update your screen). Again, that is a fairly short time, but it is still very long relative to running a game locally (where the same action would only be limited by how fast your computer can render the game + input latency)....in comparison if a game samples input every frame (as many games do) and you are rendering 60 FPS, then you are sampling input at ~17ms. Compare that to 80ms that this system is capable of (again, worst case scenario). That is a HUGE difference, and it doesn't account for someones computer rendering more than 60 FPS and other factors.

I have a feeling if developers decide to go this route exclusively, they will notice a huge loss in sales due to people not wanting to put up with the current latencies the system has. It is fine for the casual player, but many people who either play competitively or are enthusiastic about playing are not going to put up with that high input lag. Despite the developers earning more profit, they will make less total sales with this system if they go with it exclusively.

Now, I think it will be good to see developers move to this type of system, but I hope, like Steam (as in games that sell on Steam are also sold through retail and other markets), they sell it through other markets so you are not SOL if you want to play without high input latency.

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If it takes 80ms to send data to the server, it'd take another 80ms to receive data back.

So you press a button, 80ms later the server sees that, processes it, renders the frame and sends it back, 80ms later you get the frame, that's a problem.

You're seeing a frame of the game that the server "saw" 80ms ago, which is the result of a keypress you sent 160ms ago. And that's ignoring the overhead of actually processing the game on the server and transferring the frame.

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If it takes 80ms to send data to the server, it'd take another 80ms to receive data back.

So you press a button, 80ms later the server sees that, processes it, renders the frame and sends it back, 80ms later you get the frame, that's a problem.

You're seeing a frame of the game that the server "saw" 80ms ago, which is the result of a keypress you sent 160ms ago. And that's ignoring the overhead of actually processing the game on the server and transferring the frame.

In the video it states that the entire round-trip process (sample input, send to server, render frame, send back to client after compression) takes up to 80ms. But still, you are essentially seeing your input from 80ms ago.

Thats roughly the equivalent of rendering the game at 12.5 FPS.

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