http://www.gamertagradio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12747

http://www.onlive.com/


It's the demonstration of the OnLive gaming platform. Basically, what it is is a central game server that plays any game, and through impressive compression algorithms, what you actually get is video, streamed instantly. Everything is perfomed through cloud computing.

-you can play on pc, mac or tv (with a special device)
-the plug in required for pc and mac users is 1mb big
-you dont need to install games nor patch them
-it lets you play ultra demanding pc games, without having a high-end computer
-basically, all you need is a fast internet connection. to play hd games you need a 1.5mbs connection
-so far, many big companies such as epic games, ea, ubisoft and others have signed deals and contracts

Watch the whole video. I'm fucking speechless, what do you guys think?

didn't this exist before, sorta


like

you could have a program on your beef desktop pc that would run, over the net, your games

and thus you could stream them onto other pcs (playing crysis on a medium-ish netbook)

man, i am all over this once it gets positive feedback. i was glued to that fucking video for the last 15 minutes.

Although it looks good in theory, you have to see this http://img228.imageshack.us/i/mouselaggn6.swf/
Move the slider to full, that is simulating 80ms lag, the absolute "best" OnLive will get, and it is pretty bad!

Seems good in theory, but if that is the best then this is not going to work for any action games at all.

EDIT: Forgot to mention. Online multiplayer games will also probably not be very playable with it. You have the 80ms from Onlive, and then even more delay between OnLive and the game server.

the idea is really good (i always wondered why nobody tried this because it made a lot of sense to me and then onlive came along and i thought "HUH FINALLY SOMEONE ELSE THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA") buuuuuuut yeah it'll be a while before this can really be implemented in a good way.  especially for people in areas like me where it'll probably be years before we get internet fast enough

I saw this at GDC last year.  Even in the expo with a great connection the games still felt off from the lag.  I read a good article though about how in theory atleast the latency is not the issue, it is the astronomical costs to setup enough servers to serve the general populous if this product would take off.  I wish I had the numbers, but they were huge.

Needless to say, I don't see this as ever being anything more than a niche market.

I'm highly skeptical of this. I doubt you'd be able to achieve good responce times with direct streaming.

After having played the browser version of Quake 3 Arena I have to disagree. The response was amazing.

Watch the whole presentation guys, the CEO covers the aspects of multiplayer. It's gonna be more than that, thousands are gonna be able to watch live some game match or whatever. This is gonna be the Facebook of videogames.

As for the servers, he also covers usage and cost optimization, and how they developed their own low cost decompression chips.

And lastly, the compression algorithm that covers how they solved the unreliability of the Internet.



I got a chance to talk one of the students of Columbia University, and they told me what they experienced was flawless. I suppose we should wait until it's officialy released and judge for ourselves. In the meantime, you guys should sign for beta!

I'm wondering why the presentation slide says that the service launches in Winter 2009. I hope this isn't one of those things that keep getting delayed until we never hear about it ever again.

I think this is a cool as shit idea that won't get anywhere for a long long time

I don't really see the point. I mean the digital sale of games has been happening for ages with stuff like Steam. I've never downloaded a game of there but I can't imagine it takes that long! The only difference streaming makes to the whole process is that now you don't have to store the games anywhere because they're all on one server rather than being downloaded but considering the amount of storage space computers have, this isn't really an issue at all.

I don't really see the point. I mean the digital sale of games has been happening for ages with stuff like Steam. I've never downloaded a game of there but I can't imagine it takes that long! The only difference streaming makes to the whole process is that now you don't have to store the games anywhere because they're all on one server rather than being downloaded but considering the amount of storage space computers have, this isn't really an issue at all.

the point of this is that you don't have to go out and buy new hardware dude, all your computer has to be able to do is load the streaming video of what you're doing and send back your keypresses, which means that I guess it would be possible for even a slightly nice netbook to be able to play really graphic intensive games.  they're the ones that are running the game on their end, your computer just get the images and sound (which is all you need anyway).  the idea is a very good one.  the problem is that this isn't going to be practical for many, many years.

It actually already works for all you nay sayers. But if you check the link I posted in my last post, you will realize that all games will suffer from a noticeable input lag.
That and it will be unreliable at times (mostly due to internet lag), require an internet connection to always work and have a monthly fee on top of the price to buy a game.

All of these things combined mean in the long run, you'd be better off just buying yourself a decent computer.

In theory it seems like a good idea. But in practice it is no better than just using your own computer to play the game. (In short it boils down to pay an extra $200 now for a better computer to play the games, or pay $200 over the period of 1-2 years to play the  games)
Although, from a developer/publisher standpoint, it is probably a lot better option. Higher profits and less piracy.

At the end of the day though, I'd rather stick with using my own computer and my own hard copies of the games.

It actually already works for all you nay sayers. But if you check the link I posted in my last post, you will realize that all games will suffer from a noticeable input lag.
That and it will be unreliable at times (mostly due to internet lag), require an internet connection to always work and have a monthly fee on top of the price to buy a game.

Exactly, it WORKS, but it's not practical.  And I'm pretty sure that this is what all of the people saying it doesn't work meant.