[Merged] Onlive - The end is near for Console Games and Pc Rigs

[Raistlin]

Originally Posted by soup dragon

we had this yesterday http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/30...s-pc-rigs.html

Indeed.

Threads Merged

[CHiLL]

The end isn't near. We'd need Internet connections that could handle such high bandwidth, and our current infrastructure can't. BT are willing to upgrade their infrastructure from copper cables to fibre, but that's going to take a long time to complete.

Microsoft are opting for this route too. They want it, when the Internet is fast enough, that you don't need to have an operating system installed on your hard drive. Instead you just dial out to Microsoft, download the OS as you need it, and do the same for other applications. Such as Office, Outlook, etc.
I'm sure this is what it used to be like in the dawn of the computers. They just go round in circles.

[icestar2]

Very intresting article on eurogamer about why as they say "It Cant Possibly Work"

Some Quotes -

I love industry-shaking announcements. I love new, game-changing hardware, and I'm absolutely, almost literally exploding with excitement about the new OnLive gaming concept.

The concept is remarkably simple. The actual hardware generating the visuals and running the gameplay isn't owned by you. Instead it's held somewhere else in the world. That hardware then encodes its visual output and beams it to you over the internet.

There's only one slight problem. Realistically, there is no way it can work to the extent suggested, and no way it can provide a gaming experience as good as the one you already have without inherent compromises. It's a great idea, and an intriguing demo that is amazing in that it actually works at all. However, away from the concept and the tech demos running in controlled conditions, OnLive raises so many technical questions and seemingly overcomes so many impossible challenges that it can't possibly work.

In essence, we're looking at several very specific challenges for OnLive to overcome - challenges that are either massive in scope, or technologically beyond the very best minds of their respective fields. For this to work, we're talking about a generational leap in not one, but several fields of technology.

I know I've quoted a fair bit above but that was just to give people an idea of what the article is about. The full 2 page article can be read Here and make's some good points(Not All). Very good read if you can be bothered lol.

[iFrankie]

whats the point? you can download xbox games via the dashboard. sometime in the near future maybe xbox 360 games.

[Stuart]

It's also worth noting that a *lot* of people play games on various portable consoles (DS,DSLite, PSP etc) and mobile phones (iPhone, Windows Mobile etc) which *may* have WiFi or some other form of wireless communication. But with most Phone plans, your speed will be limited, and you may be capped. OK, so there are public WiFi hotspots, but these cost money and may have limited bandwidth available, which may be shared with many users.

[Charlie_Bubble]

Originally Posted by icestar2

Very intresting article on eurogamer about why as they say "It Cant Possibly Work"

Some Quotes -



I know I've quoted a fair bit above but that was just to give people an idea of what the article is about. The full 2 page article can be read Here and make's some good points(Not All). Very good read if you can be bothered lol.

There is a reply to this Eurogamer article on the BBC website (LINK) from the founder of Onlive. He says it will work, but I can't help thinking that at 10 gamers per server, if he has big plans, he's going to have to get that figure up significantly.

[icestar2]

Originally Posted by Charlie_Bubble

There is a reply to this Eurogamer article on the BBC website (LINK) from the founder of Onlive. He says it will work, but I can't help thinking that at 10 gamers per server, if he has big plans, he's going to have to get that figure up significantly.

Thnaks, Intresting read again but even he says -

He said the OnLive experience was almost as good as sitting in front of a console and playing a game.

"The algorithm is not perfect. You will sometimes see little artefacts on the screen. Video compression is part science and part art.

Thats would put me off straight away. I'd rather own a product anyway and get the best possible performance I can from it. Still I guess we'll have to wait and see what its like before making a judgment.

[Charlie_Bubble]

BBC News is reporting that OnLive is going live in June in the US. No news about when/whether it'll be available here. One thing that I did notice from their website is that the OnLive service is priced at $14.95 per month BEFORE any game is played. This is basically like the fee paid for Xbox Live, to get access to the service. Game rental is extra and that price isn't mentioned on the website.

So, access to the service will be about $180 a year, or around £130, which is about the same price as buying a new Xbox every year, or PS3 every 2 years.

We want to take your dollars from hardware and let you spend it on software.

So, where are people saving money on the hardware, which is one of the plus factors that they talk about when advertising the service as a console killer? Ok, you're not getting any new hardware, but you're still paying the money out!

[Stuart]

Add to that the fact that you don't need to pay for xbox live if you don't want (you lose a lot of features but it still works)..

high quality gaming on low spec machines yeah right and the band is playing that famous song what is it now?.....oh yes Believe it if you like lol lol

[Stuart]

I find it interesting that we seem to have no independant reviews of this technology. Not even some reviewer stating it's wonderful without going into details of how it works.

I am curious to see how the average broadband connection will affect it. They say it can cope with 80ms of latency. Maybe it can. However, a lot of modern games have trouble with that kind of latency, and they are a *lot* less dependant on the network. All they transfer is some data about the positions and actions of the various players. This system will be carrying the inputs from the user and the graphics/sound from the server. A lot of data that needs to be displayed on screen in less than 1/60th of a second.

I suspect the target market are those who can't afford consoles, not those who are happy to buy consoles and PCs. The trouble with this is that those people are exactly the kind of people who will be on broadband tarrifs that are cheap, and therefore slower and/or capped or STMd..

While I know of (and respect) the man behind the technology, I will wait until I can find some independent reviews before I make a decision on whether I think it's good or bad.

One final query about this service. How will it handle old games? I have an xbox 360 and occasionally like to dig out the oldies like Project Gothem Racing 4 and NFS:Most Wanted. In my case, I have the discs, so it's just a case of digging them out and sticking them in the DVD drive. Would games that old be available via OnLive ,or would they have been deleted?

[admars]

As others have said, it does all seem like RDP/VNC for games. When I've seen demos of that it looks great, and on paper is marvelous. Doesn't explain why we get calls at work every day saying Citrix is slow, terminal servers are slow etc.

Amazing what you can do in a controlled lab environment.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by zing

high quality gaming on low spec machines yeah right and the band is playing that famous song what is it now?.....oh yes Believe it if you like lol lol

Zing read the links. The rendering, drawing, etc, is done elsewhere not on the local PC.

Think RDP / Citrix for games. Big ask.

Horribly dependent on quality of connection so that's a number of people on VM stuffed