Register - Login
Views: 99852966
 Main - Memberlist - Active users - Calendar - Wiki - IRC Chat - Online users
Ranks - Rules/FAQ - Stats - Latest Posts - Color Chart - Smilies 		05-04-22 11:13:21 AM
Jul - Gaming - OnLive New poll - New thread - New reply
Next newer thread | Next older thread
— FPzero —
9590



Post 2907/9597
Active 5.5 years ago
Posted on 03-25-09 03:30:08 AM (last edited by Viarra at 03-25-09 12:32 AM) Link | Quote
http://pc.ign.com/articles/965/965542p1.html

This looks BIG. It has the potential to cause a huge shift in the way gaming is carried out on PC.
Originally posted by Article
So, we've played it and, in the controlled environment that we tested it out in, the service worked great. The potential for it is nothing short of industry changing, a massive paradigm shift in how we think about gaming hardware, and even the delivery of the media.

Basically think of it as a digital distribution service for high-end PC games, but without the need to have the high-end computers needed to run them. Best way I can think of to describe it is a console for PC games with a digital distribution of the games instead of hard copies.

____________________
Tina
Beep boop
Level: 79


Posts: 881/1549
EXP: 4472093
For next: 107374

Since: 08-10-07


Since last post: 3.4 years
Last activity: 3.4 years
Posted on 03-25-09 05:43:45 AM Link | Quote
Better hope you have high-speed and no chance of overages, not to mention no problem with shitty video quality, high latency, and other things.

I don't want this to succeed.

____________________
Hiryuu

Level: 207


Posts: 7745/14435
EXP: 127635874
For next: 2148280

Since: 07-06-07


Since last post: 11.8 years
Last activity: 11.7 years
Posted on 03-27-09 05:59:32 PM Link | Quote
Here's the site.

If you think about it...this gets to the point of completely dominating the industry, gaming stores would be out of business.

Not to mention a few things...the lack of a net connection would prohibit you from getting games or possibly game features if you went somewhere or didn't have the net to begin with...the lack of a physical copy of the game you have, which many actual prefer down to basic psychology of actually owning something...and then a lot more of a social thing of being able to go to a store in case something doesn't work out.

I don't think we're ready for that. A hybrid of digital downloads and physical copies works just fine for me.

____________________
SquashMonster
Member
The sexiest yellow bastard you've ever met.
Level: 47


Posts: 332/465
EXP: 738091
For next: 28112

Since: 07-04-07


Since last post: 11.5 years
Last activity: 11.5 years
Posted on 03-27-09 07:07:20 PM Link | Quote
I really doubt this will pan out.

The speed of connection needed is going to be pretty hefty, plus there's latency and stability issues.

Not to mention that the hardware required to run these things is going to have to be somewhere. The company will have to buy all the high-end gaming rigs themselves. And sure, more than one person can be using these servers at a time, but you still need enough of them to handle peak hours. And latency means servers will have to be reasonably local, which means peak hours will be pretty intense.

Now, if companies were focused on something other than graphics, this would be a much better idea. You could have a central server do all your AI, physics, and whatever else your game needs, and only spit out the relevant coordinates. Everything but final renders can be packed into a very small bandwidth, so it would make way more sense to be sending that instead.

____________________
Girlydragon
3030
Possibly neither Girly nor Dragon.
Level: 105


Posts: 645/3030
EXP: 12257485
For next: 4775

Since: 07-21-07

From: Sweden

Since last post: 284 days
Last activity: 22 min.
Posted on 03-27-09 09:22:35 PM Link | Quote
I'm actually for this sort of technology, it's just out far too early.

Once we get the super servers to handle all players, and fiber times 100 connection all over the world for everyone then yes for this sort of thing. Until then? Very very no.

____________________
Tina
Beep boop
Level: 79


Posts: 912/1549
EXP: 4472093
For next: 107374

Since: 08-10-07


Since last post: 3.4 years
Last activity: 3.4 years
Posted on 03-27-09 09:32:56 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by Nao
Not to mention a few things...the lack of a net connection would prohibit you from getting games or possibly game features if you went somewhere or didn't have the net to begin with...the lack of a physical copy of the game you have, which many actual prefer down to basic psychology of actually owning something...and then a lot more of a social thing of being able to go to a store in case something doesn't work out.

I don't think we're ready for that. A hybrid of digital downloads and physical copies works just fine for me.

If you don't have decent internet access, you have no access to your games, afaik. What I got out of the article is that the system isn't adept to actual gaming, just rendering pre-fed video.


Originally posted by SquashMonster
Now, if companies were focused on something other than graphics, this would be a much better idea. You could have a central server do all your AI, physics, and whatever else your game needs, and only spit out the relevant coordinates. Everything but final renders can be packed into a very small bandwidth, so it would make way more sense to be sending that instead.

Actually, from what I remember from back when it was the "next big thing", that's mostly how Second Life worked. (That is, all the physics and shit was server-side). Not sure, though.

____________________
SquashMonster
Member
The sexiest yellow bastard you've ever met.
Level: 47


Posts: 336/465
EXP: 738091
For next: 28112

Since: 07-04-07


Since last post: 11.5 years
Last activity: 11.5 years
Posted on 03-27-09 10:27:03 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by Tina
Actually, from what I remember from back when it was the "next big thing", that's mostly how Second Life worked. (That is, all the physics and shit was server-side). Not sure, though.
I don't know about Second Life, but that approach is actually a very common one in MMOs in general.

Doing everything server-side in an MMO means a lot of helpful things:
- You don't need data from other players when doing object interactions
- Easier patching
- Makes it a bitch to set up a pirate server
- Other than botting and knowledge-hacks, it makes it impossible to cheat without exploiting a bug

But even in a non-multiplayer game, you could still make an OnLive-esque service that takes advantage of superior servers to handle processing-heavy tasks. Mind you, the majority of modern games aren't actually all that big on processing. The only genre that really strikes me as being able to take advantage of server processing would be RTSs, where you could have a huge number of units using good, detailed pathfinding by outsourcing that task to the server. Hell, that's even largely parallelizable, so you could use a server farm to do it.

____________________
Next newer thread | Next older thread
Jul - Gaming - OnLive New poll - New thread - New reply


Rusted Logic

Acmlmboard - commit 47be4dc [2021-08-23]
©2000-2022 Acmlm, Xkeeper, Kaito Sinclaire, et al.

28 database queries, 1 query cache hits.
Query execution time: 0.081665 seconds
Script execution time: 0.016509 seconds
Total render time: 0.098174 seconds