OnLive video demo

Deadpool2k said:
I doubt this would be widespread as this will kill the market for Nvidia & ATI graphics card.

Also since it's in the 'Cloud', you really never own the game and that won't fly with majority of pcgamers.

I see this definitely being big for netbooks as this technology is better suited for it.
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I haven't watched the video, but if this means I could get the same graphic quality with my own hardware without having to buy that hardware then I'm in!
 
Spewn said:
OnLive is going to literally be PC hardware running some kind of software frontend. If you're developing your game for PC, developing it for OnLive as well is probably no more of a step than releasing a game on disc and on Steam. It would be, IMO, quite foolish not to commit your titles to release for this project if asked.
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I agree, especially when you consider the huge increase in revenue that the publisher (and hopefully the developer....) would see from OnLive. That and the wealth of tools available to developers to track how people are playing their games must really be an attractive proposition.
 
I hope this sort of service does well. While it might not be a hit in this community (the pc hardcore). The ability to download a small browser plugin / client and then be playing any game within seconds regardless of how shitty the computer is for a most likely reasonable fee is damn cool in my mind.
 
I think this could turn out to be pretty cool. It seems like this could allow for games with tons of people playing at once with high end graphics and physics. Maybe we could get a war game with a few thousand people on a map and life like physics on everything. And he mentioned Ray Tracing, maybe we'll actually finally get that in games.
 
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criccio said:
Most likely not, and judging by his post history, he is one of those "hardcore" gamers that believes their "ping" is directly related to their enjoyment of a game.... :rolleyes:

I never even look at my "ping" when I play and I have a damn good time regardless.

Some people need to realize they are a minority of a minority.
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Sorry that I like being able to hit my targets in a game. Most people do, and that's why OnLive will never take off.
 
dario03 said:
Maybe we could get a war game with a few thousand people on a map and life like physics on everything.
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That's something I hadn't really thought of. Premium MMO's! I bet you could sell a lot of $40 WoW subscriptions that would run at "max settings" on any machine you installed your special client onto(assuming it could handle the video mode, had the bandwidth, etc).
 
theNoid said:
They re-invented video compression as the industry knows it, capping a round return at 80ms, which encapsules 2 OnLive components.

1. Your gameplay
2. IP mulitcast, allowing for sustained throughput for viewing others sessions.

There is no input lag for a few main reasons, 1 they cap the entire round return at 80ms. The human eye apparently cannot tell the difference if faster. They have shrunk both the above processes (1 and 2 respectively) into a dedicated die that decodes video in just 1ms. The remaining 79ms is used to traverse to and from your system to their nearest data center. The range is 1000 miles and they have multiple data centers strategically located around the the US. Their algorithm dynamically decides which data center to direct you to, taking into account the time of day and peak usage statistics.

Pretty much everything behind the technology has been very well thought out and in development for several years. When you have time and the ability to access the video, grab a soft drink and watch it.

Watching this video will answer just about everyones questions about the service. Perlman cuts through the PR nonsense and does 2 things.

1. Shows presentation slides with accurate data, and goes in detail about how each slide functions itself to the technology.
2. Demos games (Crysis, Burnout) playing over the cloud on a Mac, mini console and an iPhone.
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I've got a great bridge to sell you.
 
I watched the entire clip and I have say the guy really does know what he is talking about. You could tell he was talking to students in the field because the normal person would not be able to understand allot of what he was talking about when he gets technical. I appreciated it as I could understand most of it.
 
Occidio said:
I watched the entire clip and I have say the guy really does know what he is talking about. You could tell he was talking to students in the field because the normal person would not be able to understand allot of what he was talking about when he gets technical. I appreciated it as I could understand most of it.
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I will give him points for being pretty enthused about what he's doing, but I don't think it will be successful. Nor do I really like the idea in the first place.
 
if it REALLY gets popular and they can have server clusters in every state/province, I can easily see this taking over. Think about it... $1500 spent every 4 years to upgrade so you can game on a good PC, would be a LOT of gaming you could do instead of just upgrading hardware... and every state/province would yield latency times of <10ms to the server.

Look at MW2... Latency honestly really isn't affecting the game as much as people think. I almost always play on servers with 100ms or more, and it seems very fluid. Assuming networks improve by the time this is mainstream, and they can put clusters in every city, the latency difference would almost be unrecognizable from a regular PC. The truth is games just don't need latencies of 25ms to be enjoyable. However, input lag WILL be a big issue if pings are >50 if you ask me, hence the need for localized servers.

Certainly is interesting, I'd love to just upgrade my monitor/peripherals and use the same PC for 10 years...
 
Thing is, I enjoy upgrading my PC, and I enjoy fudging around with settings. Those are the things services like this are trying to eliminate.

Also, no mod support. That's a GG right there.
 
I haven't watched the video, but if this means I could get the same graphic quality with my own hardware without having to buy that hardware then I'm in!
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Not a chance, they have had to create a video codec not using GOPs, this therefore lowers the efficency slightly. If you take the best video codec currently utilized H264/AVC and encode a video in SD at 1.25Mbps (0.25Mps for audio) or 1080p HD at 5Mbps you will notice how bad it looks, especially sharp corners on walls in games.
 
this is going to fail for latency alone

everything they've shown is under as ideal as possible circumstances. unless you're within 50 miles or so, the latency is probably going to start getting annoying before eventually making it completely unplayable.


so how much do you pay for the subscription? comparison to the cost of a capable computer (and how long it lasts) vs the subscription fee of onlive?
 
I can't even get the video to stream consistently, good luck OnLive.
But then on my 3Mb DSL I'm going to be stuck with what, SD? versus 2560x1600 with no macroblocking on my local PC? Yeah, that's a tough one.
 
I wonder how much it'll cost for a subscription. My guess is it'll be a luxury good at first, then either die out or become more mainstream. Like a lot of new tech, I guess.
 
Wow, I was very impressed.
I remember seeing this a year ago and thinking it was impossible/idiotic.

This really seems like it could be a big part of the future of gaming.
 
Seems like the only console system that would survive this new technology is the Wii.

This tech is definitely the next step in gaming. I do not see any cons besides maybe the technical kinks which will be eventually ironed out.
 
Looks pretty cool....if it does catch on I'm currently all of about 10 miles from one of the server centers that he mentioned (using Verizon FiOS too :D), so I doubt I'd have any latency issues.
 
Litfod said:
I can't even get the video to stream consistently, good luck OnLive.
But then on my 3Mb DSL I'm going to be stuck with what, SD? versus 2560x1600 with no macroblocking on my local PC? Yeah, that's a tough one.
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Exactly, it's really cool when you have a "demo" of it for a presentation but once you put it into practical use it's complete shit.
 
I tried the beta last week with the main system in my sig on a 10mb connection.

It really is like you're playing a youtube video...game. I think the max resolution it supports right now is 1280x720. Tried Crysis Wars and the settings, which you can't change, are all on medium and looked worse due to looking like a video stream. Felt awkward playing some of the other demos due to the quality looking so bad and a really short delay between controls and actual movement. As of right now, I am not impressed at all.
 
I guess it only goes up to 720p, even on PC games, then.

That's unfortunate.
 
Peanut Butter said:
I tried the beta last week with the main system in my sig on a 10mb connection.

It really is like you're playing a youtube video...game. I think the max resolution it supports right now is 1280x720. Tried Crysis Wars and the settings, which you can't change, are all on medium and looked worse due to looking like a video stream. Felt awkward playing some of the other demos due to the quality looking so bad and a really short delay between controls and actual movement. As of right now, I am not impressed at all.
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But... but... the guy in the video said you could play Crysis max settings and not even be able to comprehend the lag.
 
Peanut Butter said:
It really is like you're playing a youtube video...game. I think the max resolution it supports right now is 1280x720. Tried Crysis Wars and the settings, which you can't change, are all on medium and looked worse due to looking like a video stream.
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You can do better than that on a $100 card. Without the compression artifacts and input lag.

How are the framerates?

Litfod said:
I can't even get the video to stream consistently, good luck OnLive.
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Yeah, I haven't even watched it yet, because the fucking thing won't buffer faster than 10 seconds per minute.

Presumably because Columbia University can't justify quadrupling their hosting capacity to meet the occasional spike in demand. OnLive faces the same problem, and whatever they decide to do about it is not going to work out well for the users. You're either going to see poor performance, low quality, limited availability, prices in line with buying your own hardware, or some combination of the above.
 
Some of the NDA breaching feedback is about what I expected.

Now, I'm going to take everything I know about physics and throw it out the window for the time being. :D

Onlive has a chance to work for portable PC gaming, and that's really about it. If we get netbooks and such that are finally capable of handling HD streams without hiccups, I could see that being a somewhat cool thing. On the desktop? You can forget it.

Something like this is also really dependent on what types of games you are playing. Something like a MMORPG (WoW), I could see being a nice extension to the desktop play.

However, I fail to see a sustainable business model here.
 
Lol I wonder how much bandwidth this uses up? I can hear Concast warming up the throttles now...

I signed up for better but never heard anything. :(
 
crackbone said:
Onlive has a chance to work for portable PC gaming, and that's really about it. If we get netbooks and such that are finally capable of handling HD streams without hiccups, I could see that being a somewhat cool thing. On the desktop? You can forget it.
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The big problem with portable is connections are even worse. Speedtests on many free wifi systems are hardly ever fast enough to do even 5mbit/s. Trying to run it over a 3g connection would also be a pretty poor experience.
 
siliconnerd said:
The big problem with portable is connections are even worse. Speedtests on many free wifi systems are hardly ever fast enough to do even 5mbit/s. Trying to run it over a 3g connection would also be a pretty poor experience.
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Not only that but from what I have seen, latencey on 3g is terrible and would net you a 200+ ping. From my understanding of OnLive this would equate to a 200+ms input lag. :eek:
 
Sweet!! I got my beta invite! I have to run some performance checks to further qualify but I'm pumped. :cool:
 
The more I watch demos and presentations for onlive the more I actually come to like the idea, however I still have massive skeptesism with this service.

Firstly I think theres inherent problems with the system which are not easy to overcome, first of all the latency, I don't think this is ever going to be acceptable for a large chunk of the PC audience playing things like FPS games, getting the latency down to 80ms is a fantastic acheivement by these guys and should not be downplayed, however I don't think it's significant enough to make a large set of games playable. The analogy is of course going from 10-20ms broadband type online gaming back to the days of 56k where pings were no better than 100-120ms on a good day.

Secondly they're shifting costs away from the developers/publishers back towards the users, so not only do you pay an online fee and then also rent/buy your games, but also you have to pay for the bandwidth for streaming HD. They reckon 5mbit for HD over onlive (taken from a slide in the video) so thats 0.625MB/sec worth of data, 37.5Mb per minute of gaming and 2.250Gb of data per hour. So 4 hours of a singleplayer will cost you 9Gb basically...

In the UK almost every ISP has a data limit per month, most of the cheapo connections actually dont come with very much, typically 3-5Gb per month, the medium end packages tend to be about 20Gb per month and the higher end ones are 40Gb per month. Not only that but very few people can get 5Mbit speeds over copper phone lines.

I know the US and a lot of other places do have much better broadband in terms of capacity, a lot of other countries are used to "unlimited data" which is what the UK used to have, but times are changing and I dont think thats sustainable anywhere when high bandwidth usage on demand media like this becomes popular. shifting data around is actually expensive at a wholesale level theres only so many tricks ISPs can pull before they have to face up to the fact that the average data usage per person is going up because of these sorts of services.

I also think theres some other massive problems, modding for example. We can't mod our games, if widescreen is fucked because the developer is a moron and uses vert- rather than horz+ or we end up with a stupid FOV problem with really low FOV we're basically screwed, we can't change this preferene because we dont have access to the game files. We also can't fine tune mod our games, some games have massive modding fanbase like Oblivion and all that goes away, some games are almost unplayable without player made mods to fix stuff.

Serious competative gaming wont exist, the 80ms latency is a factor of 4x-8x more latency than what some gamers are used to, that's not acceptable, nor is being locked out of the console and advanced settings to change data rates, to change low level gaphics settings etc.

I also have my personal doubts about the frame rate and quality of the games, what settings are they running crysis in for example? Probably not very high is my guess, what happens if the frame rate is dipping too low? What happens if you simply prefer a faster frame rate like an average 100fps?

These are the reasons a lot of people buy PCs for gaming, they want an advanced gaming experience thats customised to their needs, everything from the graphics to the controls. This system is a dumbed down experience like the console market is, you get a pretty polished game well built for its system but ultimately you can't stray outside that prepackaged system, if theres errors or bugs or things that irritate you then tough shit.

Might work as a replacement for console who are used to low standards but it's never going to replace PC gaming.
 
Higher latency, lower graphics, no modding, subscription fee.. hmm sounds like something I know, oh yeah a console LOL
 
Zicro said:
Higher latency, lower graphics, no modding, subscription fee.. hmm sounds like something I know, oh yeah a console LOL
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80ms, full 720p HD, no hacking, and I don't have to spend hundreds building/maintaining a rig... sounds like a breath of fresh air.

In all seriousness I get a chuckle from some of the fear responses generated by OnLive. People, this is breakthrough technology that is going to shape the way you play games in the coming future, you'd be a fool to overlook OnLive. Whether its OnLive or another service like it ... you are going to see this business model get bigger and pick up speed over the next decade. Change is scary I know, but despite how radical and how threatening this technology may seem, its coming.
 
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theNoid said:
80ms, full 720p HD, no hacking, and I don't have to spend hundreds building/maintaining a rig... sounds like a breath of fresh air.

In all seriousness I get a chuckle from some of the fear responses generated by OnLive. People, this is breakthrough technology that is going to shape the way you play games in the coming future, you'd be a fool to overlook OnLive. Whether its OnLive or another service like it ... you are going to see this business model get bigger and pick up speed over the next decade. Change is scary I know, but despite how radical and how threatening this technology may seem, its coming.
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MAN A WHOLE 720P WELL SLAP ME SILLY I WAS WRONG ABOUT ONLIVE!. I'll start playing that blurry shit once I have to start banging rocks together to start a fire.
 
Forceman said:
How long ago was 720p gaming state of the art on the PC, 2001?
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Yes, but it's different when you're playing a console game. I've played quite a few games that look REALLY good on the PS3, even at 720p. You can pull it off, it just takes more effort.

it also helps that you're sitting back further while playing on a TV. PC gaming has be higher res because you sit very close to the screen.

Not to say that I think OnLive won't suck, because I do.
 
While I find the real-time compression algorithm genuinely intriguing, I have a very hard time imagining that the compression artifacts wouldn't be noticeable if not downright ugly. I guess I can't be sure until we get some raw footage of their high-bandwidth streams.

But even ignoring a sacrifice in image quality I don't think I'd be able to tolerate 80ms latency. That's just too much. My monitor has about 40ms input lag and while tolerable it's certainly noticeable. Doubling that would be unplayable for FPS games.
 
This seems like exactly the sort of thing that will fail horribly and fall into obscurity until ten years later the technology becomes feasible, and magazine are written about how amazingly "ahead of it's time" it was, but how obviously it was doomed for failure with out critical advances a, b and c.
 
wolfen22 said:
Yes, but it's different when you're playing a console game. I've played quite a few games that look REALLY good on the PS3, even at 720p. You can pull it off, it just takes more effort.

it also helps that you're sitting back further while playing on a TV. PC gaming has be higher res because you sit very close to the screen.

Not to say that I think OnLive won't suck, because I do.
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sorry man, but no..

720p on any TV even sitting back I can still see alias everywhere and bad AF, also bad texture, objects...everything you can think of...

the graphic is just insanely bad, for PC gamer at least....
 
shansoft said:
sorry man, but no..

720p on any TV even sitting back I can still see alias everywhere and bad AF, also bad texture, objects...everything you can think of...

the graphic is just insanely bad, for PC gamer at least....
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If you say so. The thing is that no one makes PC games anymore, so what does it matter if you can have better graphics if there's NOTHING to play that's worth it?
 
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