OnLive..........Who has it??

D

Dr. Righteous

2[H]4U
Joined
Aug 1, 2007
Messages
3,163
This seems to be a typical hyped service that turns out to be a turd.
Anyone currently a subscriber or tried it out?

I really hate shelling out $60 for games now a days.
 
Onlive is not a straight turd though its easy to dismiss it as one because it doesn't suit you. Onlive is a server-side gaming product. In other words it's specifically for gamers without the means or space for a console or desktop gaming system. Who is this? eh, nobody yet. The product however is sound. I had a chance recently to try a couple games on my Droid and my Dell latitude 6420 work laptop and every game ran great at the office.

If you're asking why you should use onlive when you could just go buy a game and play it on your PC or console then you're not the target audience, just move on.

As for the target audience which is going to be mobile users the largest problem with Onlive is bandwidth. There's not enough on the go. At a local Hampton Inn I stayed at the connection was sub 44kbps ethernet or wifi which is incapable of supporting Onlive. This last week I stayed at a Holiday Inn with 100kbps wifi. I ran Duke Nukem Forever (just happened to be the first game I had on my list.) perfectly finishing the first episode with 0 loss or tiling. Sadly though this time i'd brought my xbox360 and had no particular need for Onlive. Even I'm not quite the target audience.

Honestly it's great product...4 years from now. We will always have games that won't run on our mobile handhelds and Onlive and products like it will always have a place, but it was a bit more than even my Verizon 3G could handle so obviously Mobile bandwidth in the US is just not where it needs to be for Onlive to become the go to console for mobile gaming.
 
It isn't a complete turd, but has serious limitation to be aware of:

1) Interface lag. Since they are sending you video of the game, all network latency (and compression decompression latency) becomes interface lag, like having a high lag monitor. So, have a 50ms ping to their datacenter? Add a minimum of 50ms between you doing something and see it. It is cumulative with other interface lag, of course.

2) Visual detail. Don't believe the "Full graphics detail" hype. The video compression keeps that from being possible. You get a 720p image that is lacking in fine detail due to compression artifacts. Not horrible or anything, but it isn't like having a powerful video card, even if that's what is generating it.

3) Configurability. You can't change everything you'd like in a game, it can crash if you change some things. Not sure why, probably the nature of their server interface.

4) Bandwidth usage. Since it is streaming video, it uses a lot of bandwidth compared to regular online gaming. If you have a BW cap, that can be an issue, particularly if you also do Netflix.

5) Online only. Should be obvious, but just remember that no net = no games period.
 
100% agree with what Sycraft said, and mainly I hope it fails to gain traction so as to not promote complacency with latency in gaming. I respect that there is a market for this sort of thing, but the thought of it being the future model of gaming in general isn't a comforting one.

A more practical reason OnLive should fail is that with the majority of PC games simply being console ports these days, what incentive does a console owner have to try it when any potential PC advantages (refined keyboard/mouse input + graphics) are nullified by the service?
 
Thanks guys.

The graphics and latency I expected was a major limiting factor.
I'm curious how they run these games server side since they require a GPU.
 
All the game I have played on OnLive does not have full detail graphic....

A lot of games are running under medium to low graphics....sometime slightly higher, but never full detail...
 
Dr. Righteous said:
Thanks guys.

The graphics and latency I expected was a major limiting factor.
I'm curious how they run these games server side since they require a GPU.
Click to expand...

Their servers have GPUs. The basic principle is that no everyone will be gaming at the exact same time, which would hold even even more true for the "casual" market onlive is oriented towards.

I believe they have (I think they have said this in a interview) some sort of dedicated hardware that handles the encoding of video/audio.

What I would actually like is if someone offers a similar solution that allows consumers to setup their own streaming service so they can really control their desktops anywhere at home.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
Thanks guys.

The graphics and latency I expected was a major limiting factor.
I'm curious how they run these games server side since they require a GPU.
Click to expand...

GPUs like servers just fine. It is my understanding they have some proprietary virtualization tech as well (they won't say much about their methods) but you can knock a bunch of GPUs in a server if you wish.

Windows 2008R2 can make use of that with Hyper V to give an accelerated desktop over RDP if you like.
 
Is that limited to Quadro and Firepro GPUs though? I looked into that when I saw that video demo using Crysis and I read that was one the limitations.
 
BTW evga sells something with similar functionality from what I understand

http://www.evga.com/products/prodlist.asp?switch=11


Notes
PC-over-IP technology is designed specifically to deliver a user's desktop from a centralized host PC across standard IP networks. Existing desktop consolidation solutions have many limitations with systems responsiveness, media, graphics, OS image management and peripheral interoperability. By solving these issues, PC-over-IP technology will change the desktop computing model by enabling desktop consolidation benefits to be realized across the enterprise.
 
I played the Red Faction demo over online and honestly the latency was not bad... but the graphics looked like shit to be honest and the machine was clearly getting chuggy at parts.

No real point unless your computer is the ultimate pile of horse shit
 
You don't pay for a subcription and get to play the games for free. You pay $60 for the game just like normal.

Well longer than normal as theres no "competition" to make the prices drop. Youd still be playing $60 games, just with shit graphics and horrible lag. The whole thing is a huge failure, just let it die.
 
DeathPrincess said:
You don't pay for a subcription and get to play the games for free. You pay $60 for the game just like normal.

Well longer than normal as theres no "competition" to make the prices drop. Youd still be playing $60 games, just with shit graphics and horrible lag. The whole thing is a huge failure, just let it die.
Click to expand...

I couldn't find any $60 games on there. most are $20 or under I did find 2 or so $49.99 new releases. There is now a monthly subscription based bundle.

I'll give onlive one thing. As far as I can tell they have demos for almost everything.
 
piscian18 said:
I couldn't find any $60 games on there. most are $20 or under I did find 2 or so $49.99 new releases. There is now a monthly subscription based bundle.

I'll give onlive one thing. As far as I can tell they have demos for almost everything.
Click to expand...

$49.99 isn't a saving, plus they lack most of the usually $60 games (call of duty).

New releases:
Saints row the third:$49.99 Amazon download:$44.99
Assasins creed revalations: $49.99 Amazon download $37.99
Driver San francisco: $49.99 Amazon download $46.99

Etc. So you pay more, for shitty service, and cant even keep your save files... Plus when this stupid idea finally nosedives you lose all of your games... Even if steam died, they could release a patch to allow you to continue playing.
 
Sycraft said:
It isn't a complete turd, but has serious limitation to be aware of:

1) Interface lag. Since they are sending you video of the game, all network latency (and compression decompression latency) becomes interface lag, like having a high lag monitor. So, have a 50ms ping to their datacenter? Add a minimum of 50ms between you doing something and see it. It is cumulative with other interface lag, of course.

2) Visual detail. Don't believe the "Full graphics detail" hype. The video compression keeps that from being possible. You get a 720p image that is lacking in fine detail due to compression artifacts. Not horrible or anything, but it isn't like having a powerful video card, even if that's what is generating it.

3) Configurability. You can't change everything you'd like in a game, it can crash if you change some things. Not sure why, probably the nature of their server interface.

4) Bandwidth usage. Since it is streaming video, it uses a lot of bandwidth compared to regular online gaming. If you have a BW cap, that can be an issue, particularly if you also do Netflix.

5) Online only. Should be obvious, but just remember that no net = no games period.
Click to expand...

This. Its a likely a sign of what gaming will be down the line when the infrastructure isn't such a mess in the states , but the input latency is just unforgivable. Until the input latency can be brought closer to regular gaming than it simply won't work for FPS games or racing.

Bandwidth caps seriously restricts this service for many people and virtually ever ISP has them.
 
Godmachine said:
Bandwidth caps seriously restricts this service for many people and virtually ever ISP has them.
Click to expand...

This. Real consumer oriented cloud computing is pretty much dead in the water with bandwidth caps even on some hard line ISPs and the cost of the services. $60 to play games I have to buy on top of that for a crappier experience? Get outta here!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top