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  • 0roo0roo - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link

    i think its the same kind of idea as the network pc larry elison tried to push in the past. remember a while back he said that pc's wouldn't need harddrives, just boot through the net!! money saved!
    i think this is about as pointless as that. it moves the burden onto an expensive use of bandwidth, and people that have such lag free high bandwidth connections don't need help with buying video cards. they are selling a second rate experience in an environment of so many alternatives for entertainment. its just easier to get a console if you dont want to play the pc upgrade game.
  • nubie - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link

    [quote]...or on the OnLive "console" hardware; basically a video encoder, ethernet and a USB port.[/quote]

    I am assuming that you meant a video decoder?
  • Kroneborge - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link

    I don't know, I'm really not a fan of cloud computing, and don't think I would like cloud gaming either. There's something to be said for owning your own stuff, and not being totally dependent on a 3rd party provider.



  • zayfmaro - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link

    All of your comments talking about lag and latency have nothing to do with the concept of cloud gaming in and of itself. The idea of cloud gaming is revolutionary. Although we are lacking the internet bandwidth to enjoy such concepts as multiplayer cloud gaming, as soon as we find a better medium for high speed internet or better yet, a different loss-less compression technology, the ability to play any game through the internet will surely take off. Sure the quality won't be as good, but saving hundreds of dollars on computer hardware, and not having to upgrade my video card to play the latest games is so worth a few chopped frames and some latency. Most computer users don't get the best video cards on the market anyway its just not worth the price/performance ratio. Overall, if everyone has the same latency, then the latency itself is non-existent. I'm very excited for this technology and can't wait to see other uses of cloud computing.
  • bobobeastie - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link

    "This next part was cool. Iwata took us through how goes about designing games"

    That typo caused confusion for me for the first couple of pages. I just assumed it was supposed to be he that is missing, because it would seem difficult to skip someones name. It was not clear if Iwata was talking about Miyamoto or if Iwata was Miyamoto's first name. If I understand it correctly they had Iwata kissing Miyamoto's ass on stage, figuratively that is?
  • Wolfpup - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link

    All the stuff with Miyamoto SOUNDS good, but what's the point? Does Nintendo actually do any game development now? I can't remember any original titles last year that were GAMES.
  • tejas84 - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link

    This company Onlive has the gall to try and screw Microsoft,Sony, Nvidia, Intel and ATI and they think they can get away with it. Hmm I don't think so... I don't see these companies sitting down and taking this. More hardware is sold via current methods than by this method and this project threatens too many big corporations

    Besides what is this ??Communist North Korea where my gaming has to be done on a server collecting all my information ;spoonfed to me cos I'm too thick to buy a mid range PC or console and hook it up? People in this world still value tangible goods you know and where would all the folding@home be done?

    I thought in freedom loving America that you all love the ability to do things your way and not be ruled by a server which dictates the games pricing, and lack of mods, settings etc etc

    As far as Folding@home is concerned...Oh thats right I need to hire out a Cray Supercomputer server from Onlive costing $X thousands rather than using my GPUs and CPUs... This is about tangible versus nothingness and PC users are not going to give up their hardware for this shite. Maybe Mac fanboys would love this and some console gamers but PC enthusiasts know this is a load of baloney.

    ISPs in the US and Europe cannot handle this service effectively due to aggresive traffic shaping and this is the physical and real life reason why this will fail.
  • iwodo - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link

    Personlly i think it is a good idea, at least Slow, or not fast paced Action RPG, slow paced games, turn based games, RTS, turn paced, etc....

    It would be great for Mac too.
  • arturnowp - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    I'm just wondering if OnLive has something to do with AMD Fusion Cloud computing with is schedule for end of 2009. OnLive didn't invent new CPUs and GPU system afterall...
  • arturnowp - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link

    I've just found out that AMD is behind OTOY, a competitor to OnLive. I just wanted to say please stop comlaining. It OnLive turn out to be over advertised nobody will use it, end of problem.
  • arturnowp - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link

    Resolution is not that big problem. Imagine 720p with 16x AA. There is resolution bound caused by netword bandwidth not because of data center perfomance.
  • MrSAballmer - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    Interesting stuff here, especially the fishnet-girls!

    http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com">http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
  • spuddyt - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    I mean, a fat red plumber jumping on mushrooms....
  • drwheel - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    That's how the article reads anyway.

    It amazes me that bigfoot networks is still in business. Another killer nic product that delivers marginal improvements that are rivalled by a $25 intel card:

    http://forum.ncix.com/forums/topic.php?id=1304406">http://forum.ncix.com/forums/topic.php?id=1304406

    And a streaming video game system! Awesome. Seeing as how gamers like myself already complain about latency on lcd monitors that claim to have single-digit ms response times (not always true), or who can easily notice a different between at 20ms versus a 100ms ping time to a game server, I'm sure throwing another 80ms of lag in there because your game is being pre-rendered elsewhere won't hurt either! Haha.

    What a joke. Is this the best stuff there is to report about at GDC?
  • SSDMaster - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    They've really done something unique with onLive though... you gotta hand it to them.

    They've created a new type of lag.
    Before you just had to wait till the server showed you where your enemies were, but NOW you get to wait to see your character turn every time you hit the control stick...

    GENIUS!
  • drwheel - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    And let's not forget the other issues with this platform aside from latency. This company better have a ginormous data center with tons of mid to high-end systems, each one with a dedicated gfx card for each player, and gobs and gobs of bandwidth on a very reliable backbone. We're talking about AIG bailout money here.

    This entire venture just sounds like something that will never get off the ground. And even if it does, there is a list of logistical issues that will cause it to fail. Sorry, but this sounds like the next "Sega Channel" or better yet... Phantom game console.

    Good idea, but there is no way it will ever work. Atleast, not until this country's network infrastructure is improved to a point where coast-to-coast latency is in the single-digit millisecond range, and everyone has atleast 10Mbps bandwidth in their home (read: not for at least another 10 years).
  • bespoke - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    "And let's not forget the other issues with this platform aside from latency. This company better have a ginormous data center with tons of mid to high-end systems, each one with a dedicated gfx card for each player, and gobs and gobs of bandwidth on a very reliable backbone. We're talking about AIG bailout money here."

    Right - this is the point I don't understand. We've got to be talking about quite huge hardware investment per user to run these things. Maybe $500 of hardware per user? Are these guys really going to spend that much money up front? Are they going to be able to recoop that money? Will they upgrade hardware every 6-12 months to stay up with games?
  • baba264 - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    I believe I may be able to offer some insight on this question. In my opinion you forget three major facts.
    The first one is that the game resolution offered are calibrated for the tv. Either standard 800x600 tv, or 1024*720 HD tv, but either way, compared to the kind of resolution we're talking about in a high end gaming rigg, this is very low.
    The second fact is that they're probably not going to be running their games on indivdual pc, but rather on a cluster of workstations with high end graphic cards and maybe dedicated hardware for physics rendering. Considering the resolutions involved, one may be able to run quite a few instances of a game on a single machine.
    The third is that, given the resolutions offered and the latency issues, this seems to me like a product aimed much more at the console crowd and maybe the notebook crowd than at the pc gaming one.
    To sum it up there must be some large input of money to start up the thing, but if it's well designed, one may be able to add to load capacity without changing the architecture, just by plugging in new machines. So the initial investment is just a few machines and all the design and software to run the thing. Furthermore, one does get some economy through scaling so the number are not as bad as they seem. And since it's aimed mostly at the console crowd, that's more used to latency, the add up might not be an issue in most games.
    So all in all, seen as something to replace your console (and not your pc) or to get into gaming if you don't have any hardware yet, this seems like a fairly good idea to me. However, I am concerned, as others have expressed before me, with the impact this traffic will have on Internet as a whole if this service becomes popular.
  • araczynski - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    i'm really hoping onlive gets traction, it would catch the industry off guard at the least, but i'd think for the most part the developers would love it.

    great way to fight piracy and gamestop, not to mention opening up a whole new potential userbase for developers to sell to, i.e. those that don't want to waste time/money on buying/building crazy gaming rigs.

    the 720p limitation at the moment does worry me a bit, but then again that's probably not that big of an issue when the device is hooked up to say a laptop screen, as opposed to a tv/monitor.

    in any case, broadband speeds are only increasing, even in the backwater US, so full 1080p shouldn't be all that far off.
  • The0ne - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    Speed increase with download/upload caps. Yea, good combo alright.
  • blagishnessosity - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    The way I see it, broadband speeds are decreasing. A decade ago when my family first got road runner, few other families in the neighborhood had it, so there was not nearly the amount of network usage that we see today. Now, everyone has broadband and usage is high, slowing down the network. Now the ISP's are charging more for inferior speeds. In my experience, bandwidth tests back then yielded much higher speeds then they do now. And not just that, I pay more money for less speed (I've always used road runner). So, maybe the technology exists for higher speeds now, but you have to pay a high premium for them. There doesn't appear to be enough competition in the ISP market for this trend to change anytime soon.
  • XiroMisho - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    I originally thought this was bloatware... until I tried to do voice chat on a system with a sub par sound card. For the price, and the fact it has voice chat support... then okay, vs buying a better sound card on PCI-E (Which... doesn't exist for under a $150, thank you lethargic sound card community...), this may be worth it... of course going to wait till the price drops to about $79.99.
  • Calin - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    This won't help if you're having a sub par sound card. It's like buying larger tires for better grip when you're using a Yugo to tow a large trailer, or something
  • BigfootSean - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link

    Well, sorta. Currently, lots of game voice apps rely on the CPU to do all the encode / decode operations required for gaming voice chat. Sound cards do a good job at DirectSound / EAX sort of stuff, but when it comes to more random stuff like voice, both the apps and the cards develop out of sync.

    It makes sense for us to do this (and sign up as many partners as possible) because voice chat is a network app that should run on the NIC. Let the CPU worry about the game, let the audio card worry about the explosions and effects, and let the network processor slice, dice, decode, encode and send.

    Combined with hardware bandwidth control, this means that your game will never step on your voice chat, and vice versa, assigning clear priorities to each so that neither becomes scrambled.

    Thanks for the opportunity to reply!
  • Lifted - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    I still have to play with my friends wii's. :(
  • NewBro - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    I'm sorry but am I the only one who thinks the whole OnLive gaming on internet is a terrible idea to start with? First of all the latency issue, and the whole thing running through the internet just doesn't sounds all that great to me. I mean would you want to be interrupted in the middle of a Boss fight in Resident Evil 4 due to a bad connection?
  • xahydra - Sunday, March 29, 2009 - link

    Yeah, this whole cloud stuff is getting a little wacky now... Sure there are some really useful services, but it bothers me to see some people get so excited about handing their hardware over little by little and depending on someone else to run their software. I don't want a future filled with dumb terminals that can be managed and controlled more than ever by someone else. The P in PC is for Personal. Its bad enough I have to ask for Microsofts permission to activate my OS when I swap out a peice of hardware. I don't want "subscription software" and "on-demand" gaming... I can pull out my old copy of Freespace 2 and play it at will because it's MINE, I don't have to navigate to the "classics channel" and pay to play over a stream
  • nubie - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link

    Personally the ramifications of this are easy to see if you imagine that you could have a server that streams the game to any display you want in or around your house.

    Instead of having a monster gaming machine tethered to a desk making heat and noise you could have wireless handheld consoles, from the iPhone to the PSP/DS, or even something much slimmer with a 10" screen on a magnesium or aluminum chassis and hours upon hours of battery life. Not to mention streaming to displays all over your house, from the projection room to the kitchen.

    What about inviting people over for a "LANparty" without the LAN. Imagine the latency reduction of having everyone on the same system. I can, I already use nVidia dual-view to load up games with split-screen and split-controls onto my PC, and it is a blast (not that these games are common, only a handful of titles at best.)

    SLi and Crossfire don't seem particularly interested in allowing users to span 2-8 displays of multi-player goodness from one machine, even though the results are stunning.
  • The0ne - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    I don't think it will work at all when there are tons of users. Sure a few demos and players here seems fine now but just wait til you're at WOW numbers :)
  • Samus - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    It makes sense for games like World of Warcraft where latency isn't a big deal...although WoW isn't very graphically intensive to begin with so the service is for the most part unneccessary.

    FPS's = I agree with you. Latency is ALREADY a problem in deathmatch, and that's measured in milliseconds. I'm sure the video latency will be at least a second.
  • wilkinb - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    in woW latency can be a big deal...

    Stop casts in pvp or boss fights are a lot harder when you have high ping times and the cast times are short....

    Also timing CD's right time not be on shot...

    Sure if you are just doing easy content or dont care about arenas then it doesnt matter... but the same can be said about FPS...

    Also people keep saying wow isnt prashically intensive.. this again is true when you stand by your self... when you are on say a WG battle ground with say 160 other players adn all their spell effects... there are a lot of polygons... It runs slower then crysis for example.

    MOO's have to deal with more scaling issues then FPS.

    MMO's have the issue f

  • wilkinb - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    no idea what happned to some of that text :(

    wtb edit.
  • randomname - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    "I'm sure the video latency will be at least a second."

    In Dean Takahashi's article:

    "A packet can make an entire round trip in 80 milliseconds, a very short amount of time compared to other Internet traffic that travels through hardware that either compresses or decompresses the data."

    I'm assuming that 80 ms has all the essential stages included. Which would be supported by Anand's claim that Bioshock felt like Bioshock.

    Nevertheless, lag, reliability and bandwidth are probably the only obstacles here. All of which can be further improved. Bandwidth-wise, once you get to Blu-Ray -quality 40/48 Mbps, or at least when you get to 1080p60 4:4:4 -quality, additional bandwidth won't get you anything, really. On the server side, you would only have to buy a fraction of the number of consoles/computing hardware compared to every user buying one. And if you can do it with games, you can do it with all programs and media.
  • SSDMaster - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    80ms? Okay, wonderful. I have to wait .08 Seconds till I can move my cross hairs over someone's head which is only going to be in that specific location for another .02 Seconds.

    FPS's are too fast paced for this... Especially UT 2004 types.
    Maybe you could play a horrendously slow paced FPS like Halo or something.

    Also, the US internet backbone just cannot handle this kind of streaming. Comcast gives me a 30mb connection for about 7 minutes. Then they cap it back to whatever I "really" have, which is a 6mb connection. Which "should" be enough unless everyone starts using onLive... Then I'm sure Comcast won't even be able to give me 6mb.

    My last point. Internet packets don't always arrive on time or in order, its not like you have this one internet (pipe) to your computer. Think of a stream full of rocks, and your packets (water) are taking tons of different paths, all around these rocks.

    That's really not a good enough illustration but I think you guys get the point. If you have a router between you and onLive server's which is bogged down but still working; then your connections going to suck. Not all routers prioritize packets.
  • Modeverything - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    I think one solution to this could be to use UDP instead of TCP.

    Today's networks are not the ones of a decade ago when packet verification was needed. Packets rarely get lost anymore, and if you lose a single packet, big deal, you probably won't notice anyway.

    If OnLive were setup to use UDP transmission, I think it would work.
  • overzealot - Friday, March 27, 2009 - link

    It's a latency-critical app, they're definately going to use UDP, possibly with a layer of RTP(or similar protocol)
  • andrihb - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    Think of them as a series of...
  • Calin - Thursday, March 26, 2009 - link

    Latency might not be a big deal in World of Warcraft - but remember that people balk at the idea of TFT monitors showing the image from 3-5 frames back - that's less than a tenth of a second. If you're talking about Internet-enabled gaming, you should consider the ping response time you get from a server when you're streaming something (from the same server, probably). Let's say ping to a game server while streaming high quality video.
    The bandwidth really needs to increase for this, and the latency needs to go down.


    As for adaptive quality based on usable bandwidth, you don't know when you're reaching your bandwidth, you only know when you're surpassing it, so that makes the game stutter (too low a bandwidth = lost packets), then go sometime in low quality mode, and then go again in high quality mode. For high quality games, the server would need the equivalent of a high-performance recent-generation video card and CPU for every gamer out there, and the hardware or CPU to compress that stream (video and audio)

    It will probably happen, but it's a long time into future

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