Remote game services (OnLive, Gaikai, etc.)

[djdev]

theres free trials for most games there, i tried it out for the hell of it, and its really not all that bad.

just cause and dirt 2 were fairly playable, the fps's not so much.

i used it connected to both a monitor and a tv, and the lag really compounded when on the tv. normally i can feel a slight bit of lag on it, but in combination it was pretty unplayable. i could imagine a multiplayer game being similar, because it has to go to the onlive server, out to the game host server, back to onlive and then finally to you. seems ugly, havent tried it yet.

picture quality was acceptable, there were some dropped frames here and there that really interfered with the gameplay, but other than that it looked ok, visible compression artifacts but nothing really distracting. occasionally i got a network problem thingy displayed, some macroblocking and that kind of stuff.

the closest server to me is virginia so i assume thats where my stream is coming from, to long island, it seems pretty close, but i guess ideally you would want to be in the same state.

i tried it with a download in the background and it really got ugly fast, so you would probably want to throttle dl's and stuff running on your network if you used it.

im going to try streaming a netflix movie on another device and see what happens.

overall pretty decent, not $15 a month worth though

The Playpack subscription is optional though. It is mainly for older catalog titles, and it's $9.99 a month. They are up to 61 titles so far with the Borderlands and Just Cause 2 being the much recently released games addded. You can use the service for free. They ditched the mandatory subscription fee before it was even in effect. The service has over 100 titles now.

I got the Microconsole free through a pre-order promotion for Deus Ex Human Revolution. That would probably be the best way to go. I wouldn't hook up the pc to a HDTV unless it was in game mode to reduce latency.

Are the bandwidth requirements for tablets lower because they're streaming lower resolutions?

Well tablets are starting to be connected to HDTVs so they may have to support 1080p.

I think the reason is because it's getting displayed on a smaller screen. I would still recommend around 1-3Mbps for tablets anyway even if the minimum was .5mbps.

 

[Arwin]

I tried it again this weekend as well, and it certainly has promise. I tried it with Lego Harry Potter, which worked well. If they put the Witcher 2 or something like that on there I'd definitely be tempted to give the full game a go. And for demos it is nearly unbeatable in being able to play it so quickly.

Did anyone notice that Eurogamer is partnering with Gaikai to link articles / previews and reviews to demos on Gaikai that you can then play for yourself by just pressing the link in the article? Clever stuff. There is definitely some future in this technology.

 

[snarfbot]

The Playpack subscription is optional though.

well that changes things heh. i played around with it last night, and it ran much better. i played through the metro 2033 trial, while streaming a netflix movie, surprisingly without issue. network problem popped up for a few seconds at one point, but i didnt notice any actual dropped frames or anything.

couldve been on my end earlier yesterday, who knows, i got cable so it mightve been someone in the area hogging all the bandwidth. they have servers in chicago, and alabama maybe i was connected to one of them instead. it would be nice if you could select a preferred server.

but anyway it worked well the second go around, pretty cool stuff.

 

[djdev]

Valve "really likes OnLive (Valve games may appear on service)

http://www.computerandvideogames.co...y-likes-onlive/?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-News-RSS

Far from spurning OnLive as a worrying threat to his Steam business, Valve boss Gabe Newell "really likes" the games-on-demand service. At least, that's according to OnLive.

The Cloud gaming company has told CVG that it has engaged in "conversations" with Valve boss Gabe Newell about working more closely together, and that it considers the exec and his business as "friends".

And that's not all - Valve has even given the California-based start-up advice on what to include in the future feature set of its service.

"Gabe and his team really like what we're doing," said OnLive VP of Engineering Joe Bentley. "I can't go into specifics of any conversations we've had but we have had conversations with everybody in the industry. They really dig OnLive. Gabe is a funny guy because he's really not competitive - very similar to Randy [Pitchford]. He sees us a complementary in a lot of different ways.

"If you get to know Valve as a company, Steam was something that they just had to do because nobody else was handling a decent digital distribution model. Gabe and his team's hearts are really in making games like Portal 2 and so forth. If you see where Portal 2 is, it's on every other platform.

"If Gabe was so intent on Steam's dominance he would make it exclusive on Steam, but that's not what he is. He's about making the best quality games out there.

"He's really fascinated with our features and given us a lot of suggestions, they've got similar features coming out and we've chatted about really innovative ideas. I regard him and the company as friends. Sure we're going to have other people doing similar things, but the industry is big enough. We're only a 200 person start-up, we don't need to own it all, there's something for everybody."

OnLive showed its service off on a range of mobile devices at E3 earlier this month, including iPad. Bentley showed CVG how the company's controller will soon sync wirelessly with most popular tablets on the market. (See below for a video of OnLive CEO Steve Perlman demonstrating the tech in Los Angeles.)

Bentley told us: "For me, Steam can't really take their game to that mobile level... Gabe [Newell] walks around with his iPad so he sees OnLive and maybe thinks about how he can get Portal out to the world to the mobile market without compromises."

UK gamers can already sign up to OnLive ahead of its launch .

BT has the exclusive rights to bundle OnLive together with its broadband service offerings in the UK, although customers will also have the option to order directly from OnLive to run over any UK ISP.

It will be awesome if Valve games apear on OnLive and there is cross-platform play. I think OnLive breaking into the tablet market will help them tremendously. However, they are going to have to make some serious deals with ISPs due to caps. There is a rumor going around that they are planning to host servers in ISP datacentres. This is actually true for BT and Belgacom, but we haven't heard about other telcos yet. AT&T was an early investor in OnLive so I wonder if they are going to do the same as well. At least, the tablet/smartphone clients use less bandwidth due to smaller screen.

I tried it again this weekend as well, and it certainly has promise. I tried it with Lego Harry Potter, which worked well. If they put the Witcher 2 or something like that on there I'd definitely be tempted to give the full game a go. And for demos it is nearly unbeatable in being able to play it so quickly.

Did anyone notice that Eurogamer is partnering with Gaikai to link articles / previews and reviews to demos on Gaikai that you can then play for yourself by just pressing the link in the article? Clever stuff. There is definitely some future in this technology.

Walmart.com also has Gaikai demos. I was beta testing some of Gaikai's EA demos (Dead Space 2, Mass Effect 2, Spore, The Sims 3). The expereince is a mixed bag compared to OnLive. When I played DS2, it looked native, but it played in a small window. Mass Effect 2 was the same until I played it a second time when the video quality was worse. I use Verizon FIOS (35UP/35down). Gaikai has a lot more servers, but Onlive overall has better compression tech because you can still play it from long distances. You have to be within 100 miles of Gaikai's server (it was 25 miles in the beta). Since Gaikai is only limited to demos right now. It doesn't really interest me as much.

 

[Rangers]

Well, this is coming from Onlive again but, Onlive on 360 and PS3???

When we asked OnLive VP of Engineering Joe Bentley if the company could see its service working with Microsoft and Sony's systems in future - rather than just bypassing them - he said:

"Absolutely, they would make great consoles. Our controller is a hybrid between a PS3 controller and an Xbox controller. It's all compatible, it would just work. There are OnLive guys chatting [Sony and MS], but we'll see where it goes. But it would absolutely work, we're ready to work with everybody.

I'm not even sure I could grasp what implications Onlive on X360 or PS3 would begin to have. Well for starters, it seems like it would eventually beg the question why those consoles exist at all (besides the exclusives games argument, which is somewhat artificial). It might well be a competitive advantage I think, if one adopted it and not the other. For MS/Sony, I dont see why they would mind getting their $10 royalty from an Onlive sale as opposed to anywhere else, as far as that narrow issue goes, but there's a lot more to it.

It would also have (negative?) implications for console next gen in that, theoretically Onlive can scale graphically with no new hardware needed. Again I would think some question begging might happen. "Why do I need PS4 when Onlive is giving me incrementally improving graphics over time on my ps3 anyway" type of thing.

It would actually be pretty exciting but I'm somewhat skeptical of it happening anytime soon.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Yeah, the most interesting thing is if MS and Sony really wanted to adopt streaming games like OnLive, there would be no reason to release new hardware. Seems too early for either of them to jump in with both feet based on existing broadband infrastructure, ensuring at least one more generation.

OnLive is probably more of an acquisition target than a partner, though. We won't end up with OnLive selling games through both platforms. One or the other would buy OnLive and more tightly integrate the platform with their own system and branding so, even though you might be running a PC build of a game, you'd get PlayStation button prompts, or whatever.

With Sony or MS the possibilities for exclusives designed to run on hardware far more powerful than the average PC and far too expensive to sell as a console is also there. To a certain degree OnLive is constrained by their dependence on third party PC SKUs. Those games have to scale, and are often built around the 360/PS3 as lowest common denominator anyway. With Sony's or Microsoft's development and engineering expertise, they can establish a baseline standard platform using whatever exotic hardware they choose, upgrade it at will and explicitly target that hardware. There is also nothing stopping them from rack-mounting their current consoles and streaming their current library through the service.

 

[djdev]

2mbps streaming is working (can play over 4G)

Below is a reply from OnLive community manager Matt Jensen in the OnLivefans forum. It confirms that 2mbps streaming is enabled. He recommends 2mbps for netbooks and tablets, 2.5-3mbps for laptops, and 3 and up for HDTVs. He also revealed the the OnLive Viewer and Player apps will run as low as 1mbps. Users have also confirmed that the service works over 4G.

http://onlivefans.com/showthread.php?9154-2Mbps-Streaming-is-Live&p=87808&viewfull=1#post87808

Hi everyone,

As Steve mentioned in his interview, the latest update was a major one, but now we have a huge number of servers and it takes a while to roll it out, and after that, we are cautious in turning on new features, and even after we do, bear in mind that some of the new features support stuff behind the scenes, like prepping for new games that are about to be released, or support for next-gen servers and new data centers.

I love the fact that everyone in this forum is on the leading edge of OnLive technology, and we know you want to be on top of every new feature. But, please understand that our first priority is making sure OnLive is reliable. One of the great advantages of cloud gaming is that if there is a hiccup with a new feature, it is easy for us to quickly disable it, fix the bug, and roll it out again. This happens very rarely, but the OnLive system is 100s of millions of lines of code deployed globally not only on servers, but to custom hardware, and to a wide range of local devices, all working in real-time with precision often measured in microseconds, and we're human. So, we want to be sure something is solid with many hours of use throughout the world on all devices before we declare it as released. We realize that's not the way most product updates work, but few products are as complex as OnLive, especially products targeted to a mass-market audience that won't understand technical problems.

So, yes, I can confirm that OnLive will now allow connections to PC, Mac and MicroConsoles down to 2Mbps, and that update is complete and solid worldwide. Because we've been steadily improving the compression algorithms (there are different ones used for different situations), on a small screen (say a netbook) 2Mbps will be okay. We recommend 2.5 to 3 Mbps for a laptop screen, and recommend 3 Mbps and up for monitors and TVs. The bigger the screen and the closer you are to it, the higher speed we recommend. For example, while 2Mbps looks great on a netbook or tablet, it will not look good on a TV or monitor.

Also, note that bandwidth is just one factor. When Internet connections (especially wireless ones) have impairments (e.g. packet loss, jitter, congestion, etc.), it can impact video quality. Also, if we can't get enough processing power from your computer (e.g. if it is in power save mode, or if other processes are bogging it down), that can also impact video quality. Lastly, be sure you adjust the Brightness and Contrast using Settings:Video in the OnLive Dashboard. You'd be amazed how much that can improve the video quality.

You will continue to see OnLive video quality get better, but it will be gradual, and sometimes the improvements we make only affect certain types of connections or certain game video sequences, so some people will be blown away by the change, and others won't see it. So, don't be surprised if some people wake up one morning and see a big change, but you don't see any difference. The people that usually are surprised the most are ones who haven't used OnLive for a few months and then try it again.

We expect that lowering the minimum bandwidth to 2 Mbps will open the door for a lot more people to try OnLive, and in a pinch, it will allow you to play in more places, like hotels and public Wi-Fi hotspots. But bear in mind that we still recommend higher bandwidth for larger screens or monitors you are sitting up close to.

(Note also, that the OnLive Viewer and Player on tablets will run down to 1 Mbps, although we recommend 2 Mbps.)

Yes, there are other features in this release that are not yet visible to users. We have a lot of stuff rolling out through the summer, so please hang tight!

Finally, I'll reveal the answer to one OnLive's deepest mysteries that has been also pondered by this forum: why is Steve Perlman always demoing Virtua Tennis? Well, the reason is he usually has very limited demo time and it launches through the title screen and into gameplay very quickly, it's rated E for "Everyone" and won't offend anyone in the audience or require an age gate if posted as a video, and it's very easy to play in case he hands it to someone who wants to try it. When there is a particularly feature to demonstrate, he'll use other games, like the touch features in "From Dust".

I know this is a long post, but I hope this helps shed some light onto your questions!

-OnLive MJ

 

[Rangers]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=22165

OnLive Chief: Cloud Gaming to Dominate Industry in 10 years

In fact, OnLive's CEO Steve Perlman believes that cloud gaming will be the only type of gaming left in 10 years -- making retailers like GameStop obsolete.

"We'll be there in 10 years -- if that," said Perlman.

Big words.

I read several negative comments about Onlive from crytek and a few others recently, I dont want to just post good stuff about them, but anyway I dont feel like looking that up right now.

Back to the Dailytech article:

Some video game publishers are looking to the cloud as the anti-piracy future of gaming. Hard copies and digital downloads of games are too easy to replicate, since users can just create an image of the game and distribute it across the web, making it available to anyone with the right software to run it. The same issue is occurring with mobile devices. In fact, "Angry Birds" is the most pirated game in China.

So what's a publisher to do? Recently, turning to the cloud has become a viable option. Cloud-based gaming companies like OnLive, Gaikai and Otoy run their games on strong remote computer servers and stream them to a user's computer/device. These games are nearly impossible to steal because they "live" in the cloud.

This got me thinking, I had never realized before, but aren't streaming gaming services essentially pirate proof?

Say you had a game that was only playable onlive (so no physical or digital copy existed anywhere), wouldn't that be a piracy proof game? If so, that might be appealing to developers indeed. You would have to see an Onlive exclusive I guess, for that to happen...

 

[Cheezdoodles]

So does this work?

 

[Brad Grenz]

This got me thinking, I had never realized before, but aren't streaming gaming services essentially pirate proof?

Say you had a game that was only playable onlive (so no physical or digital copy existed anywhere), wouldn't that be a piracy proof game? If so, that might be appealing to developers indeed. You would have to see an Onlive exclusive I guess, for that to happen...

As long as no one succeeds in smuggling out and cracking onlive builds of a given game, pretty much.

 

[Mendel]

It works and looks about the same as youtube hd videos of games, sometimes even better. On my 24/2Mbit adsl the lag is minimal and I wouldn´t complain about it. It´s fast enough that if I would sit a friend on my pc running an onlive trial game, they would not complain about lag, instead they would ask me about the lower than native looking resolution. Then when I tell them the game is being streamed from internet they go like wtf?

I often find myself using this service to trial a game if it is available on onlive rather than downloading and installing a demo to my pc or console. It´s effortless. I use a wired 360 controller on my pc for onlive.

Haven´t actually bought a game for onlive as of yet because for purchased games I prefer sharper graphics with higher resolution and absolutely no video compression.

I may buy one game eventually that comes with the actual console so that I can better use this in the living room

 

[djdev]

It seems that are really trying to expand there userbase. Subscribers to the playpack ($9.99 a month) get 30% of all titles including promotions, pre-orders, etc (except for Playpack itself of course).

http://www.onlive.com/games/playpack#&tab=top_games&sortby=alpha

They just need more titles at this point.

 

[Rangers]

It works and looks about the same as youtube hd videos of games, sometimes even better. On my 24/2Mbit adsl the lag is minimal and I wouldn´t complain about it. It´s fast enough that if I would sit a friend on my pc running an onlive trial game, they would not complain about lag, instead they would ask me about the lower than native looking resolution. Then when I tell them the game is being streamed from internet they go like wtf?

I often find myself using this service to trial a game if it is available on onlive rather than downloading and installing a demo to my pc or console. It´s effortless. I use a wired 360 controller on my pc for onlive.

Haven´t actually bought a game for onlive as of yet because for purchased games I prefer sharper graphics with higher resolution and absolutely no video compression.

I may buy one game eventually that comes with the actual console so that I can better use this in the living room

According to something I read somewhere Onlive lag has been measured as low as 150 ms, at which time the outside possibility arises it could have less input lag than a ps360 game locally (133 ms for standard 30 FPS game).

 

[patsu]

How did they measure the 150ms lag in OnLive ? Is it for a 30fps or a 60fps game ? When do they start and stop the stopwatch ? (i.e., What exactly are they measuring ?)

I remember 30fps console games should be around 100-133ms.

 

[Brad Grenz]

How did they measure the 150ms lag in OnLive ? Is it for a 30fps or a 60fps game ? When do they start and stop the stopwatch ? (i.e., What exactly are they measuring ?)

I remember 30fps console games should be around 100-133ms.

They measured it like you measure input lag, time from input to action on screen. The games are all PC games and they've said having everything running at 60fps helps them keep the input lag close to a local 30fps game.

 

[lilbroK]

I just don't see the fun of playing a game with lag and when I play the feed looked kind of fuzzy.

 

[patsu]

They measured it like you measure input lag, time from input to action on screen. The games are all PC games and they've said having everything running at 60fps helps them keep the input lag close to a local 30fps game.

Yeah I suspect they were measuring 60fps games ^_^

I wonder if they run the game at even higher framerate, how much further can they lower the perceived lag.

The attractiveness of OnLive is probably the cheap access to a huge library and the community experience (once it's built up).

EDIT: hmm... Also need to know the net speed for the measured lag.

 

[rekator]

I'm thinking that for Onlive&Co is to contract with ISP to implement Onlive serveurs in backbone to reduce lag.
In France, we have many ISP who furnish Set-top-box base on Intel ATOM comprised in the bill. A deal with them can attract people. Don't rely known the equipment situation on other countries.

 

[patsu]

Yes it's a common practise. The web conferencing people strike deals with ISPs to improve lag too. CDNs also offer edge servers for application hosting. Would be insightful to see how the lag changes for an average subscriber.

 

[tuna]

How did they measure the 150ms lag in OnLive ? Is it for a 30fps or a 60fps game ? When do they start and stop the stopwatch ? (i.e., What exactly are they measuring ?)

I remember 30fps console games should be around 100-133ms.

If you are playing on a TV with onlines 'console' you will get the TV input lag as well.