Heres my OnLive review with bandwidth tests and lossless screen shots if anyone is interested.
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33942872&page=7
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33942872&page=7
Remote game services (OnLive, Gaikai, etc.)
- Thread starter Rangers
- Start date
Billy Idol
Legend
thanks a lot, very informative!!
The bandwidth you need is brutal (4.7GB for 20min gaming!!)
Great pics. Would be nice to have the same views rendered on PC for direct comparision. We could create an actually quality metric that way (DigitalFoundry...).
This article has some comparisions.
http://techspotlight.net/news/graphics-comparison-onlive-games-vs-regular-pc-games
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Red Faction is particularly brutal showing a very low in game IQ setting along with the video compression.
And about 14 GB worth of bandwidth every 1 hour of play? That's about 5.6% of the softcap of 250 GB/month for Comcast. Ouch...
In 2 hours of play you could have downloaded a PS3 game.
Regards,
SB
Thanks for the review. The image quality at 720p is noticeably better then what we've seen before, so Onlive seems to be scaling the compression rate according to your connection speed - 20Mbps is probably faster then whatever the other guys have had so far.
But whoever has the money to pay for such a fast internet connection probably also has the money to buy a better PC, and would definitely have less tolerance for lag... So once again it doesn't make much sense to me.
But whoever has the money to pay for such a fast internet connection probably also has the money to buy a better PC, and would definitely have less tolerance for lag... So once again it doesn't make much sense to me.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Went through his testing with it, don't quite agree with this...
Even back in the modem days with lag in FPS games anywhere from 250-350 ms, control lag is always the same as playing any game on your computer. The lag comes in with hit detection and opposing player's movements. So you move your mouse and your view instantly changes (unless you have vsync and triple buffering).
With onlive, you'd be waiting up to a quarter of a second between moving your mouse and your view changing according to his testing. As he said similar to having your video card render X frames ahead (possibly 6 as he estimated). That would drive me absolutely batty.
Or to put it another way. It has more lag than anything shown on Kinect thus far.
Regards,
SB
Even back in the modem days with lag in FPS games anywhere from 250-350 ms, control lag is always the same as playing any game on your computer. The lag comes in with hit detection and opposing player's movements. So you move your mouse and your view instantly changes (unless you have vsync and triple buffering).
With onlive, you'd be waiting up to a quarter of a second between moving your mouse and your view changing according to his testing. As he said similar to having your video card render X frames ahead (possibly 6 as he estimated). That would drive me absolutely batty.
Or to put it another way. It has more lag than anything shown on Kinect thus far.
Regards,
SB
On the one hand there's qb2k5's experience. On the other, this one:
http://twitter.com/Digital_Foundry/status/16996657123
Yikes!
Anyway, I have to give props to the Onlive guys for getting the service up and working, and in some cases they can even reach a reasonable compression quality as well (qb2k5).
The relatively low detail settings are a disappointment, but it's obviously related to their budget; with more subscribers, they ill be able to invest more in the hardware and increase the quality. Although, with more users the compression and bandwidth related parts of their infrastructure will be stressed further, too... And lag is definitely something that'll be much harder to take care of, but then again for casual players who don't have highend gaming PCs it could easily do. In fact I'm playing Deus Ex 1 right now and there's some serious control lag thanks to the graphics engine's issues, it does annoy me now and then, but doesn't stop me from playing... if Onlive is going to be like that, I think that might be acceptible for most cases (but not for online play).
But for all the issues, the service is still up and running, and it's a lot more than many of us have expected. They deserve recognition for that.
http://twitter.com/Digital_Foundry/status/16996657123
Yikes!
Anyway, I have to give props to the Onlive guys for getting the service up and working, and in some cases they can even reach a reasonable compression quality as well (qb2k5).
The relatively low detail settings are a disappointment, but it's obviously related to their budget; with more subscribers, they ill be able to invest more in the hardware and increase the quality. Although, with more users the compression and bandwidth related parts of their infrastructure will be stressed further, too... And lag is definitely something that'll be much harder to take care of, but then again for casual players who don't have highend gaming PCs it could easily do. In fact I'm playing Deus Ex 1 right now and there's some serious control lag thanks to the graphics engine's issues, it does annoy me now and then, but doesn't stop me from playing... if Onlive is going to be like that, I think that might be acceptible for most cases (but not for online play).
But for all the issues, the service is still up and running, and it's a lot more than many of us have expected. They deserve recognition for that.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I think the quality probably goes down during action scenes while quality goes up during relatively static scenes.
If qb2k5 was not moving while taking screenshots that is most likely showing only the best possible case when you are standing around doing nothing.
Bandwidth likewise probably changes depending on whether there's a lot of motion or whether it's relatively static.
It is interesting that they got it up and running at least. I still have a hard time envisioning this being a commercial success for them however. Unless they partner up with a Cable provider or two.
Regards,
SB
If qb2k5 was not moving while taking screenshots that is most likely showing only the best possible case when you are standing around doing nothing.
Bandwidth likewise probably changes depending on whether there's a lot of motion or whether it's relatively static.
It is interesting that they got it up and running at least. I still have a hard time envisioning this being a commercial success for them however. Unless they partner up with a Cable provider or two.
Regards,
SB
grandmaster
Veteran
Silent_Buddha is correct. OnLive looks decent when there is no motion. In motion it is... well, dreadful. Even on menu screens, when text appears it takes a half second or so to properly resolve and is accompanied by artefacts in the mean time.
It is most certainly not 60fps, but it is above 30. The video stream itself is 60fps, but the server-side source isn't.
@shiftygeezer - as I'm not in the US I've not been able to do the tests myself directly though I have been briefly hands-on. However, I've now found someone I trust to carry out all the relevant tests.
It's interesting to note that DiRT2 is very unplayable because of the lag. You just can't anticipate and account for the nuances of drifting around corners. You need that 1:1 relationship with the controls that only local gameplay can provide.
The perfidious thing here is that because people aren't used to having to account for lag. They don't understand it. So with OnLive, I'm finding players either blaming themselves or blaming the game when they're not very good at it.
All of this testing was done with a FIOS connection: 25mbps down, 5mbps up.
It is most certainly not 60fps, but it is above 30. The video stream itself is 60fps, but the server-side source isn't.
@shiftygeezer - as I'm not in the US I've not been able to do the tests myself directly though I have been briefly hands-on. However, I've now found someone I trust to carry out all the relevant tests.
It's interesting to note that DiRT2 is very unplayable because of the lag. You just can't anticipate and account for the nuances of drifting around corners. You need that 1:1 relationship with the controls that only local gameplay can provide.
The perfidious thing here is that because people aren't used to having to account for lag. They don't understand it. So with OnLive, I'm finding players either blaming themselves or blaming the game when they're not very good at it.
All of this testing was done with a FIOS connection: 25mbps down, 5mbps up.
I also added some UT3 AA and AF shots in my mini review. Right now Im currently downloading the pc version of UT3 from Steam. Problem is it may take awhile as Im getting a 80KB avg. So expect the shots to be up by tomorrow evening.
Also you guys are right when you stand still the shots are much sharper, but in motion it starts to look more like an HD youtube video. I played this on my laptop and even with the small amounts of compression it beats my gma950 hands down in IQ.
Also you guys are right when you stand still the shots are much sharper, but in motion it starts to look more like an HD youtube video. I played this on my laptop and even with the small amounts of compression it beats my gma950 hands down in IQ.
Hmm, factoring in that consoles being played on a typical modern HDTV will add increasing amounts of display lag up to 100ms, while playing on a PC monitor display lag will be much lower (could be near zero) and onlive could technically beat those typical console games in lag much of the time.
Joystiq's "first few weeks" with OnLive...
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/07/13/onlive-the-first-few-weeks/
Tommy McClain
Joystiq said:
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/07/13/onlive-the-first-few-weeks/
Tommy McClain
I think this pic from the DF article sums it up for me: http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/1/1/7/9/0/5/2/Dupe1.jpg.jpg
OnLive is gaming for the SD, YouTube generation. Great for mobile phones, but it's not a replacement for local hardware yet. However, the future of cloud computing, server-side gaming, has been kicked off. Cheap local performance hardware can still be capable, suggesting in the future, semi-smart terminals could do sophisticated image reconstruction. I'm sure DF will dig deeper into the possibilities in their follow up article!
The big question now is whether OnLive attracts custom or not. Who is it going to sell to, given that to me it seems PC and console gamers are going to want to steer clear? And if it can't generate a stable userbase, how will the fututre of server-side gaming work? Presumably it'll be down to one of the console companies to introduce their 'online console', with something like Xbox Live! evolving to a whole media devlivery and execution platform. I'm sure Ms would love that! But with crappy internet infrastructure, this seems a long way off to me.
OnLive is gaming for the SD, YouTube generation. Great for mobile phones, but it's not a replacement for local hardware yet. However, the future of cloud computing, server-side gaming, has been kicked off. Cheap local performance hardware can still be capable, suggesting in the future, semi-smart terminals could do sophisticated image reconstruction. I'm sure DF will dig deeper into the possibilities in their follow up article!
The big question now is whether OnLive attracts custom or not. Who is it going to sell to, given that to me it seems PC and console gamers are going to want to steer clear? And if it can't generate a stable userbase, how will the fututre of server-side gaming work? Presumably it'll be down to one of the console companies to introduce their 'online console', with something like Xbox Live! evolving to a whole media devlivery and execution platform. I'm sure Ms would love that! But with crappy internet infrastructure, this seems a long way off to me.
Well, seems to me Onlive has an obvious market...pretty much everybody with a non-gaming laptop (meaning like 95% of them). And laptops have sold more than desktops for years, so that market is growing.
Personally, I'd never go for it. Way too many compromises.
Also, seems they should offer the service free or cheap, and you only pay for the games.
I mean whats the real advantage of cloud gaming? Save on hardware costs via shared resources. So at some point to make it attractive, they need to pass that savings on to us.
Instead of a $300 console, charge $150 for 5 years of Onlive (or, $30 a year), or something like that, is what I mean. The games can be the same price on both.
Personally, I'd never go for it. Way too many compromises.
Also, seems they should offer the service free or cheap, and you only pay for the games.
I mean whats the real advantage of cloud gaming? Save on hardware costs via shared resources. So at some point to make it attractive, they need to pass that savings on to us.
Instead of a $300 console, charge $150 for 5 years of Onlive (or, $30 a year), or something like that, is what I mean. The games can be the same price on both.
couldn't that also be served with the terminal just having an igp in it. THe image quality I get off onlive is on par with playing at 640x480 with mabye 2x quincy aa . I'm pretty sure the majority of these games can be played just as well with even an intergrated intel igp. Moving to a amd igp would improve performance and image quality.
Aside from that , most internet kiosks in airports are run on wifi so this is a no go.
I have a hp mini 311 it has an atom cpu and a ion chipset. It cost me $350 bucks and the games look much better off the igp then using onlive
