I sent my name for the beta test on the official site. I agree that I'm dubious as to how well this will work in practice (considering even something like Netflix streams can have trouble maintaining quality on inconsistent connections), but I'm really curious to try it out to see what they've done. It's interesting as a technology, but also as a business model. They're operating kinda on the Gym membership model. One person can spend a lot of money on a high end gaming PC, but imagine all the time you're not actually running a game on it! This is like going in with 30 other people on a single PC with the expectation, like a gym, that everyone with a membership won't try to use it all at the same time. Color me intrigued, but I definitley want to try it out myself.
Remote game services (OnLive, Gaikai, etc.)
- Thread starter Rangers
- Start date
RenegadeRocks
Legend
They can't compress it like a video , you never know what the next frame would be. They might compress each frame to jpeg2000 and send over that way every frame is just a few kb, but terrible image quality 
!
Also, this method can work only with people who have unlimited download connections(which is fine in India, but dunno about other countries) as well as 5mbps(Which is not even available in metros here).
!Also, this method can work only with people who have unlimited download connections(which is fine in India, but dunno about other countries) as well as 5mbps(Which is not even available in metros here).
If you missed first 20mins, then you missed a lot of live demos of playing games [crysis, prince of persia,...]
The best thing i saw in this presentation is absolutly no load times on starting the game. Simply phenomenal.
edit - i just saw the whole thing, and damn, im very impressed. Very nice, and very n00b friendly. Everything is in few clicks away.
Retarding the lightning fast startups of the game, are they maybe using the same thing that PSP homebrew users have,with "save states", that will dump content of entire ram&CPU on mem stick so that later on you can continue from that same position? Like hibernate option on normal PC's?
If they can deliver this as advertised, then they will swim in money.
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I'm very sceptical on this whole thing. They may talk about 1ms per frame compression and raw IP packets if they want but I don't think they could get it to respond faster than around 400-800ms in best-case scenario. It might be enough for a few game types but not for any fast-paced RTS or FPS.
Also, compressing 720p vide+audio stream into 5mbit in real-time sounds a "bit" suspicious. I have very hard time believing those demos they showed were at that quality, they seemed to be quite a bit better.
Not to mention it will not be easy to cover the costs of bandwidth and those superfast servers they were supposed to own.
Also, compressing 720p vide+audio stream into 5mbit in real-time sounds a "bit" suspicious. I have very hard time believing those demos they showed were at that quality, they seemed to be quite a bit better.
Not to mention it will not be easy to cover the costs of bandwidth and those superfast servers they were supposed to own.
No, but they know what the last frames where and can use that information wisely to improve compression. Just because Mpeg4 can reference future frames, doesnt means it has to do it. Sure you lose "quality per bitrate", but thats a drawback I could live with.
What might be problematic tough is that you have a set of dependend frames, you cant just easily skip a couple of them if the network slowed down... either have to try to catch up or wait to the next keyframe.
maybe thats the point of all that processing power, they render game on 120fps, so they will have 4 frame for analysis/encoding for each frame they sent downstream to us as 30 fps. How good image quality do you get when streaming 720p video (with 5.1 sound?) over 5mbit line when using the best compression algorithms out there? What about the fastest that can compress frames in 1ms? I'm quite sure they don't look anything as good as what was demoed there.
Also, assuming constant 30FPS rendering speed it takes around 33ms to render one frame. At 5mbit one frame takes around 20kb and it takes ~30ms to transfer it. Add in double/tripple buffering, network latency, display latency and you get quite a long time between pressing a button and seeing results on your screen.
Also, assuming constant 30FPS rendering speed it takes around 33ms to render one frame. At 5mbit one frame takes around 20kb and it takes ~30ms to transfer it. Add in double/tripple buffering, network latency, display latency and you get quite a long time between pressing a button and seeing results on your screen.
marcus_rocks
Newcomer
It might work. Just look at the PS3 remote play, I played Poker over the PSP all the time and it actually worked out OK. It just depends on what type of games you want to play. For racing games, it will take a little bit of time for the technology to mature but for RPG and other stuff, they are fine.
What latency are they referring to in the following quote?
"Can Steve Perlman, the creator of QuickTime and WebTV, really "change the landscape of the Games industry" using OnLive's new interactive video compression algorithm? Latency through the algorithm is just 1-ms instead of the 0.5- to 0.75-second lag inherent in conventional compression algorithms used in corporate video conferencing solutions, for example."
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/25/video-onlive-streaming-game-demonstrated/
"Can Steve Perlman, the creator of QuickTime and WebTV, really "change the landscape of the Games industry" using OnLive's new interactive video compression algorithm? Latency through the algorithm is just 1-ms instead of the 0.5- to 0.75-second lag inherent in conventional compression algorithms used in corporate video conferencing solutions, for example."
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/25/video-onlive-streaming-game-demonstrated/
grandmaster
Veteran
I've been running video compression tests all day. The only way I can get HD 720p at 60fps looking even vaguely watchable is with two hour encoding sessions. For one minute of video. With no future-frames available, video quality is going to take a big, big drop even if you drop down to the more believable 30fps.
The more I look at this, the unfeasible it becomes... what happens when 1m people want to play GTA V on launch day? Have OnLive really created realtime HD encoders better than anything ever made by the best compressionist experts in the field? How they managed to beat internet latency so comprehensively when no-one else has? In the current economic climate who is going to front-up the millions/billions of dollars required to build server farms based on high end gaming hardware?
If there is an IPTV set-up in the offing, how have OnLive managed to set it up when Microsoft can't even get its own IPTV service running anywhere?
The more I look at this, the unfeasible it becomes... what happens when 1m people want to play GTA V on launch day? Have OnLive really created realtime HD encoders better than anything ever made by the best compressionist experts in the field? How they managed to beat internet latency so comprehensively when no-one else has? In the current economic climate who is going to front-up the millions/billions of dollars required to build server farms based on high end gaming hardware?
If there is an IPTV set-up in the offing, how have OnLive managed to set it up when Microsoft can't even get its own IPTV service running anywhere?
grandmaster
Veteran
Yeah but they're promising Crysis! If you wanted to do turn based RPGs and Poker games you wouldn't spunk gigabytes of streaming video to do it.
So yea, I guess if they were planning on offering a video steaming service using exactly what you've been running your tests with, you're argument would hold water.
I've done a lot of reading from different sources and from what people have seen it seems very possible. I'm going to keep positive and hope this technology becomes a success.
I do have my doubts; however, more about the business model and less about the actual technology. Never say never.
Well, if their target audience is as "good" as the presenters in that video then I guess they won't mind having 1-2s latency
How low is it possible to get latency from keypress to visual feedback when all the processing is done few hundred km away in a renderfarm?
AT&T U-verse
grandmaster
Veteran
HD video at 5mbps can only be done effectively with one codec: h264. Realtime h264 encoding with a view to as close to zero latency as possible entails the following: no b-frames, no lookahead, a VBV buffer of only 250kbps. Even ramping everything else up to the maximum conceivable limit, and introducing two-pass encoding doesn't work: the video quality still looks rough on any fast-moving video. The GDC playable demos are apparently being run from LAN, by the way.
The alternative is basically that OnLive have managed to create an all-new system of video compression that will revolutionise the entire field, and no, I don't think that has happened.
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They said they're using a proprietary compression algorithm. My guess is that it's very fast and dirty. Once people start doing image quality comparisons .... Yeah, you ..... We'll find that the image quality is severely degraded. Still, it might be a reasonable tradeoff for some people.
I think this may be the future of gaming but not in the near term. I don't think its technically feasible on a scale of millions of users while offering fees within the reach of mainstream gamers. Furthermore, its too forward looking and more intermediate steps could be taken by the big three to offer essentially the same service at cheaper prices.
MS could literally cut the legs from under Onlive by offering a monthly service similar to the one seen in the music download arena. They could offer a service where signing a 1-3 year contract and for a monthly fee you get download access to all of the 360's library and all new title releases. It would be less bandwidth intensive than Onlive and would require a smaller investment to upgrade the infrastructure of the Xbox Live to accomodate the new service. If the cost of the console itself is a concern then MS could offer a 360 for a modest expense with a small increase in the monthly fee but with a multi-year contract. The release of a new xbox console could see MS offer a upgrade to the new console for a fee and a contract extension for current users.
MS could literally cut the legs from under Onlive by offering a monthly service similar to the one seen in the music download arena. They could offer a service where signing a 1-3 year contract and for a monthly fee you get download access to all of the 360's library and all new title releases. It would be less bandwidth intensive than Onlive and would require a smaller investment to upgrade the infrastructure of the Xbox Live to accomodate the new service. If the cost of the console itself is a concern then MS could offer a 360 for a modest expense with a small increase in the monthly fee but with a multi-year contract. The release of a new xbox console could see MS offer a upgrade to the new console for a fee and a contract extension for current users.
