Onlive video demo/presentation. (OMGOSH IT WORKS)

[brawndolicious]

http://www.gamertagradio.com/forums/showthread.php?p=76097#post76097

If you don't know what Onlive is, it's a gaming service announced about 6 months ago where you play games remotely.  The way it works is that your button or mouse inputs are sent to a huge server, that server processes the inputs into an image like a regular game system and then compresses that image and sends it to you, and then you can see the results on your screen in realtime.  Itet's supposed to allow you to play the most technically demanding games on any computer with a broadband connection.  There was a lot of doubts raised about it not being able to compress efficiently enough to not make the lag horrible or that the service would not be able to keep up with peak demand but based on the 30 minute presentation, it seems they basically solved all of the problems.

My basic summary:

• You need to be within 1,000 miles of any server (looks like they'll cover the lower 48 at least).
  
• They say it takes 1 millisecond for them to compress the video and which altogether gives the player about 80 ms latency, which is pretty acceptable.

• There's supposed to be a bunch of publisher advantages with tracking player telemetry, higher profit margins, and even giving out instant betas.
• You can create and save "brag clips" of last 15 seconds of gameplay to show off on your profile.

• The video compression didn't have any artifacts as far as I could see.

Additionally, that menu screen is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.  The scale of this is just amazing.  I want this service to happen just so that I can see it happen.[/list]

[Howard Alan Treesong]

Yeah, word is this actually does work, much to everyone's surprise

[Van Cruncheon]

it actually doesn't, if you have strict standards for gaming performance

i have yet to see 1900x1200 streamed without artifacts at 60 fps and minimized input latency; otherwise, this is just optimized remote desktop

[The Fake Shemp]

Believe?

[MCD]

vaporware

[cool breeze]

it actually doesn't, if you have strict standards for gaming performance

pretty much

but that the social stuff (brag clips and watching others play) is awesome.  I think it would also be a good way to demo/rent games on PC (or any platform).  I would never play a full game on it, though.

[brawndolicious]

it actually doesn't, if you have strict standards for gaming performance

Like what?  I can't imagine how 3-4 dropped frames in a 60 fps game will make a difference.

[EmCeeGrammar]

it actually doesn't, if you have strict standards for gaming performance

Like what?  I can't imagine how 3-4 dropped frames in a 60 fps game will make a difference.

Isn't that best case scenario?

[Howard Alan Treesong]

it actually doesn't, if you have strict standards for gaming performance

i have yet to see 1900x1200 streamed without artifacts at 60 fps and minimized input latency; otherwise, this is just optimized remote desktop

yeah, it's not going to replace PCfags custom local rigs

but most casual players would be happy to get streamed HD video to their netbooks

[The Fake Shemp]

720p gaming with 80ms latency on a netbook? How is that not awesome?

[Sho Nuff]

Tried it at GDC, it seems to work but the lag was annoying and high-frequency games like Crysis were compressed out the yin-yang. It's not magical mystical technology or anything, it's done well but it will have its flaws (like, what happens when all the subscribers try to play GTA5 at once)

[Eel O'Brian]

i'm in favor, i'm gonna go from "total suck" to "pretty good" playing mp against onlive users

teabag lag, not a problem

[Van Cruncheon]

i disapprove of this egalitarian vision

the poors must recognize that i can pay for better experiences because i am a better person

all bow to octo-core jesus

[Van Cruncheon]

if anything can be worse than a lack of vsync, compression artifacts would be it

[Sho Nuff]

Lots of compression artifacting in high-freq areas like grass, fences, etc -- looked like a lot of mush. Gears is the most high-freq game in existence and that would look awful. It's no coincindence they were showing off Mirror's Edge

[Stoney Mason]

i disapprove of this egalitarian vision

the poors must recognize that i can pay for better experiences because i am a better person

I loled.

On a serious note, I'm curious to try out this technology myself.

[brawndolicious]

I could live with 80 ms, especially considering the lagginess of Modern Warfare 2, but my only concern at this point is how well the video compression actually works.  If the pixel counters on B3D are fine with it, I probably won't even notice any difference.

[Cormacaroni]

J-bore will not get this because we will no doubt only get online loli poking sims or some crass Gundam battle game thing only.

The good games will run on a 486 and will be called the "Unfortunately born with good taste" server.

I am still holding off to mid year (if i can) before building a rig so pimp that the cooling system will double as an ice cube dispenser.

Sadly true. Although it would be so cheap to service a gazillion people just by having a server bank in Tokyo, I don't see why they wouldn't do it if the licensing etc could be worked out.

[brawndolicious]

Well with indie games it could probably work out in Japan without too much of a problem but it probably wouldn't fit too well with both American and Japanese tastes.

[cool breeze]

Most indie games are made to run on lower end computers.  That kinda misses the point.

[brawndolicious]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=151730

wow if true.  so essentially the server would split each frame into 16 rectangles and update one of those rectangles per frame (maybe it prefers the most "dynamic" part of the screen).  This makes a lot of sense for games where you get tunnel vision on the parts of the screen where there's the most going on so maybe it doesn't feel like lag in-game but I'd imagine it would still look like there's some screen-tearing or something.  I'll need to see some direct feed videos to know how well it works on different genres and graphic styles.

[Stoney Mason]

Good read on it. 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-onlive-beta-article

[chronovore]

J-bore will not get this because we will no doubt only get online loli poking sims or some crass Gundam battle game thing only.

The good games will run on a 486 and will be called the "Unfortunately born with good taste" server.

I am still holding off to mid year (if i can) before building a rig so pimp that the cooling system will double as an ice cube dispenser.

Sadly true. Although it would be so cheap to service a gazillion people just by having a server bank in Tokyo, I don't see why they wouldn't do it if the licensing etc could be worked out.

Because PC gaming is the most ghetto gaming market in all of Japan?

It's probably just me, but nobody seems to play PC games here. They're not even sold in game shops, but in some crap corner of electronics shops, near the damned printer supplies. (Though it's not like PC games are sold in toy and game stores in the US anymore either, I suppose...  :'( )

[originalz]

J-bore will not get this because we will no doubt only get online loli poking sims or some crass Gundam battle game thing only.

The good games will run on a 486 and will be called the "Unfortunately born with good taste" server.

I am still holding off to mid year (if i can) before building a rig so pimp that the cooling system will double as an ice cube dispenser.

Sadly true. Although it would be so cheap to service a gazillion people just by having a server bank in Tokyo, I don't see why they wouldn't do it if the licensing etc could be worked out.

Because PC gaming is the most ghetto gaming market in all of Japan?

It's probably just me, but nobody seems to play PC games here. They're not even sold in game shops, but in some crap corner of electronics shops, near the damned printer supplies. (Though it's not like PC games are sold in toy and game stores in the US anymore either, I suppose...  :'( )

Oh, there's plenty of PC games in Japan, they just all happen to be of the hentai variety!  Oh well, at least the doujin scene is good for "real" games.

[brawndolicious]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=151730

wow if true.  so essentially the server would split each frame into 16 rectangles and update one of those rectangles per frame (maybe it prefers the most "dynamic" part of the screen).  This makes a lot of sense for games where you get tunnel vision on the parts of the screen where there's the most going on so maybe it doesn't feel like lag in-game but I'd imagine it would still look like there's some screen-tearing or something.  I'll need to see some direct feed videos to know how well it works on different genres and graphic styles.

So somebody on B3D corrected me and pointed out that I managed to completely fuck up what they meant.  16 encoders each compress a 1/16 rectangle piece of the screen.  The disadvantage is that they can't use pixels beyond the edge of what they're encoding and that causes edge aliasing problems.  It sounds both genius and heinous so I'll just wait and see.

[Stoney Mason]

[Cormacaroni]

Thanks for the link.

This is sounding more and more like a useful service within pretty clear limits, much like Gamefly maybe. For games you want to try for a while, or can't run on your own hardware, or to use when travelling. But not for the hardcore as their only gaming method. I can see 'i played the OnLive version' being almost as humiliating around here as saying you played the Wii version.

[Raban]

Yeah this is dumb.

[brawndolicious]

you guys are boobs.  I'm not going to pass judgement on this until I've tried it.

[Raban]

you guys are boobs.  I'm not going to pass judgement on this until I've tried it.

Why would you want it though? This is more "casual gamer" bullshit. If you're already a gamer, there is literally no reason to use this, especially this late into the generation. If it comes out with the next gen of consoles, then its purpose becomes slightly more evident, but that's all. Phantom tried to do the same thing this is trying to do, and it never even left the ground. I have a feeling OnLive will be doomed to a similar fate.

[brawndolicious]

Right now's the perfect time to release this.  Budget PC hardware can eclipse the console games.  The games that I would want to play on PC are dungeon crawlers and some RTS games.  If the latency and pricepoint are good, then I'm fine with the resolutions they're aiming for.  That's all completely worth it to me if I means that I get to play new PC games on a sub-5 pound laptop.

[Cormacaroni]

Not being able to use it on a netbook is a major concern though. I thought that was the whole point, but it appears not to possible according to the impressions linked above.

I'm definitely not writing this off - just saying that i can't see it being my MAIN way of gaming anytime soon. Could be a great auxiliary service for me (if it ever gets a release in Japan).

[Stoney Mason]

OnLive shows live demo of its games on demand service
February 18, 2010 | Dean Takahashi | Comments |
Share8| Steve Perlman has been talking about OnLive, his potentially disruptive games on demand service for about a year. Today, at the Dice Summit in Las Vegas, he showed a live demo of it.

The service, which is in the midst of a closed beta now, worked without a glitch. That’s a big deal, since skeptics have said that what OnLive is trying to do is impossible. But using a cable modem speed connection, Perlman showed that he could play high-speed shooting games across the network, with little or no game processing happening on the client screen.

The significance of the service is that, if it takes off, it will enable a mass market in digital distribution of games, disrupting retail stores and reducing the cost of games. It will also disrupt consoles and high-end gaming PCs, since it eliminates the need to buy expensive client hardware.

“Consumers are buying the game experience, not the console,” Perlman said.

OnLive created the service over eight years by coming up with a compression technology that enables it to send game content across a network in near real-time, allowing for back-and-forth game play between a player’s screen and a server in the blink of an eye. The delay, or latency, is measured in micro seconds. For standard definition games, Perlman said he needs a 1 megabit per second connection. For high-definition games, the service needs a 5-megabit per second connection. About 26 percent of broadband users have faster than 5-megabit connections, and 71 percent have 2 megabit per second connections, he said.

Perlman said the service was designed for instant gratification and thus fits with the “now era” that consumers have embraced. Perlman noted that surveys show that real-time traffic on sites such as Twitter now accounts for more than 26 percent of all Internet traffic, up from 12 percent a year ago.

Mike McGarvey, chief operating officer, joined Perlman in showing off both Unreal Tournament and Burnout Paradise games, live on the service. It worked without a glitch. The OnLive interface showed live videos of games being played as McGarvey scrolled through menus, deciding what game to play. Perlman showed how you can record a game and post it as a “brag clip” that you can show to your friends, who can watch a recorded video of your own game.

While playing the game in Las Vegas, Perlman said he was connected to a server in the San Francisco Bay Area. The company expects it can cover the country with five data centers and update the servers in them every six months or so.

Perlman’s team also showed that iPhone users could play a high-end game such as Crysis on the service, live in real time. Game publishers should welcome this kind of digital distribution, rather than fear it. The music industry failed to do so and lost its business to pirates. Video and movie companies are also moving too slowly and so the verdict is out as to whether they will head off broadband pirates.

“The games market is ripe for OnLive,” Perlman said. “If we don’t create one, believe me, someone else will. Let’s use this wonderful Internet we have to mitigate piracy.”

Perlman said launch details will come soon. He will be the keynote speaker at the GamesBeat@GDC conference at the Game Developers Conference on March 10.

http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/02/18/onlive-shows-live-demo-of-its-games-on-demand-service/

[brawndolicious]

Hopefully we get a launch date next month.

[brawndolicious]

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/onlive-pc-launch-this-june

It's $15 bucks a month with separate cost for each game that you buy/rent.

So $180/year which is less than the cost of keeping up a high-end gaming pc but I'm pretty sure you can't play anything at above 720P.  You could also try justifying the cost by using it to replace XBL or whatever.  I really doubt the game prices will be less than Steam prices but we'll see.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

$15/mo, games extra ... game over, fuck this service

[GilloD]

How much extra is the game? If it's like 10$ I'll bite, but if I pay $60 bucks to get a digital copy I can't even install, fuuuuuuuuuuu you.

Also, that controller is about 10 years past hideous.

[originalz]

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/onlive-pc-launch-this-june

It's $15 bucks a month with separate cost for each game that you buy/rent.

So $180/year which is less than the cost of keeping up a high-end gaming pc but I'm pretty sure you can't play anything at above 720P.  You could also try justifying the cost by using it to replace XBL or whatever.  I really doubt the game prices will be less than Steam prices but we'll see.

You can probably keep up your system pretty damn well for $180/yr, at least way beyond the performance that Onlive will give you.

[brawndolicious]

You can probably keep up your system pretty damn well for $180/yr, at least way beyond the performance that Onlive will give you.

yeah but I guess there's also a convenience factor to it.  I do think it still might be a better bargain then building your own PC because most PC components get outdated in maybe 3 years, so that means you'd get a little over $500 to build a PC that can play cutting-edge games at about 720P.

The trade-off between playing the game on Onlive vs PC is that you might get latency issues (the biggest skepticism about this service) and you probably won't be able to control anything about the image quality other than resolution and brightness.

If the game prices and the latency are good enough, I still think they have a very sell-able product though.

[Cormacaroni]

Community will be the key to this. If they get a big community, they can afford to do good deals on games and subscriptions. If not, flame out.

Not writing it off yet. I could certainly see signing up for this sporadically, if not permanently. I'm looking at spending about $2,000 on a new PC right now, so $15 sounds like nothing at all.

[maxy]

For the interested...
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-onlive-article

Good article