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New tech could make consoles obsolete

videogames.yahoo.com

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Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#21

Post by bd »

You can see the original (almost one hour) GDC announcement video here:

http://gdc.gamespot.com/video/6206692/

It's actually pretty impressive, they do show actual stuff (for example high-details Crysis multiplayer with one player on set-top box and another one using browser plugin on low-end notebook).

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About latency: I was also very skeptical, but in principle it could be doable if they would deploy servers also locally (it can make economical sense for dense urban areas). Google already does this.

I tried to ping around to check latency limits: even across Atlantic I could get to around 30 FPS roundtrip. For servers that were few hundred kilometers away it was ~100 FPS and for my ISP it's ~1000 FPS.

Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#22

Post by dmix »

This reminds me of The Phantom game console created by Infinium Labs. It promised to deliver games via the internet and be compatible with PC games. The company blew through $60 million and the product was largely Vaporware.

It was most likely too early to be a significant competitor to consoles.

Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#23

Post by Raphael »

tocomment wrote: post #20

Could latency be worked around akin to how VNC handles your mouse movements? I.e., it moves your mouse on the screen immediately and then lets the actual mouse on the remote computer catch up. (I think)

No, because the image is generated on the server and sent to you.

Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#25

Post by hfinucane »

tocomment wrote: post #20

Could latency be worked around akin to how VNC handles your mouse movements? I.e., it moves your mouse on the screen immediately and then lets the actual mouse on the remote computer catch up. (I think)

That's how games work today, combined with a bunch of prediction and conflict resolution. Unfortunately, it sounds like their architecture fundamentally prevents this- all the rendering is going to happen server side. I'd be interested to know if they have some sort of halfway solution (rendering extra scenes that you can pick from?) or if they just hope no one will notice the extra 100ms.

(I know that doesn't sound like much, but for games that involve fast action- from starcraft to quake- it's a lot...)

Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#26

Post by triplefox »

NyxWulf wrote: post #5
eru wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latency poses a bigger problem than bandwidth.

Latency is mostly a solved problem though when it comes to high speed connections though. Early when cable was released in my area there was high burst rates but bad latency - so back then I went with a dsl connection that had lower band width but better latency. These days though the latency is low enough on the cable connection in my area that I can play FPS perfectly fine. From the article it sounds like the were…

Latency is only "solved" in modern games by hacking around things on both the client and server so that visual indicators are predicted on the client, and conflicting interactions(e.g. two players firing and killing each other simultaneously) are resolved by rolling back game state and examining the timestamps. It's unclean.

Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#27

Post by JabavuAdams »

NyxWulf wrote: post #5
eru wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latency poses a bigger problem than bandwidth.

Latency is mostly a solved problem though when it comes to high speed connections though. Early when cable was released in my area there was high burst rates but bad latency - so back then I went with a dsl connection that had lower band width but better latency. These days though the latency is low enough on the cable connection in my area that I can play FPS perfectly fine. From the article it sounds like the were…

> These days though the latency is low enough on the cable connection in my area that I can play FPS perfectly fine.

You're not talking about the same kind of latency problem that these guys face.

It seems that this service is sending the player's input to the server, and sending back compressed rendered frames of video. So, the soonest you can see any of your actions is the round-trip time.

Current FPS's do a tremendous amount of simulation on the client. Only state information is sent back and forth, and not everything is even in lock-step with the server. It's a completely different architechture.

Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#28

Post by JabavuAdams »

This would be great for a Myst-style game, or turn-based games, where latency isn't as much of a problem.

You use the cloud as your distributed-renderer, instead of relying on a single desktop, and send finished frames to the client. Maybe you do some compositing on the client.

The graphics and AI for games designed around this approach's limitations could be incredible.

Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#29

Post by vizard »

Hexstream wrote: post #4

"OnLive will supply players with a small set-top box, not much bigger than a Nintendo DS, which will plug into your TV and your home broadband connection." You mean like a console?... "OnLive also includes some features you might associate more with your DVR than with a gaming console, including a Replay feature that lets you save the last ten seconds of your gameplay, and send it to your friends." Only the last 10 s…

You mean like a console?

They are also offering a browser plugin for your PC or Mac so you don't need their box. The box is only required if you want to use your TV and not your computer.

Re: New tech could make consoles obsolete

#30

Post by buugs »

The beauty of it is you don't need a console, but makes up for it in the bandwidth needed. If my internet goes out I can still use my computer I can play the wii, and chances are if my internet is out weathers not too good outside so I don't really see me wanting something like this.

Idk about other people but I really do like tangible objects like discs or even things stored on a harddrive not a thinclient experience. Another thing is if this actually becomes big one wonders how much the quality would degrade as servers would be gaining load and losing performance, so would play quality go out the window at peak periods of the day, something you don't see with the current system in place with consoles even in multiplayer games.

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