Really wish there were opensource alternatives to Parsec and Rainway that weren't tied down to hardware (Moonlight). As/if we move away from x86 I think it would be a great way to archive old games that haven't found their way to Webassembly. It would definitely be great to see archive.org use something like it stream old software/games/media without having to distribute it.
Unity to acquire Parsec for $320M
71–80 of 97 posts
Re: Unity to acquire Parsec for $320M
#72(disclosure: I work on the backend at Parsec) For those who don't know either company: Unity is a popular 2D/3D commercial game engine, and Parsec is a low-latency remote desktop tool that initially focused on gaming, but pivoted to an enterprise product for remote creative teams during the pandemic.
Thanks! This is exactly the summary I came looking for for in the comments.( thanks to my ADHD riddled monkey brain)
Re: Unity to acquire Parsec for $320M
#73I hope this doesn't mean the end of Parsec as a standalone service. There's nothing out there that comes close to Parsec's performance and it'd be a huge loss.
Same. Hopefully some alternatives come along. On the client side at least a lot of what Parsec was leveraging seemed to be built on webrtc, so there's a lot of potential for similar things to come along I think.
Re: Unity to acquire Parsec for $320M
#74Don't know why Unity is pursuing cloud, you're still going to need a good network speed. They'd be better served investing further in WebGL support, specifically in reducing the file binary size so we can have lightning fast load times for console-quality games running at near native performance in the browser. Shameless plug, my startup is working on exactly this at the moment but for Unreal Engine 4, but we have pl…
WebGL is only good for shader toy, ecommerce and Flash like games from 10 years ago.
I wouldn't bet on a technology stack frozen in 2012 hardware capabilities, where I cannot be certain if the users can use my 3D renderings at all if they are misfortune enough to be on a mix of hardware, OS or GPGPU whose browser decided the best thing to do for user's safety was to switch to 3D software rendering.
Re: Unity to acquire Parsec for $320M
#75Don't know why Unity is pursuing cloud, you're still going to need a good network speed. They'd be better served investing further in WebGL support, specifically in reducing the file binary size so we can have lightning fast load times for console-quality games running at near native performance in the browser. Shameless plug, my startup is working on exactly this at the moment but for Unreal Engine 4, but we have pl…
Ten years ago I thought that people would stop installing random indie games onto their computers and just play these small games in the browser. It never happened, people trust Steam, Gog, Epic and Itch.io more than they trust the web. Instead the web became increasing bloated and the ads and tracking became unbearable. When Unity do streaming, it wont be through a browser, it will be a dedicated app that users trus…
It is hard for WebGL to pick up, when the tooling is even worse than OpenGL for 3D debugging (use the native ones they say), and you are at the mercy of the browser to choose between software and hardware rendering depending on the client's hardware setup.
Re: Unity to acquire Parsec for $320M
#76(disclosure: I work on the backend at Parsec) For those who don't know either company: Unity is a popular 2D/3D commercial game engine, and Parsec is a low-latency remote desktop tool that initially focused on gaming, but pivoted to an enterprise product for remote creative teams during the pandemic.
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Re: Unity to acquire Parsec for $320M
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use parsec at home to run a gaming machine in a gaming room... and use the same machine as an art creation machine in another room, parsec is one of the few solutions that plays well with pressure and stylus, custom resolutions and even 120 hz (surprisingly useful when trying to have responsive UI in art apps) any of that going to change?
... trying to get a random backend engineer to publicly share and comment on company policy during an acquisition. An acquisition into a public company no less.
And? They lose absolutely nothing by asking.
Re: Unity to acquire Parsec for $320M
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
... trying to get a random backend engineer to publicly share and comment on company policy during an acquisition. An acquisition into a public company no less.
And? They lose absolutely nothing by asking.
Beyond not being a confrontational jerk -- read the phrasing -- quite possibly helping get someone fired for cause? It's almost certainly a blackout period.
Re: Unity to acquire Parsec for $320M
#79I think tech like this is really fucking neat.
I've been playing around with similar ideas in the space. For instance, instead of delivering full frame buffers to your clients, send them instructions on what to draw based on their current viewport dimensions (e.g. webgl). This is more constrained and requires the application to target a specific UI framework - although I can support arbitrary 3d scenes of modest mesh and texture complexity now. The headline advantage here being the amount of data going across the wire is almost trivial in comparison for most use cases.
I think there is still a lot more to go in the area of server-side application delivery tech. Our networks are getting faster and our compute is getting denser.
The next generation of shardless MMO would depend on something like this. Getting to 1 million concurrent players will probably look a lot like a stock exchange.
Re: Unity to acquire Parsec for $320M
#80Is their a huge market of games developers who don't have access to a machine capable of developing locally? Seems like a limited size market.
Good for the Parsec guys though!