Pc Hardware Upgrades dead? (OnLive)

[Dan_Dare]

According to this they are.

 

In a nutshell: remote super computers stream high end pc gaming directly to your telly- little to no PC hardware needed at your end.

 

[Nolan]

Unfortunately the strain on Servers could be immense. There's also the problem of our current broadband, many places don't get superb speeds and even then have a bandwidth cap. Effectively ruining this device for them.

 

The other fact is many PC enthusiast like to upgrade and tinker with their parts, so the market will never completely die...I doubt it would change much tbh. Right now there are plenty of people that just get a PC and use it for general whatever.

 

Workstations will be pretty much unaffected though.

 

Idk time will tell.

[Choze]

Sounds cute lets see how it works out. Problem with the onshow demonstration is that they will have evrything optimised 100% and the networks there are insanely good compared to home appliances. So whatever they show will be absolute best case scenario.

[Aimless]

I'm convinced that cloud computing is the future, but I'm not so certain about its current viability. I know they say there have proprietary algorithms to reduce lag in its many forms, but my 2MB connection and I remain sceptical for now.

 

I will say that when services such as this are firmly within the bounds of reality, it'll seriously shake up the console space as well as the PC arena; imagine the difference it would make if a PS5 only cost you £50 at launch, the machine essentially being a Blu-Ray player with decent enough parts to make it an effective media centre.

[Daft]

I can see this taking hold in a couple years if Virgin, or the like, get behind it like they have with their current streaming TV service.

[Caris]

Sounds amazing, people should check this video out.

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/47081.html

[Choze]

Well lets see. Its an idea that already is being pursued. Infact a company also does pc gaames and desktop to PS3 for example. But its not 100% exact response wise in HD.

[Caris]

Well he says it will run in 720p 60fps so it should be shouldn't it?

[Daft]

Looks like our consoles are safe for at least another decade.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article

[Wesley]

Do they even want it to work though? Some of the same guys were behind WebTV, which everyone got excited about and Microsoft just bought it out.

[Deathjam]

Looks like our consoles are safe for at least another decade.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article

 

I was sceptical in the beginning, and now I just dont see it working in the near future at all. Maybe, as you say, another ten years or so. I wasn't looking to throw away my console, or let go of my pc anyways.

[Domstercool]

Long live consoles!

[Guest Jordan]

Long live consoles!

 

Couldn't agree more... As much as I like DLC, I like you know... having the console 'n stuff.

[McPhee]

Looks like our consoles are safe for at least another decade.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article

 

A lot of guess work in that article, it doesn't actually prove anything about OnLive. All they've proven is that if the system works in the way that they assume it does then it's impossible. Personally i'd like something a bit more concrete, maybe written by people who actually know what they're talking about.

 

Still, none to fussed about the tech myself. If it works it looks like it'll be aimed at the console market rather than the PC crowd, hardware upgrades are safe :p

Edited March 29, 2009 by McPhee

[flameboy]

I honestly think cloud gaming is the future. There are so many reasons why it would just work. It gets rid of piracy, it gets rid of the expensive research and development of making a console every 3-5 years. Instead they can just upgrade their server farms with other peoples tech...they would be buying enough for the number of servers to make the likes of IBM etc... more than willing to but the research in.

 

I'm not saying I believe this model creates a one console future. I don't think onlive is the one to truly take the concept forward, it may take many iterations of the idea before it is fully realized. Whose to say Sony and Microsoft won't take the idea and run with it. I also think the tech is no where near where it needs to be. Although I do love all the frontend menus and stuff with the usage of loads of videos etc...much more exciting than the relatively static looking menus each of the 3 consoles have. Love the idea of Bragging as well they seem really into building a community.

 

Hope they stretch out the beta to europe.

[Emasher]

If this works as well as they say it will, it will be amazing. The only thing I'm not too keen on is having to rent time on a game every-time I want to play it. I'd constantly be rushing through games to save money. If you could buy the game though with your account and then just play it whenever...

[Caris]

You can i think.

[flameboy]

You can i think.

 

You can in theory...but say you buy a game and then X number of years they stop offering that game for streaming then you've wasted your money, there are issues over the ownership but then even when you buy games now, you don't own the content on a disc you own a license to play it.

[Caris]

Yeah i get what you mean, i wouldn't buy this as my only source for gaming but it would be a great little thing to go along side a Xbox or whatnot.

[flameboy]

Yeah i get what you mean, i wouldn't buy this as my only source for gaming but it would be a great little thing to go along side a Xbox or whatnot.

 

That's why I said it wouldn't surprise me if Sony and Microsoft offer their own alternative spin on this. It's a dicey area, there is apparently talk of a variety of pricing scales, whereby you can either just rent games or own them, but whats the incentive to own? But then how will publishers make a return if players just rent.

 

One thing I absolutely love is the video orientated front end, beats everything else out there if you ask me...

[Dan_Dare]

I've not really commented on this since I made the thread.

 

Having read some of the sceptical articles out there, I'm definitely cautious with my expectations on the serivce, but there's alot people don't know yet- I mean, they've not explained their tech beyond saying 'hey, it works!' so without knowing that stuff, it's hard to say one way or another if they're talking shit or not.

 

if they're right though....wow

[Sanchez]

A lot of guess work in that article, it doesn't actually prove anything about OnLive. All they've proven is that if the system works in the way that they assume it does then it's impossible. Personally i'd like something a bit more concrete, maybe written by people who actually know what they're talking about.

 

Still, none to fussed about the tech myself. If it works it looks like it'll be aimed at the console market rather than the PC crowd, hardware upgrades are safe :p

 

As a game, pc and encoding enthusiast I hold the same doubts as that article. The current best mainstream codec (x264) can produce decent results at low bitrates but certainly not for high motion sources like games. It is impossible to encode two videos simultaneously on one normal computer in real time (it's hard enough to do one), an expensive beast could maybe do a couple but even then it would simply be too costly to maintain.

 

I still think this is an april fool's joke, if it isn't then they really have market changing technology.

Edited March 31, 2009 by Sanchez

[McPhee]

As a game, pc and encoding enthusiast I hold the same doubts as that article. The current best mainstream codec (x264) can produce decent results at low bitrates but certainly not for high motion sources like games. It is impossible to encode two videos simultaneously on one normal computer in real time (it's hard enough to do one), an expensive beast could maybe do a couple but even then it would simply be too costly to maintain.

 

I still think this is an april fool's joke, if it isn't then they really have market changing technology.

 

There's nothing to say that it works in that way though, people are assuming that they're running a traditional PC set-up on a large scale. Why would you render video, then encode it in real time and beam it down the wire? It'd be much more sensible to find a way to do the rendering at the user's end. Similarly, why would you have each user running in his own copy of the game if you can find a way to have multiple users with their own "world" inside a single instance of the game?

 

I might not be making much sense here, i may even be barking up the wrong tree. I'm sure that the only way to get this to work would be with some clever thinking at the game coding level though.

[flameboy]

There's nothing to say that it works in that way though, people are assuming that they're running a traditional PC set-up on a large scale. Why would you render video, then encode it in real time and beam it down the wire? It'd be much more sensible to find a way to do the rendering at the user's end. Similarly, why would you have each user running in his own copy of the game if you can find a way to have multiple users with their own "world" inside a single instance of the game?

 

I might not be making much sense here, i may even be barking up the wrong tree. I'm sure that the only way to get this to work would be with some clever thinking at the game coding level though.

 

There is no way its possible for it to render at the users end....If you have the microconsole its just basicially like a cable box receiving the video based on your input, there is no hardware there to render it. if you use a low end laptop there is no way your computer would be able to handle the rendering as it will be so big and complex and above the capabilites of the the computer it wouldn't be able to handle it.

 

From what I understand they are going to have hundreds of server farms up and down the country (US) each with super high end PC's designed to run many instances of games....

[Nolan]

Building off of what flameboy said (Which is pretty correct really)

 

Similarly, why would you have each user running in his own copy of the game if you can find a way to have multiple users with their own "world" inside a single instance of the game?

 

Wut? That would mean running the game once, then somehow miraculously "X" amount of users all hitting new/load game and the game making multiple worlds in one program. I think running multiple copies of Crysis per machine at once would be a simpler task.