You know OnLive? That service promising to let gamers play Crysis-grade titles on the lowest of low-end hardware through the magic of the internet? Well, it's been in beta testing for a little while, and Ryan Shrout of PC Perspective managed to get a bite of the wild, free-range OnLive experience. And apparently, it tasted a bit like pie-in-the-sky.
In his lengthy (but fascinating) write-up, Shrout tested Burnout Paradise, Unreal Tournament 3, and Tom Clancy's HAWX over the remote gaming service (which handles all the processing and hardware-intensive graphics server-side while streaming video feedback to the player), then compared the experience with playing the same games on a local, appropriately beefy home PC.
The verdict was mixed. While OnLive itself was as easy to start up and get into as promised, the issues that more skeptical onlookers were wary of, namely input lag and graphical downgrading (since OnLive compresses the video stream to get it to you quickly), raised their heads. The lag issue was especially acute with "twitchier" games like Unreal Tournament 3, with Shrout reporting it "nearly unplayable" with a mouse and keyboard. Switching to "slower" input devices like gamepads made the experience more consistent, though.
Now, before you write OnLive off as a failure, note that there are considerable caveats. Shrout himself had no beta account, and played through a friend's login data, thus making the conditions he operated under unoptimized. After all, some of the criteria for entering OnLive's testing in the first place included being located relatively close to one of their datacenters in California.
So no, it's not time to throw out your console or abandon your plans to upgrade, not yet at least. Still, he was playing Burnout Paradise at decent quality on a dinky laptop. That's certainly something to be said for cloud-based gaming.
OnLive demoed: Lag, graphics are a problem [PC perspective via Ars Technica]
Contest:
8:00 PM on 01.21.2010
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Though it could be possible they fix it...?
Say, I bet OnLive chops lots of the connection just to broadcast HD audio and video, thus making my ping really high, just sayin~
That should not be a problem for you all though.
I guess if they can conquer the lag issue... they might have something there.
Adding an extra three jumps until a users actions are relayed back to them: lag. (transmit to host, remote render, transmit back to client)
Computer users are used to luxuries such as monitors which easily have a resolution of 1920x1080, with uncompressed 60+ fps video. Who really has an internet connection and monthly caps to allow such a stream?
Add in surround sound audio with minimum 6 channels and two-way voice chat.
Noble effort, but I'm not convinced.
Local: http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/859/burnout-local2-big.jpg
Did everyone notice these? It's so blurred that it's practically like playing it on the original xbox or something. Any computer from the past two or so years would yield a better experience.
Seeing that the writer was outside the beta area and still managed to do what OnLive advertised is pretty impressive to me. The quality doesn't seem as good, but that will improve with better compression algorithms and better connectivity (hopefully).
To be able to hop in and play quickly and easily makes it really compelling. For dedicated PC gamers, OnLive won't change anything for them. But for those who don't want to keep upgrading hardware or deal with the complexities of gaming on a PC, this is a pretty interesting solution.
I'd use this for games i'm mildly interested in, but not enough to buy outright. For games I really want/like, I'd still buy a download or a retail box.
Hataz gonna hate....
Even if it performs well, it still is going to need to gain enough support by customers and then in the future hopefully more and more companies will see it as a viable platform... Sounds reasonable to me.
For the first time in a long while I see a GOOD unique game idea. Now all it needs to be is profitable. I'm guessing they'll first need to hook onto people who can't afford expensive gaming systems/games/computers.
With our current cable/internet infrastructure, data speeds have physical limitations that make input lag when controlling a streaming source IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of.
Now, theoretically, MMOs and RTSs and the like would still be perfectly playable with a brief input lag, but traditionally, these games are NOT the ones that are taxing your PC such that you would NEED a service like this.
Those with FIOS may fare better, but the other 98% of the world are boned.
What kind of EBGames.com/Maxim game review is this shit?
P.S. @Jano Torres Gonzlez: You're an idiot. I can't wait for "FAIL" to be uncool on the internets.
http://tv.seas.columbia.edu/videos/545/60/79?file=1&autostart=true
He talks about how he leases the servers out.
Oh and by the way. On-Live today will never be what the Dreamcast was and is now
A Legacy!
Until there's consistant 50mb/s broadband with no usage limits this is not going to work.
Another plus, or negative depending on how you look at it, NO PIRATING WHATSOEVER!! This means games developers will receive 100% of the profits from their games, which means more to spend on games, which means BETTER games in the future!
Just my thoughts on the matter as I was previously against this kind of Tech, untill i properly thought about it.