Steve
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Registered: 30th Mar 02
Location: Worcestershire Drives: Defender
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Anyone tried it?
http://www.onlive.co.uk/
I think it could be the future of gaming, no more buying games, or worrying about hardware speeds.
At the moment its clearly in infancy and limited by peoples internet connections, mine isnt quick enough to use it. But in the future when everyones internets are quick enough to stream hd I can see it being the end of hardware
Looking at the min specs needed to play reminds of back in the day when my pc wasnt up to scratch to play games except its not hardware specs thats the prob its internet specs lol
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Russ
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Registered: 14th Mar 04
Location: Armchair
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🎈
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Balling
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Registered: 7th Apr 04
Location: Denmark
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Just tried a 30 min free trial of Driver: SF and it seems to work perfectly.
Only down side is, that the graphics are not entirely as crisp as I'd expect from my computer, if running an installed game.
Huge upside is a bigger selection of games than is usually available for Mac users.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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I still don't think it will take off.
Internet connections haven't got massively better (for tha majority, I know some people do have better) since a couple of years ago.
What sort of resolution does it stream at now? How quick an internet connection do I need to get 1080p without massive compression?
What about when 4k TV's come out, which isn't that far away?
It will always be playing catchup, it'll be a long time before a broadband connection can match the interconnect speed between a console and a TV.
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ed
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Registered: 10th Sep 03
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We're in the dark ages with regards to broadband in the UK though. In countries that matter, they all have epic fibre connections and can stream whatever they like.
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Steve
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Registered: 30th Mar 02
Location: Worcestershire Drives: Defender
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yeah at the moment res isnt up to par with something running specific hardware, thats down to the internet connection though, but imo in the future i think it (may) take over from consoles, etc
[Edited on 25-02-2012 by Steve]
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Cavey
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Registered: 11th Nov 02
Location: Derby
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When are they gonna sort cross platform gaming?
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Neil
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Registered: 2nd Nov 03
Location: Newcastle Drives: E46 MSport Coupe
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve
no more buying games
Don't the games cost around the same as retail games to buy? With the added bonus that you can't sell or trade them once you're finished..
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Balling
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Registered: 7th Apr 04
Location: Denmark
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quote:
Originally posted by John
What sort of resolution does it stream at now? How quick an internet connection do I need to get 1080p without massive compression?
At a guess, it looks like 720p.
They state on their website you need a 5 Mbs connection and it runs completely smoothly on my 10 Mbs.
This is definitely not for the guys who are anal about graphics performance.
For the more casual gamer though, I could easily see this becoming popular.
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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Cloud Gaming has been around for a fair few years although OnLive are one of the major punters in the area (it's pretty impressive how they do virtualisation and compression as well) and, to be honest it's where gaming will end up. Mainly because it means less expense for users purchasing new hardware and because processing is low it can be fitted into STBs and TVs, so less 'gear' needed (TV and a controller etc).
And it's a win-win for Game houses because it nullifies piracy and in the case of OnLive, their model doesn't include a second-hand market so Game houses continuously make out of the games.
But I think it'll be a while for it to really catches on due to the current status of broadband in countries.
OnLive also do a Windows for iPad setup which is worth looking at, although granted it's no different to vnc'ing into your home system.
John - OnLive streams at 720 and requires roughly 2Mb although peaks to around 5/6Mb (hence them stating you need a 5Mb connection). Overall it's pretty decent, good comparison HERE but i have noticed marginal input latency in the past.
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Steve
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Registered: 30th Mar 02
Location: Worcestershire Drives: Defender
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What's input latency like with controls
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Balling
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Registered: 7th Apr 04
Location: Denmark
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve
What's input latency like with controls
Seems to be very little tbh. At least from the 30 mins I was on.
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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Havn't tried playing for a few months and it's hideously crap now; lagging central. Think i'll stick to standalone gaming for the time being 
[Edited on 25-02-2012 by Dom]
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Eddx14xe
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Registered: 12th Jan 10
Location: Hertfordshire
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Just been playing Dirt 3 on my tablet. It's very good, no lag at all. Although the graphics were horrendous.
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.Matt
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Registered: 28th Jan 09
Location: Kent
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The only problem i have found with OnLive is that you have to buy the games but in there T&C it says the game can be removed from the service when they see fit.
Other than that seems good, and they also do a console version, little box that takes a controller and internet connection with hdmi output to tv.
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Sunz
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Registered: 12th Jan 07
Location: SE England
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I personally wouldn't bother with this, I have a pc, I can download games in 2/3 hours and they play fine on my pc.
Not really sure who it's aimed at to be honest ?
Would have to be pretty desperate that you needed a game so badly you would stream it rather then wait until you could go to the shops or get it delivered.
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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quote:
Originally posted by Sunz
I personally wouldn't bother with this, I have a pc, I can download games in 2/3 hours and they play fine on my pc.
Not really sure who it's aimed at to be honest ?
Would have to be pretty desperate that you needed a game so badly you would stream it rather then wait until you could go to the shops or get it delivered.
eh?
It's aimed at people that don't want to continuously splash out on consoles/purchasing new hardware to play games. So i couldn't really play BF3 at any decent resolution or with any real detail on my PC but i could with OnLive as the processing is done on their 'uber' gaming servers. And as mention, due to the low power/performance requirements this could be easily be embedded into TVs and STBs (they have already with Google TV STBs).
Certainly this is where gaming is heading although it'll be a fair few years before it is common practice.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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What if your Internet connection goes down and you fancy a game?
Cloud services are great but all have a single point of failure.
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Sunz
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Registered: 12th Jan 07
Location: SE England
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Xbox360 has been out for 7 years now, not like you need to continusly splash out on consoles.
Pc are the same, get a decent specc'd people to begin with and it will last years.
Graphics aren't everything but the graphics from onlive are almost ps2 quality, worse then a pc on the minimum settings.
Is good for people on tablets and phones I think but seems pointless for consoles and pc to me personally.
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Cavey
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Registered: 11th Nov 02
Location: Derby
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If/when apple jump on board and call it iGaming an invention of apple labs, it'll be massive and destroy hard sales.
Personally I'd rather have a hard copy and be able to use it whenever, but I can definitely see the appeal, the UK will take ages to get a decent enough infrastructure though.
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Steve
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Registered: 30th Mar 02
Location: Worcestershire Drives: Defender
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quote:
Originally posted by Sunz
Xbox360 has been out for 7 years now, not like you need to continusly splash out on consoles.
Pc are the same, get a decent specc'd people to begin with and it will last years.
Graphics aren't everything but the graphics from onlive are almost ps2 quality, worse then a pc on the minimum settings.
Is good for people on tablets and phones I think but seems pointless for consoles and pc to me personally.
thats only because of connection speed though, in the future graphics will be true HD with good enough internet
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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When the Internet is that good HD will be 3 generations ago.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/17/onlive-confirms/
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Ian
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Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
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quote:
Originally posted by John
It will always be playing catchup, it'll be a long time before a broadband connection can match the interconnect speed between a console and a TV.
quote:
Originally posted by Sunz
I personally wouldn't bother with this, I have a pc, I can download games in 2/3 hours and they play fine on my pc.
Not really sure who it's aimed at to be honest ?
The interest thing is not that is particularly viable, or that it currently replaces any current way of doing things.
The exciting thing about that is that its a complete game changer in that marketplace. You're moving away from local processing to processing remotely and you only need to decompress the video stream, not actually render the game.
So console hardware overnight becomes completely moot. As soon as you get to the point where the video player is capable enough - my old phone can do it, as can a $20 Rasp. Pi - you no longer need to buy hardware.
Plus from a software point of view its far easier to police. I think the piracy point is a good one. You simply can't pirate a cloud game. I think for that reason alone, it will take off. Software manufacturers lobbying broadband providers, financial incentives etc. I do think there's a business case to the additional regulation in the sector which it brings and I think the fact that your current internet connection isn't quite up to scratch is a comparable complaint to your electricity supply not being 100% reliable. I'm sure a lot of people said the same about lightbulbs.
I've always said I didn't see the point in cloud computing, its just too much of a risk to lose your connection while you're terminal'd in on your thin client, but that is changing and the way people think about data is different because of it. Difference there is there isn't really a business case. Google do it so they can rifle through your stuff and advertise to you, but that's just a lucky position they're in, its not impetus to change the sector.
I think the piracy thing alone will drive this forward.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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The model isn't working for onlive though.
Everything else these days is cloud based so having graphics processing done in a data centre isn't really a big leap.
Lobbying doesn't get billions to lay proper fibre infrastructure, not just UK nationwide, but anywhere they have a market for it.
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