OnLive Open Beta has Started

cherryghost

In the USA. Lets see how things go over the summer. OnLive is slated for this December in Europe. Probably be a load of sh1te, but even I'm intruiged as to how the beta feedback will be like.

death1234567

Very interesting Mr Bond...

Kinetic^

Curious about the whole thing tbh. I'll be following this very closely.

cherryghost

yeah everyone is curious, but I still dont know how they'll break through such low ping barriers. I mean, its safe to say the average ping result to bloody google is between 40-60ms on a broadband setup! how on earth are OnLive going to better that!? I cant wait to see some beta feedback.

SeantheMan

I applied for the Beta weeks ago , but it was US only. Ghey

Overheal

im sorry but What?

SeantheMan

OnLive is meant to be the future of gaming.

Where a small box is hooked up to any old PC, and all the main games and processes are ran on super high tech servers in a Data Centre and streamed to this little box.

Theres meant to be no latency either etc.

tuxy

SeantheMan wrote: »

Theres meant to be no latency either etc.

This statement seems fairly retarded. Even just typing on my keybaord here there is latency. Unless I am mistake the speed of light is still a limiting factor in this universe. Have they made some new development in quantum computing?

Overheal

Well then the Beta will be very serious, involving live hardware, and a legally binding NDA.

Either way, I signed up. I dont expect to be chosen though.

tuxy

Could someone give me a link to info on this?

PogMoThoin

I'm curious as to how this will work and how they'll cope with internet lag. I mean having the game run on a server instead of a client pc has to have some lag issues, even 50ms is a long time for the response to a control move to take effect. Imagine a racing game with a 50ms response lag to taking a corner :eek: A wireless mouse even drives me mad with its <1ms lag

SeantheMan

tuxy wrote: »

This statement seems fairly retarded. Even just typing on my keybaord here there is latency. Unless I am mistake the speed of light is still a limiting factor in this universe. Have they made some new development in quantum computing?

Obviously there is latency, but my point was its not noticable supposedly.
When you consider the amount of data being transferred , a game, being run on a remote server and streamed to your little box.

Overheal

Probably works fine for Plants vs Zombies....

excuse me,

cherryghost

http://www.edge-online.com/news/onlive-goes-into-open-beta

tuxy

Ok, I read their website and it does not claim to lower the latency to play games.
It's just a form of cloud computing where a lot of the cpu/gpu work is done on a remote server.

Kinetic^

Wait, you still need a PC to play?

cherryghost

Kinetic^ wrote: »

Wait, you still need a PC to play?

theres 2 iterations of OnLive. one is a small box hooked up to your tv. the other is its software that just streams to your pc, ANY pc. they claim a 1.4ghz P4 and Intel Integrated can stream it seeminglessly(on condition you have a 2.5mb connection minimum).

thebman

ok was kind of expecting some information in the thread no offense.

So its in beta like they said it would be, any user feed back?

cherryghost

been looking around. nothing so far

tuxy

cherryghost wrote: »

theres 2 iterations of OnLive. one is a small box hooked up to your tv. the other is its software that just streams to your pc, ANY pc. they claim a 1.4ghz P4 and Intel Integrated can stream it seeminglessly(on condition you have a 2.5mb connection minimum).

Where are you getting this info from?
The offical FAQ conflicts with your info
http://www.onlive.com/service/faq.html

cherryghost

tuxy i was quoting what they said a few months ago, obviously they changed it. but the core is there. either software through your pc or a small box attached to your tv. i dont know where you think conflicts come in there?

as for the connection, its been altered the last time i read up on it.

tuxy

Cutting the bandwidth to 1.5mb means a lot more compression
What's advertised as a 1.5mb connection by an isp will probably be 1.3 at best.
Now think how much the image will have to be compressed. Also the fact that so much of your bandwidth will be used up by the stream of rendered images. I can see multiplayer latency being bigger because of this. It would be like downloading large files while playing online.

cherryghost

it'd be leeching your net connection alright. though they claim to have 'revolutionary' new methods to compress and send streaming videos with minimum fuss, lag etc etc. I just dont see how its possible, which is why I have a good bit of interest in!

tuxy

Well I am sure they have a patent on the technology so there is no reason why they couldn't just come out and explain how it works.
But no matter what they do they are still running over standard broadband connections which really limits things in terms of latency.
I would be shocked if this turned out to be anymore than vaporware.

thebman

There is only so much compression you can use without considerable loss in image quality which obviously they can't allow.

I've been given out to so much for being so negative on this on a couple of other sites but basically I don't think it will be acceptable for most people.

Kinetic^

tuxy wrote: »

Where are you getting this info from?
The offical FAQ conflicts with your info
http://www.onlive.com/service/faq.html

It clearly says that there's a plugin for browsers for windows and mac computers.

As the guy who's behind this is the guy that created EA, it was great back then, I'm giving him somewhat of a chance to impress me with this. I really feel that if he actually has this groundbreaking compression technology that he's a schmuck for using it for gaming when he could revolutionise the way the entire world could communicate over the internet.

thebman

Yeah we'll I'm sure they'll license it if it is that revolutionary. This would be a great showcase if they did have it.

However, it is more likely it is just good compression and it will have all the problems other compression has but that it is maybe better geared/designed to deal with computer game graphics than other applications.

The advantage is they know beforehand a lot of the type of data they will be sending so it doesn't have to be so generic a compression type. Also if they have some intelligent system that works out that in a computer game the person moves the scene so in each movement, much of the scene will remain the same so if you only need to send the change in scene you could save on the required data to be sent. It would be massively complicated and in many cases not possible if the scene is changing too rapidly or the distance of objects is changing. You might be able to do it for a strategy game like command and conquer for example, maybe not with Crysis :P

I doubt its anything that drastic though either as it would be almost impossible to do that type of calculations in realtime on top of everything else anyway even if it work at all :P

Kiith

I'd definitly be willing to give this a shot. Unfortunatly, due to our horrible infrastructure, it would no doubt run terribly over here.

Kinetic^ wrote: »

I really feel that if he actually has this groundbreaking compression technology that he's a schmuck for using it for gaming when he could revolutionise the way the entire world could communicate over the internet.

Who needs to better the way we can communicate when we can play games even faster! FASTER!!

thebman

I think in most countries you'd need a business line to be able to use this. ISP's aren't going to accept home users on unlimited connections doing this or the requirements of quality of service required to stream games running remotely in real time.

Kinetic^

Any leaks on how this works yet?

witnessmenow

tuxy wrote: »

Cutting the bandwidth to 1.5mb means a lot more compression
What's advertised as a 1.5mb connection by an isp will probably be 1.3 at best.
Now think how much the image will have to be compressed. Also the fact that so much of your bandwidth will be used up by the stream of rendered images. I can see multiplayer latency being bigger because of this. It would be like downloading large files while playing online.

Thats hardly going to be an issue? I presume The games will be communicating with each other locally (well like a LAN, locally).

thebman

witnessmenow wrote: »

Thats hardly going to be an issue? I presume The games will be communicating with each other locally (well like a LAN, locally).

Doesn't that assume you can only play other onlive players?

I doubt that is the case. It will run on the server so locally to other onlive players but standard lag to players elsewhere.

AlmightyCushion

thebman wrote: »

Doesn't that assume you can only play other onlive players?

I doubt that is the case. It will run on the server so locally to other onlive players but standard lag to players elsewhere.

If you are playing non onlive players then it will double the lag. Lag from you to the onlive server and from the onlive server to the other player. It could make things un-playable.

SeantheMan

I remember on the original convention video Steve Perlman talking about how they had developed some new compression technology for this.

Anyways, we won't know till its been tested out thoroughly.

Anyone know of anyone who is part of the Beta ?

witnessmenow

thebman wrote: »

Doesn't that assume you can only play other onlive players?

I doubt that is the case. It will run on the server so locally to other onlive players but standard lag to players elsewhere.

I would presume you only can play with other onlive players?

As AC said it would double the lag if you didnt. Maybe if the dedicated server of the match was in the Onlive server farm it would work?

thebman

witnessmenow wrote: »

I would presume you only can play with other onlive players?

As AC said it would double the lag if you didnt. Maybe if the dedicated server of the match was in the Onlive server farm it would work?

Seems like a severe limitation to me :-/

Kinetic^

........any news on this?