Gaikai - Cloud-gaming?

TouchingVirus

I don't think it'll catch on here for numerous reasons, including our poor quality of broadband and broadband penetration but I've played the preface to Mass Effect 2 there on it and I have to admit, I'm very impressed

Basically, play games in your browser over the internet using Flash & Java and nothing else

Mass Effect 2: http://www.beta.gaikai.com/games/mass-effect-2
Dragon Age 2: http://www.gaikai.com/games/dragon-age-2
Dead Space 2: http://www.beta.gaikai.com/games/dead-space-2
The Sims 3: http://www.thesims3.com/trial
Spore: http://www.beta.gaikai.com/beta/spor...97H27HjyD03013
Battlefield: Bad Company 2: http://www.beta.gaikai.com/beta/bf_b...97H27HjyD03013
There is one for Crysis 2, but I don't know the link

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=29871652&postcount=1

Sephiroth_dude

I tryed masseffect 2 and I got the following message "Your network response times are too high. Please try again."

K.O.Kiki

Do you need a specific pad?

Burgo

Also tried mass effect 2, didn't work for me in chrome, did in firefox. I could see this working for some games, but not others, especially fps, the lag was pretty bad when turning around quickly etc. Was their a choice to edit options? couldnt find a way to remap controls.

Ponster

Mass Effect 2 was excellent. Played up until the end of the demo with pretty good FPS rate.

cherryghost

I'm pretty impressed with this tech. The videos themselves run on Java. I managed to play Sims 3 and Dragon Age 2 flawlessly. Both were tested on my intel integrated piece of crap 7 year old PC at work

Sims 3 ran in a large resolution and was smooth as it should be




Dragon Age 2 is not run in such a large resolution


Full screen is a bit blurry



What impressed me most from both the games is that there was NO MOUSE LAG, whatsoever. Compared to the likes of OnLive and similar streaming programs, this is probably the best example of lag free 'video' gaming I've experienced yet. Don't try it with Firefox though, doesnt work properly. Chrome is your friend.

ShadowHearth

your network response time to high

so i guess i cant

TouchingVirus

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Do you need a specific pad?

No pad, no. It's a browser game

Burgo wrote: »

Also tried mass effect 2, didn't work for me in chrome, did in firefox. I could see this working for some games, but not others, especially fps, the lag was pretty bad when turning around quickly etc. Was their a choice to edit options? couldnt find a way to remap controls.

Yes, there were re-map options in Mass Effect, accessible by hitting Esc to bring up the menu and then options -> Key Bindings

I agree that it won't work really for FPS in that any significant lag usually kills it. But games like The Sims and maybe Dragon Age 2 would be suited to it. I also found, like cherryghost, that the resolution in ME2/DA2 was poor enough when fullscreen, there was also some artifacts from video compression when playing the ME2 videos (noticeable around the embedded subtitles).

There are some cross-browser issues (e.g. ME2 working on Firefox but not Chrome for some), and when my internet dropped mid-game it showed me a reconnecting screen/adjusting BW screen for some 20 seconds before dropping the game session completely, never to be rejoined apparently. And the lag issues which I assume would be sorted with more decentralising of the servers to other geographical locations.

Still though, on the whole, I am even more impressed with it after testing some of the other games. Custom PC rigs, and local installs will still be the way to go for a long time yet (if not forever) but it's good to see some out of the box thinking with regards to Games and "the cloud"

Sephiroth_dude

Do you need a fast connection?

Overheal

I just get a black screen.

Ponster

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Do you need a fast connection?

Most likely. I'm on fiber and it was seamless.

Sephiroth_dude

Ponster wrote: »

Most likely. I'm on fiber and it was seamless.

ah well that explains it then

Gunmonkey

There is a lot of potential for services like this, but maybe network infastructure and them using the wrong type of games to market it. FPS (and to a slightly lesser extent TPS) just wont work outside of the fastest connections, but games like Civilization 5, Kings Bounty, Heroes of Might & Magic or other turn based would be great, or even some old school games. Imagine being bored browsing and clicking a link, sign in and have the original Fallout or X-Com games booting up, or other games that are finnicky to get running on newer OS's, since they would be able to get it hammered out on their systems once and its good to go for anyone to play.

johnny_ultimate

I'm on eircom 7mb and it took me a few goes to get into anything - kept on asking me to close any bandwidth heavy applications, but my browser was the only thing open :P

A few refreshes later, I did get ME2 running (with it's lengthy unskippable opening), and it plays pretty well. Might just be my laptop but it seemed to play at an unusually square aspect ratio. A little blurry, but definitely works. What's most promising about it is that it pretty much renders the platform divide moot - probably the only way to play high recent games on Linux or Mac.

It's early days for the tech, and yeah probably would eat into your bandwidth allowance something fierce. But it works. The lag was barely noticeable when moving around the camera with the mouse, but yeah probably isn't optimal for twitchy shooters. Still, very promising tech, even if the infrastructure might not be up to it yet.

WolfForager

It's just not loading for me

calex71

Tried Dragon age 2, worked better than expected.

Controls were what i expected regards layout, it was the same as pc. Im on a 25mb connection but suffered some blocking around sword swings once or twice. Graphics were not as far removed from the original as I would have expected.

I still have a thing about having a physical copy of a full price game I can't shake.

Overheal

site wont load at all now underwhelmed!

Wossack

so, is it better or worse then onlive?

Hesho

I just gave Dragon Age 2 a go and everything seemed to run better than Onlive. Appeared to be relatively lag free although im playing on a 20mb line. I think Onlive may be launching in the UK soon though so the lag issues may improve. Impressive tech all the same!

Kiith

That's pretty impressive. Tested it in work there, and it runs perfectly. Mass Effect and Dragon Age ran with no lag, and looked decent (amazing for a browser). With some work, and a good connection, this could really be a viable option.

Harps

Gets to 67% then tells me to close any bandwidth intensive applications, nothing else using bandwidth so not sure what thats about. 7mbps connection so assumed it would at least load

Jaafa

Harps wrote: »

Gets to 67% then tells me to close any bandwidth intensive applications, nothing else using bandwidth so not sure what thats about. 7mbps connection so assumed it would at least load

Yep same here.

cherryghost

It uses 400kb/s when I play Dragon Age II, about 300 playing Sims 3.

Randomer.

Played ME2, very impressive. Just felt like I was playing an online game connected to a server in American but all things considered...running the game on a laptop such as mine. Wow.

Ri_Nollaig

Tried Mass Effect 2 and it worked perfectly! Very impressed.

Using UPC 25 megs.

Zapp Brannigan

On a 20 meg fibre connection and it just keeps hanging at 67%. Oh well.

5uspect

Harps wrote: »

Gets to 67% then tells me to close any bandwidth intensive applications, nothing else using bandwidth so not sure what thats about. 7mbps connection so assumed it would at least load

I get that error on my Mac but not my PC.