OnLive is sooooooooo awsum

[Suchy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpFzpF0msrU
Notice the lag, even though the guy's playing via a local wi-fi.

 

[Dny]

 

[Zed]

haven't they failed miserably yet?

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Shit, that's gonna be everywhere in 20 years. People won't have PCs on the desktop, it'll be a PC in a data center streaming the shit out to your home monitor and keyboard setup.

 

[Micmu]

... in 20 years. People won't have PCs on the desktop...

True.

...nor a desktop

...nor electricity


Also, do you get replacement fingers with this iPad shit?

 

[Overweight Manatee]

The idea that you can stream a game to anything, anywhere and play it is like a nerd dream, but then you remember that no matter what you do it will always be shitty.

I could see this being used for playing civilization or TBS though.

 

[MapMan]

 

[racofer]

 

[ChristofferC]

The lag is pretty extreme.

 

[Konjad]

OnLive again? oh, pleaaaaaseeeee...

 

[MetalCraze]

Did he lost connection just a few meters from the fucking server? Hahaha
And notice how all that he showed next was just a bunch of pre-recorded game videos (if not the first one, because he actually never showed that he played the game)

haven't they failed miserably yet?

They did. It was supposed to go online everywhere in June, means now. Because they have millions of gaming platforms, every one of them having a licensed M$ OS besides hardware (how will you run a windows game otherwise?) and it's all so financially viable.

In real world of course they are just getting sponsor's money and will then call it a failed experiment and you will never hear of them again.

Shit, that's gonna be everywhere in 20 years.

I'm afraid in 20 years nobody will remember about the hoax.

 

[Xi]

Looks pretty decent actually.

They did. It was supposed to go online everywhere in June, means now. Because they have millions of gaming platforms, every one of them having a licensed M$ OS besides hardware (how will you run a windows game otherwise?) and it's all so financially viable.

Publishers port there games to this platform. It is new technology. It doesn't work the same way your desktop does, it is server tech. I linked most of the hardware and software for the server tech in my old post on this technology. And honestly, it ran pretty good. Too bad it won't be available in your area. /shrug

 

[DarkUnderlord]

The idea that you can stream a game to anything, anywhere and play it is like a nerd dream, but then you remember that no matter what you do it will always be shitty.

Why would it always be shitty? The faster computers get, there's going to come a point where "ZE GRAFFIKS" aren't that intense to produce and the computing power will be available to run several instances of one game on the one machine (think of it as like running a game from the 80's on a PC today - the minimal requirements are laughable). Couple that with faster network speeds, lower delivery costs and no chance of piracy what-so-ever, and you've got every reason in the world for developers to jump on this and never publish a disc again.

Accept your new future, punks.

 

[Xi]

http://content.dell.com/us/en/corp/d/pr ... aunch.aspx

This is the server tech.

 

[Cassidy]

Is Xi part of the Onlive team?

 

[Xi]

http://www.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/se ... biz&cs=555

Here is a direct link to the cloud computing server hardware. It lists the technical specs. Probably not all of the hardware, but it gives a general idea.

 

[MetalCraze]

Publishers port there games to this platform. It is new technology. It doesn't work the same way your desktop does, it is server tech.

You can't just run a windows software on a non-windows, non-386 platform without porting it which isn't just pressing a button "compile it for a totally new OS and new hardware".

http://www.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/poweredge-c6100/pd.aspx?refid=poweredge-c6100&s=biz&cs=555

Here is a direct link to the cloud computing server hardware. It lists the technical specs. Probably not all of the hardware, but it gives a general idea.

Yeah it's capable of running 2-3 average modern games in parallel at best.
And you want to say it will cost less than 5 bucks a month to run/support/buy/upgrade?

 

[Angthoron]

Hooray for being even further removed from actually owning anything! Isn't it great, loaned money, loaned economy, loaned appartments, furniture, hardware, and now, entertainment too? Woo!

 

[Cassidy]

Loaned freedom in 2050.

ITZ COMING

 

[Xi]

Publishers port there games to this platform. It is new technology. It doesn't work the same way your desktop does, it is server tech.

You can't just run a windows software on a non-windows, non-386 platform without porting it which isn't just pressing a button "compile it for a totally new OS and new hardware".

http://www.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/poweredge-c6100/pd.aspx?refid=poweredge-c6100&s=biz&cs=555

Here is a direct link to the cloud computing server hardware. It lists the technical specs. Probably not all of the hardware, but it gives a general idea.

Yeah it's capable of running 2-3 average modern games in parallel at best.
And you want to say it will cost less than 5 bucks a month to run/support/buy/upgrade?

You obviously failed to read. You are probably the stupidest poster on the Codex. Seriously, you are fucking dumb. If anyone deserves a dumbfuck tag, it is you.

Each C6100 houses four workstation nodes operating on Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise Edition, and each node has two six-core processors and 192GB of DDR3 1066MHz ECC RAM.

This is just the computing side, the graphics would be handled in another rack by another server. You could stack 15-20 of these on top of one another in a server rack, put it in the corner and only take up a small 3x3 space. If you do the math on the the above statement, you'd realize that in a small 3x3 space you could do the computing for probably 5,000 people.

Each C6100 has 4 Nodes, each node has 2 6-core processors with 192GB of RAM.(Now multiply that times 20, then put 1000 of these in a server farm.)

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Plus, this is totally scalable. They can install the next version whenever it is released. I don't think you have a clue what you're talking about. ;P

Edit:

Also, these aren't running windows 7, they are running something else entirely.

Date : 6/15/2010
Round Rock, Texas
OnLive has made a major deployment of custom-engineered Dell servers for the initial rollout of its new cloud-gaming service on June 17.
It is one of the largest installations of GPU-powered servers to date.
Dell Data Center Solutions designed servers to allow OnLive to quickly and efficiently scale with service and subscriber growth.

Dell today announced that it is working closely with OnLive Inc., a pioneer of on-demand, instant-play video games, to power the OnLive® Game Service, which launches on June 17 . Dell Data Center Solutions (DCS) has been helping OnLive for several years to custom-design servers tailored for the OnLive platform, allowing OnLive to quickly scale with the growth of its customer base, starting from what is already one of the largest GPU-powered server deployments to date .


“As a startup, it can be challenging to access the resources needed to produce and quickly scale computing infrastructure,” said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. “Dell has been an outstanding partner, working closely with our engineers to design servers to our exact specifications and business needs, incorporating patented and patent-pending OnLive technology. Dell has the expertise and mechanisms in place that enable us to quickly ramp up to a mass-market scale for the delivery of the hottest games instantly through the Internet to gamers anywhere on a PC, Mac®, TV and other devices.”


In preparation for the launch of the OnLive Game Service at the 2010 E3 Expo, OnLive has been rapidly installing the customized Dell servers in its data centers. A DCS team worked directly with OnLive to design a unique, ultra-dense and power efficient infrastructure solution that would allow OnLive to scale quickly while driving down total cost of ownership. The resulting servers were designed around OnLive’s proprietary hardware and software, and were engineered specifically to address the complex challenges of instant access to HD-quality video games and other high-performance applications over the Internet.


Using the DCS supply chain and fulfillment expertise, Dell delivers the servers rack-integrated and ready to be hooked up and powered up the same day they arrive at an OnLive data center. Dell will continue to work closely with OnLive on new infrastructure designs for future generations of the service.


“Customers in the hyperscale data center segment like OnLive demand a different approach to infrastructure design and delivery, one that is customized and collaborative, and focused on dramatically reduced total cost of ownership,” said Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager of server platforms, Dell. “Dell is proud to be working with a truly innovative company like OnLive to design and produce the infrastructure solutions that will help OnLive grow its business and bring this breakthrough service to gamers worldwide.”


Dell Solutions for Cloud Gaming

The Dell Data Center Solutions (DCS) team has been custom-designing infrastructure solutions for the world’s leading cloud service providers and hyperscale data center operators for the past three years. With a client roster including some of the most heavily trafficked Internet sites and several of the top global search engines, Dell has deep expertise about the specialized needs of organizations in HPC, Web 2.0, gaming, social networking, energy, SaaS, plus public and private cloud builders.


For organizations in the gaming industry looking for the efficiencies that DCS customers have achieved with customized hyperscale computing infrastructures, Dell recently introduced new Cloud Infrastructure Solutions and PowerEdge C servers.


Additional Information:

Dell Data Center Solutions

Dell PowerEdge C Series

Dell Unveils Open Solutions for the Virtual Era

So basically, the hardware listed above isn't quite the same shit, onlive has the next level of hardware designed specifically for what they are doing. That should give you an idea.

 

[Kingston]

The idea that you can stream a game to anything, anywhere and play it is like a nerd dream, but then you remember that no matter what you do it will always be shitty.

Why would it always be shitty? The faster computers get, there's going to come a point where "ZE GRAFFIKS" aren't that intense to produce and the computing power will be available to run several instances of one game on the one machine (think of it as like running a game from the 80's on a PC today - the minimal requirements are laughable). Couple that with faster network speeds, lower delivery costs and no chance of piracy what-so-ever, and you've got every reason in the world for developers to jump on this and never publish a disc again.

Accept your new future, punks.

The only chance is that customers rebel. With the subscription price, having to buy the games and not actually owning them, and getting spied on and data mined as an a nice extra, it's not too unlikely. People like to own the shit they buy. Onlive is the antithesis to that. There is some hope.

 

[Shannow]

Hooray for being even further removed from actually owning anything! Isn't it great, loaned money, loaned economy, loaned appartments, furniture, hardware, and now, entertainment too? Woo!

Yep, I'm already building my bunker and acquiring weapons, munitions and foodstuffs looking forward to it. A Brave New World. I think I'm going to take up a loan and buy OnLive. It'll make me rich, you suckers!

 

[ever]

Publishers port there games to this platform. It is new technology. It doesn't work the same way your desktop does, it is server tech.

You can't just run a windows software on a non-windows, non-386 platform without porting it which isn't just pressing a button "compile it for a totally new OS and new hardware".

Skyway is right and Xi is a clown.

Assuming what Xi says is true and this isn't an -ix or windows based platform then:

Either a) you get license to part of the win32 kernel and GDI or directX and everything else MS based the game needs (expensive)

or b) you ask the publishers to port the entire game from win32 to your platform which is humongous task and probably needs more than a little money to get happening, not to mention more than A LOT of talent.

If you have your own platform someone in the team would have to have made at least some sort of language compiler for it for porting you know, be an option at all. I mean GCC isn't going to compile for you, neither will MSVC or any other compiler for that matter unless that compiler exists natively for your platform and it sure as hell does not if your platform is brand new.

Furthermore the compiler would probably need to be able to compile C, C++ and C# at the least as these are the languages most used in games today. I think CIV IV uses python for some parts and I'm sure plenty of other games have parts of the program written in some other language. That or have someone on your team who can translate code from one language to another VERY quickly.

Now aside from the ginormous task of creating a compiler, every single call made to the windows development framework is going to need to be translated to your one. So whereas before you would nicely ask directX or GDI to give you your pixel buffer now you gotta ask whatever equivalent there is for your platform. In other words you gotta have your own mini-OS and all the associated libraries to make development for it possible. If the graphics engine is openGL this will cut some of the work in terms of not going from direct3D to openGL code, but you still have to write an openGL library for your platform.

Another thing is every single piece of hardware can no longer use standard Linux or windows drivers, but you gotta get the vendors to write them for you or do it yourself.

So yeah either you get the required tools from MS, or you make a compiler and OS all by yourself and then ask publishers to port the games to that.

Judging that to port a game from windows to linux (an OS where a myriad of tools already exists to make development possible) or even macOS is already a hard to accomplish task which to most people is not really feasible, I call TREMENDOUS BULLSHIT coming out of everything this "Xi" fellow says.

As an aside I remember a while ago I was in a discussion with hal900x about LCD vs CRT technology and we were discussing contrast ratios, and Xi came in on my side and started spewing TREMENDOUS BULLSHIT in that thread too. I peacefully withdrew from the discussion out of embarrassment, knowing that anything I said would just sound stupid cause it would be associated with this clown.

 

[Xi]

I've said it numerous times, publishers have to port their games to Onlive. Duh.... You guys don't think outside of the box at all.

It's distributed computing. They aren't assigning CPUs to users, they are rendering/processing everything as a giant fucking cluster. It all scales to the demand. All you guys can think of is your desktop setup. That's not even close to what is happening.

As an aside I remember a while ago I was in a discussion with hal900x about LCD vs CRT technology and we were discussing contrast ratios, and Xi came in on my side and started spewing TREMENDOUS BULLSHIT in that thread too. I peacefully withdrew from the discussion out of embarrassment, knowing that anything I said would just sound stupid cause it would be associated with this clown.

He was arguing that the black levels on a CRT were better, thus making LCD tech shit. I argued the opposite and said that the more vibrant color made LCD better and the blacks were only slightly worse. Then I believe it went on to latency. Which, is utterly a moot point and totally imperceivable to the naked eye.

Fucking cling to your old ideas. New technologies are worse than the old ones. Fucking ridiculous.

 

[DraQ]

Why would it always be shitty? The faster computers get, there's going to come a point where "ZE GRAFFIKS" aren't that intense to produce and the computing power will be available to run several instances of one game on the one machine (think of it as like running a game from the 80's on a PC today - the minimal requirements are laughable).

The problem is that bandwidth has been consistently lagging far behind computing power since the beginning, and you don't get to eliminate lag anyway due to light speed restriction (and light is much slower in the fibre than in vacuum).

In effect, by the time it becomes viable and the server coverage is expanded sufficiently to make lag bearable you will be able to run the very same games on your fucking cellphone - without lag and compression artefacts.

As a side note, decompressing data is rather resource intensive too, so you'd still need user-side computational power, which could be used to run games smoothly, in high-res, rather than unpacking pixelated, artefact riddled screenshots streamed from some remote server.

 

[ever]

Do you realize that (ballpark numbers here) porting is something that takes like a team of 4 great programmers working around the clock maybe two months to do?

I think one of Blizzard's biggest names Sam Latinga got his job cause he developed a framework known as SDL that would allow multiplatform development for open source projects.