Cloud gaming

[[Syl]]

OnLive Makes PC Upgrades Extinct, Lets You Play Crysis On Your TV

You may never buy a new video card ever again. Actually, the only PC gaming hardware you might ever need will cost you less than a Wii, should OnLive's potential live up to its promise.

OnLive is a new video games on demand service that may just change the way you play PC games. The brainchild of Rearden Studios founder Steve Perlman, formerly of Atari, Apple, WebTV and more, and Mike McGarvey, formerly of Eidos, the technology looks to revolutionize the way computer games are brought home. Instead of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on the latest video game hardware that will make games like Crysis playable at nearly maxed settings, let OnLive's servers handle the processing. All that's required is a low cost "micro console" or a low end PC and a broadband internet connection.

Yes, even your sub $500 netbook or MacBook can play processor intensive, GPU demanding PC games.

[Menolly]

ooo...

Depending on how much the cost per game on demand winds up being, Hyperception just may be convinced into this one.

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

Can the current download speeds handle this though?

[robrod]

not only will this new technology allow you to play high end video games on low end comps but also you can hook it to a tv. as long as you have good high speed internet access you can play a video game say WOW on a tv, laptop(PC/and or mac). sounds too good to be true and there has been no pricing announced as of yet. but is does sound interesting.

[I'm Murrin]

Server side graphics processing will put a lot more load on your internet connection, it'll only really work well for people with fast and very reliable connections.

[matrixman]

I'm all for it, if this thing is workable. But it does have a "too good to be true" odor about it. I have a fairly reliable connection, but as for fast...

For standard definition television quality, a broadband connection of at least 1.5 megabits per second is required. For HDTV resolution, a connection of at least 5 mbps is needed.

I have cable but I rarely see my download speeds hit 1.5 Mbps. I don't think I've ever seen it go past 2 Mbps. But 5 Mbps? That would be historic for me. Not that I'd mind playing games in standard definition.

Oh, well. I'm hoping more that this will be something folks like Menolly and Hyperception can enjoy - gaming without the hassle of computer upgrades. Me, I like the nuts-and-bolts experience of building/upgrading my own PC too much to give it up.

[Rigel]

The throughput isn't really a problem... after all, people are already streaming video through Netflix on their computers, and even digital cable service is essentially streamed video (Comcast On-Demand, for one).

The real problem, of course, is lag. Imagine all the lagginess of multiplayer gaming, coming to every single player game as well!

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

Charter's service is phenomenol...they claim 4 mps...I'm not sure exactly how fast, but it's fast...I think it could handle it...

...hrm, guess we'll see, huh?

[Rigel]

I'm in the lucky few, as Comcast recently switched from analog to all-digital (and thus, all streaming) for our area.

This resulted in them having more available bandwidth, so they gave everyone a free upgrade... While I was at 5M before, now I'm at 20M downspeed (usually hitting around 12M, though). Sweetness

(Of course, this means you'll hit their cap sooner, and they still don't have any way for you to check how much you've used...)