Question:
Does anyone thing this OnLive new system will destroy its competition (PS3,360,Wii)*Link is on detailed*?
@SoLo_DoMo_
2009-05-01 05:11:18 UTC
What do you thing of this? would you get it? Do you think this will knock out its comptition?

http://www.onlive.com/
Eight answers:
Patrick
2009-05-04 06:42:55 UTC
The Hardware Question



To give the kind of performance OnLive is promising (720p at 60 frames-per-second) realistically its datacenters are going to require the processing equivalent of a high-end dual core PC running a very fast GPU - a 9800GT minimum, and maybe something a bit meatier depending on whether the 60fps gameplay claim works out, and which games will actually be running. That's for every single connection OnLive is going to be handling.



So, let's say that Grand Theft Auto V is released via OnLive, and (conservatively) one million people want to play it at the same time. We can talk about Tesla GPUs, server clusters, the whole nine yards, but the bottom line is that the computing and rendering power we're talking about is mammoth to a degree never seen before in the games business, perhaps anywhere. There may be a way how this can be handled (more on that later), but even having capacity for 'just' 5,000 clients running at the same time is a monumental effort and expense. It would be the equivalent of us running a single Eurogamer server for every reader who connects to the site at the same time. The expense involved is staggering (not to mention the heat all this hardware would generate - think of the children!).



The Video Encoding Conundrum



Not only will these datacenters be handling the gameplay, they will also be encoding the video output of the machines in real time and piping it down over IP to you at 1.5MBps (for SD) and 5MBps (for HD). OnLive says you will be getting 60fps gameplay. First of all, bear in mind that YouTube's encoding farms take a long, long time to produce their current, offline 2MBps 30fps HD video. OnLive is going to be doing it all in real-time via a PC plug-in card, at 5MBps, and with surround sound too.



It sounds brilliant, but there's one rather annoying fact to consider: the nature of video compression is such that the longer the CPU has to encode the video, the better the job it will do. Conversely, it's a matter of fact that the lower the latency, the less efficient it can be.



More than that, OnLive overlord Steve Perlmen has said that the latency introduced by the encoder is 1ms. Think about that; he's saying that the OnLive encoder runs at 1000fps. It's one of the most astonishing claims I've ever heard. It's like Ford saying that the new Fiesta's cruising speed is in excess of the speed of sound. To give some idea of the kind of leap OnLive reckons it is delivering, I consulted one of the world's leading specialists in high-end video encoding, and his response to OnLive's claims included such gems as "Bulls***" and "Hahahahaha!" along with a more measured, "I have the feeling that somebody is not telling the entire story here." This is a man whose know-how has helped YouTube make the jump to HD, and whose software is used in video compression applications around the world.



He recommended a series of settings and tweaks that would allow for h264 processing at the kind of latencies OnLive has to work with, so here's a comparison video: source on the left, 5MBps 60fps encode on the right. As is usual with my videos, the action is slowed down to eliminate macro-blocking on playback as much as possible. Burnout Paradise is the chosen game, which features heavily on OnLive's front-end demo, and is also a good test for arcade-style video.



http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/onlive-60fps-quality-estimation-video



It's not particularly pretty, but with the constrictions OnLive has to live with, this is the sort of performance the current market leader in compression has to offer. The bottom line here is that OnLive's 'interactive video compression algorithm' must be so utterly amazing, and orders of magnitude better than anything ever made, that you wonder why the company is bothering with videogames at all when the potential applications are so much more staggering and immense.



The Insurmountable Challenge: Latency



OnLive says that it has conducted years of 'psychophysical' research to lessen the effects of internet latency. That's the key issue here, and I can't see how OnLive can fudge its way around this one. In reality, it's going to need sub-150 millisecond latency from its servers at least, and a hell of a QoS (quality of service) to guarantee that this will in any way approximate the experience you currently have at home. The latency factor will probably need to be somewhat lower than that to factor in the video encoding server-side, and decoding client-side, which by any measurable standard right now is going to be impactful.



How Did They Do That?



So, bearing in mind that OnLive is demonstrating at GDC, how is it achieving the results? It's difficult to say, but this is how I would do it. Firstly, I'd have a bank of whopper PCs behind the scenes running the games at 720p60. Each of them would be connected to a hardware h264 encoder which would in turn be connected via gigabit LAN to the clients. If the server-side PCs aren't on site, I'd have them at a very close-by datacenter. At the GDC demo, OnLive bosses Mike McGarvey and Steve Perlmen said that the company's servers were hosted 50 miles away. If this was a true test conducted over the internet, I'm betting that there was a whopping internet connection being used with oodles of bandwidth, even if only 5MBps of it was utilised.



Perhaps this suggests an element of smoke and mirrors, but if I were OnLive and about to give a demonstration of this importance, I'd definitely be looking to control as many of the conditions as possible. The main principles are being showcased, but in a best-case scenario. The thing is, actual performance has to live up to this demo and that's where things get tricky.



Factor in thousands more users, orders of magnitude more traffic at the datacenters, and all the vagaries and unreliability of the average internet connection and actual real-life performance must surely be in question. Much as we all want this to be brilliant, the fact of the matter is that even a Skype call over the internet is prone to failing badly at any given point, so the chances are that the far more ambitious OnLive is going to have its fair share of very tangible issues. Picture quality will be immensely variable and lag will remain an issue - but for the less discerning gamer, maybe - just maybe - it will work well enough.



How Could They Make It Work?



So, could this system actually live up to the claims being made for it? What sort of conditions are required to ensure optimal performance? Firstly, I don't think that the video encoding issues will be overcome and I don't buy into this 'interactive video algorithm' geek-speak. On high-action scenes, you're going to be seeing a lot of macroblocking; it's basically inevitable. I can't imagine Burnout ever being streamed in HD to acceptable standards at 60fps without at least two to three times the amount of bandwidth OnLive uses.



I can see 30fps video being the standard here rather than the mooted 60fps. It'll make the video quality look massively superior, and reduce the load on the client decoding it, plus it will help manage latency if the amount of frames being processed is halved. Plus of course there's the fact that 90-95 per cent of console games run at 30fps anyway. It's effectively the standard and it will lower the CPU/GPU requirements of the PCs server-side. But even then, don't think that this will result in lossless HDMI-quality video - far from it. Any game with fast-moving, colourful video is going to look very rough.



That said, the 1.5MBps standard-def option is intriguing and has a much better chance of working out. Here's the same h264 encoding profile I used earlier, reworked for standard definition. I can even run this in real time in the Eurogamer Flash player, no slowdowns or zoom-ins required.



http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/onlive-30fps-quality-estimation-video



Let's give OnLive the benefit of the doubt for a moment and say that its encoder is better than the very best in compression available today. If its tech is the generational leap that Perlman and company say it is, maybe it could match that quality at 60fps. But still, blown up to full-screen, it's not going to be especially impressive.



Latency. I can only see one way to make this work and guarantee the necessary quality of service, and that's to adopt an IPTV-style model. The OnLive datacenters will be licensed to ISPs, who will have them at their base of operations. Latency will be massively reduced, the connection will be far more stable, plus the datacenters with the PCs and hardware encoders can be distributed worldwide in a more effective manner. ISPs will be cut into the deal the way that retailers are now with conventional game-purchasing.



But even in this scenario, practically, I still can't see it happening. Microsoft's IPTV venture still hasn't materialised anywhere outside of the USA, so what chance does OnLive have of brokering a deal? And with ISPs complaining about the load brought about by innovations like the BBC iPlayer, why would they want to be involved with a hugely congestive venture like OnLive?



And what about computer costs? OnLive is promising state-of-the-art PCs running your game experience. The costs in creating the datacenters are going to be humungous, even factoring in the assistance of a volume manufacturer like Dell or HP. And what happens when GTA or Half-Life comes out and everyone wants to play it simultaneously? Will we have to take turns on connecting to the available servers? Computer costs, bandwidth costs, development costs, publisher royalties... it's all starting to sound hugely, and prohibitively, expensive. Not surprisingly, OnLive is k
2016-02-27 07:13:33 UTC
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ReX
2009-05-01 05:26:10 UTC
It all depends on how well they execute. If they can deliver next-gen performance via streaming to a tiny box, it's going to literally change how we view gaming. I've probably spent over a thousand dollars in this generation of hardware and software, but if i can enjoy the same quality at a fraction of a percent of the price, I'd be a moron not to jump onboard.



On the other hand, OnLive faces some serious challenges. Can it match the graphic output of PS3 and 360? Players and software developers have gotten used to the concept of games in high def, and if there is too much smearing, tearing, or jumping (and it won't take much to be "too much"), OnLive will have an almost impossible task in dethroning the current kings of gaming.



Feltonicwhateveryournameis>> Thanks for the copy-paste job without attribution. I thought you were an intelligent, well-informed gamer. Turns out, you are a credit-theiving douchebag. Hope you get hit by a bus.
Jenkins4455
2009-05-04 14:38:16 UTC
Beta testing for Onlive starts this summer. If it ends up being as good as the company says it will be, then Microsoft and Sony will have to quickly create a competing system. If they don't, then Onlive might take away a huge amount of business. For more information on Onlive, check out http://OnliveFans.com
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2009-05-01 05:21:56 UTC
i cant get it and i dont want to. stupid labor government here in australia wont give my area faster internet, we are stuck with just regular ADSL. anyway i dont want to get onlive if i had fast internet, just sounds completely unreliable.



At their san francisco thing whatever they were getting data from a server at the conference, a few metres maybe, for some people the nearest server would be 50km away, dont forget thousands of people using that same server



it wont work, bad ideas are never get good



besides, steam is better anyway, just download the game once, and you dont need the fastest internet for HD, its included in most new steam games released. plus there is pre loading where you download games before they are released, then they are activated later



PS



i already have known about onlive for weeks and know nearly everything that they have released to the public, also the system will use subscriptions for payment, so in the end gamers will spend more on onlive then consoles and games themselves
TomcatOO
2009-05-01 05:35:20 UTC
Seems like it's possible in the long-run. If gamers had a choice between expensive consoles vs. instant HD gaming, I think most would choose OnLive.
blackdiamnond050
2009-05-01 05:21:40 UTC
WOW, I just checked it out and it looks AMAZING!!! I just bought a 360 though. I'll probably sing up and try the demos to really compare it to Xbox live. Thanks for letting me know that it is out there!


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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