OnLive Cloud-Based Gaming: Is This The End Of High-End PCs?

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I recently switched back to PC gaming from Xbox360 gaming simply because xbox live is just to popular for its own good...Its full of either casual gamers or just people to immature to play multiplayer games with ultimately bringing down the experience. If onlive has multiplayer functions I fear a similar result to PC gaming. And how will game developers Push graphics further? They would be held hostage to Onlive's abilty to provide those graphics to its end user. All onlive is a middle man. We seem to be very good at it in america, find something that works and see if you can some how get in the middle of it to leech some money out of the consumer while complicating everything in the process.
 
I couldn't ever see myself getting into this malarky, i've experienced 1st hand how very sluggish Cloud computing is with thin clients on even on a LAN, and whats worse is they crash and lock up very frequently.
Ok sure your session is still open on the server, but having to restart the thin client frequently is annoying when you're trying to be productive, but i could imagine it being worse if someone is trying to play games.
i won't be parting with my Quad core computer at all, not atleast until i next upgrade which won't be for a long time.
 
Id like to see this becomming more developed.
It will eliminate the need for extreemly expansive hardware and expansive graphic solutions giving the less rich among us a chance to game on quality level as well
Currently a decent card such as the 5850 or gtx470 or above will set you back as much or more then the cost of a console not even taking in account the cost of the entire system.

Eliminating the need for expansive systems and power hungry gpu's will make great sence here for the quality of gaming since even low budget users will be able to play games like crysis in 1080P full AA enabled.

 
no, this is not the end of high end PCs, you are just have the new product hi. like when you first buy a video game, you think "OMG, best game ever. all other games are dead!" then later you say "it a good game, not the best."
 
WE WILL NEVER ALLOW OUR HIGH-END PCs DE REMOVED FROM US!!! I mean there's nothing, and i repeat NOTHING compared to one's own overclocked rig... regardless of what brand you pick. And as others have already stated i absolutely LOVE to put parts together and tweak my hardware by MYSELF... and that way i know i OWN MY power. Besides, this topic goes far beyond to ulterior motives from the promoters of this kind of technology. Believe it or not, there's people out there that doesn't want us to keep our own computers... so who's with me??? DOWN WITH THESE FCUKERS!!!

t53186:
Keep the cloud away from my PC. I need local control, not big brother control.

HELL YEAH t53186!
 
the devolopment of cloud-computing is just another manifestation of the fact, that privacy will cease to exist, and marketers to colonize the last corners of our existance. Remember the futurama episode where a character has a dream sponsored by some kind of fictional firm. Mobile phones are the first step, our personal documents are next.
push the exit button
 
I can see people using this as a way to try a game before you buy it. There are lots of bad games out there, and there's not much worse then spending 50 bucks on a game and finding out that it's worthless. I'll spend a few bucks to find a game worth my time rather then a small fortune on a gamble.
 
[citation][nom]gerand[/nom]This isn't exactly new. Hasn't anyone heard of StreamMyGame?http://www.streammygame.com/[/citation]

It is about 500KB to 1MB (Yes, mega byte, not bit).

So playing about 20 hours a week for 4 weeks will net about 288 GB's a month. How long until people find out that they really don't have unlimited internet.
 
those who cant afford a good gaming rig would probably will not afford a 5mbps connection as well. hence there is no point in such a service, why people love farm villie and mafia wars like games which are online because they are not those kind of sophisticated as the games like Crysis, Dirt2 etc. and those who love these are all owners of atleast good rig.
 
Well, the idea is good. But currently I think this would only cater a small number of people. Why have a crappy hardware (Intel GMA, omfg) when you can pay for an expensive high speed internet? This might be just for casual gamers but for the enthusiasts and hard core gamers, this won't do the trick.

those who cant afford a good gaming rig would probably will not afford a 5mbps connection as well.
I kinda agree with you but you can't generalize on how people would like to use their internet. But still, the demography is still small to threaten/eliminate high-end PC gaming. Many have tried but failed.
 
the devolopment of cloud-computing is just another manifestation of the fact, that privacy will cease to exist, and marketers to colonize the last corners of our existance. Remember the futurama episode where a character has a dream sponsored by some kind of fictional firm. Mobile phones are the first step, our personal documents are next.
push the exit button


Well... first of all thank god i wasn't branded a lunatic... there seems to be people smart enough to recognize the problem.

Still, i believe it is disappointing to take these things as a fact, rather to acknowledge that we can do something about it and the moment is RIGHT NOW! Those who endorse the use of this kind of technology clearly are not aware of the real risk it poses... please! open your eyes!. Be smart and don't let yourself be fooled by the supposed pros that this things offer, cause that's EXACTLY what they want you to believe, so you are completely buying it. Be on the smart side and reject this and all of its kind.
 
The quality of locally rendered graphics is so much higher than HD.

Also, ping the server and look at the latency. That is the minimum additional latency you get playing remotely.

These downsides are unavoidable. All downsides to running apps on your own machine can be avoided, except for the initial purchase price.

IMO, the entire remote application industry idea makes Scientology look sensible.
 
Yes, this will be great until you hit your ISP bitcap limit. Then you're offline for games and everything else until the next month/cycle. Either that, or you are going to pay through the nose for ISP charges when you *over* your bitcap and you get a per Gb (or Mb) overage charge. Your copy of Starcraft III, which might have cost $100 through Amazon, now costs you well over $500 a month even in single player mode due to greedy ISP's. Noooo thank you! Keep the online aspect as minimal as possible!
 
This is a blessing to those who have a low end PC, much like Source was a blessing.

But, it will NEVER replace a high end gaming PC that we enthusiast love to build and game on. It will work for those who have a laptop or low end OEM PC but I will never let them take away my high end PC. They can pry it from my cold dead hands.
 
The name of the biggest obstacle here is Latency, in due time, you can deal with the bandwidth limitations, the load on the servers and the client software - but the latency is here to stay, at least till the next big invention changes everything in this world as we know it. They can deal with it partially by scattering the servers all over the world, if they do it right, all that would be required for them is just put their own server(s) into data-centers which offer server housing services, connect them to the internet, and the mesh would intelligently route the closest users to these servers, thus maintaining lowest latency possible. But still i wonder what the experience might be with a latency of about 50 ms, which is about as close they can get on average. I'm afraid this is the kind of invention which either makes it big, or not at all.
One other obstacle i see is the licensing of the game titles. If the big publishers see this as a threat(selling less titles and not getting enough from onlive to compensate) , they can easily cut the service off by not allowing them to stream the games - or at least i believe they can, are you in fact sharing the game with anyone when it's being played on your server and streamed to a remote pc ? Anyways, time will tell.
 
The results were quite expected, still no threat what so ever against a real pc aimed at gaming. Yet another budget option just like the consoles (wich few realises gets rather expencive in the end due to the price difference between console vs pc games).

The day a console or steaming service can deliver true HD gaming (1920x1080+ pref 2560x1600 wich is my normal gaming res) at around 60 fps with low latency i might even start to consider it but its not likely going to happen anytime soon, "real" hardware costs.

 
Nice Article! but the potential of cloud computing games does not lie in replacing high end pc machines or console gaming but it will rather act as a middle ground and offer gaming to those who do not have access to the latest hardware but ironically have super fast net connections....it will bring new life to the pc gaming industry.
 
I've got the service, I like it. But, seems to me it's important not as a gaming service (meh) but as an example of what can be done with a VERY low latency, high compression cloud service. NO ONE can do this right now but OnLive...it's unbelievable what they've achieved, from a technical standpoint. If these guys can (and do) deliver 1020x720 with hard-to-notice latency...who needs Citrix?
 
I just hope someone develops the software to link home PCs in this fashion.. have one giant gaming rig/server in the basement stream games to the rest of your house over a LAN.

That would be worth it to me.
 
lol, giving you are a serious gamer, the bandwidth costs, weather you increase your limit, pay for going over or whatever, will cost way more in the long run, then the cost of paying for good hardware,

This service is for suckers, and for the very casual computer illiterate gamer.
 
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