The future?

[Surf314]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,28...703,00.asp

[CaffeinePowered]

Yes, please stream my games so I don't own them


This is going to tank just like the Phantom

[fyre]

I like to own. Cool tech though.

[Versus]

There's a program which lets you run games on your laptop/netbook that does the same thing, except your desktop computer does the work...now you just need a fast internet connection.

[ribozyme]

Sounds cool.

If they could work out all the networking problems and a fair pricing system (big if's I know) I might be on board.

[Wedge]

This kind of tech IS for better or worse something very relevant to the future.  I don't really think they are going about it right, and I'm sure the pricing will be absurd, but it's still something that bears looking into.  I could see it being useful for playing short  games you just want to play through once at most, and don't really care about owning, though I highly doubt the technology works as well as they'd like to promote it (both in terms of streaming the video and latency, especially with shitty American ISPs).

More practically it does seem like a much more logical technology for MMO's, as those games are already subscription based, so you "owning" the game doesn't mean anything anyways.  And a bit of input latency probably wouldn't be as big a deal in most of those games anyway.  In that case, they'd probably be a lot better off pushing this in the asian markets right now, because when you combine the heavy MMO density with the vastly superior internet infrastructure out there, it could probably work a lot better.

[Surf314]

At first I was like F that, but after thinking about it: Who wouldn't want to be able to play games on any shitty computer.  I mean your laptop is suddenly a gaming laptop no matter what the specs.  It's another reason to get a media center PC even if it is cheap and has a barebones graphics card you can game on your TV now as well as watch all your *legal* downloads.

[A. Crow]

Watch, my brothers, as I present an argument in 10 words or less!

SAS sucks;  Americans should never capitulate to non-ownership.

damn, i just saved everyone involved 2-3 minutes with which would be better spent drinking.

[Squishy3]

IGN just posted their hands-on of it. Obviously it's a very early demo.


http://pc.ign.com/articles/965/965535p1.html

[Surf314]

I have to admit that video of it looks pretty awesome.  I mean if I might try it.

[ScottyGrayskull]

http://pc.ign.com/articles/965/965535p1.html

While this sounds like a fairly cool idea (although I agree with what Crow says), I have to mention that the 320x240 resolution of IGN's video had loading issues and stuttered for me.

[Squishy3]

[quote author=Squishy3 link=topic=2553.msg72870#msg72870 date=1237957037]
http://pc.ign.com/articles/965/965535p1.html

While this sounds like a fairly cool idea (although I agree with what Crow says), I have to mention that the 320x240 resolution of IGN's video had loading issues and stuttered for me.
[/quote]my friend let me uses his Insider account, downloading the HD one now and will post it up on sendspace or something here soon

[ScottyGrayskull]

[quote author=ScottyGrayskull link=topic=2553.msg72917#msg72917 date=1237999531]
[quote author=Squishy3 link=topic=2553.msg72870#msg72870 date=1237957037]
http://pc.ign.com/articles/965/965535p1.html

While this sounds like a fairly cool idea (although I agree with what Crow says), I have to mention that the 320x240 resolution of IGN's video had loading issues and stuttered for me.
[/quote]I'll see if there's an HD one, my friend has an Insider account and lets me use it
[/quote]

No. I mean that just the low-res video stuttered for me, and I according to the article I have a good enough connection for HD for OnLive.

So far I'm not even remotely convinced this is technologically feasible.

[Surf314]

[quote author=Squishy3 link=topic=2553.msg72918#msg72918 date=1237999650]
[quote author=ScottyGrayskull link=topic=2553.msg72917#msg72917 date=1237999531]
[quote author=Squishy3 link=topic=2553.msg72870#msg72870 date=1237957037]
http://pc.ign.com/articles/965/965535p1.html

While this sounds like a fairly cool idea (although I agree with what Crow says), I have to mention that the 320x240 resolution of IGN's video had loading issues and stuttered for me.
[/quote]I'll see if there's an HD one, my friend has an Insider account and lets me use it
[/quote]

No. I mean that just the low-res video stuttered for me, and I according to the article I have a good enough connection for HD for OnLive.

So far I'm not even remotely convinced this is technologically feasible.
[/quote]

It could be distance to the server, they promised server farms in enough location where that shouldn't be a problem.  This is very much a wait and see situation for me.

[x]

So, BBC launched their HD iPlayer yesterday and, as far as I'm concerned, any worries about streaming HD video have been allayed. There's an interesting article about it here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2...highe.html

We first began investigating HD in iPlayer over a year ago. The BBC HD Channel quality controllers have high standards and insisted that for us to label content as "HD" it had to be true HD - i.e. 720p or above with no obvious encoding artefacts. No cheating (as some other video sites do) labelling anything upwards of 800x600 as HD - our HD needed to be at least 1280x720.

That meant using H.264 and an encoding bitrate of 3Mbps or greater (we actually settled on 3.2Mbps as our preferred HD bitrate). However, since many people won't have an internet connection that can stream 3.2Mbps reliably, we wanted to make HD available for download as well. Trouble is, a year ago our download manager was Windows-only, and we were determined to only release HD when we had a solution that allowed our Mac and Linux users to download them as well. Additionally, a year ago too few people had a version of Adobe Flash that could play H.264, which meant many users would need to install a software update in order to access our content - something we're keen to avoid.

The good news is that as of today the various pieces are in place for going live with HD: Our new cross-platform download manager allows Windows, Mac and Linux users to download HD, everyone has a version of Flash that can stream HD, and our HD channel now has more content available.

The site is only accessible from a UK IP, although I guess there are ways around that but I was blown away. Perfectly crisp 720p with none of the usual digital breakup experienced as a result of whatever compression methods these streaming video sites use and no buffering whatsoever.

The questions over input lag and subscription models still stand but the streaming HD claims have definitely been substantiated.

[Eschatos]

With my shitty internet connection, I doubt I'll be able to stream games decently.  That, and what happens when the company fails? 

[Ianki]

what happens when steam fails? 

This i would like to know.

[Surf314]

I'm guessing the payment will mostly be around service subscriptions and not out and out buying things.  Or if you do hopefully they will pull a valve and agree to send you hard copies of all your games if they close doors and let you put in cd keys of games you purchased.