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
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It would make cheating difficult, constant pc upgrades a thing of the past and I could play on my couch! If it came compatible with multiple controlers like the xbox360 one then it would simply be awsome. Of course mouse and keyboard too.
That's what I'm thinking too but they're saying they do the processing in 1ms and the editor on kotaku said in a controled enviroment with about 100 beta testers he saw no lag.
Remains to be seen if it works in the public but if it did it would be pretty cool.
If this is possible, then I demand new remote desktop clients. Frankly, I'm with doomer.
Supposing they did pull it off, you're going to need a seriously hefty connection. Especially if you expect to share with the rest of the house. I have IPTV from AT&T and 15mbps of my connection is reserved solely for the cable box.
if not now, then soon the speed issue will only be an isolated issue, as internet providers beef up the limits and lower the cost all the time.
Just a few months ago Cox hooked me up with faster downloads and about 3 rimes the upload speed, and I didn't even know (I don't read their spam emails) ...there were no changes on my cox bill
I feel the same way, I'm extremely skeptical that it'll work well. Feeding video right now online isn't exactly a perfect science so I can only assume feeding video AND processing those games is going to be a monstrous undertaking.
Cost wise they're saying it'll be onpar with xbox live so about 50-70 a year and I assume you'll have to pay for the games as well. If it works though it'd be ultra wicked.
I have to see this in action to believe it. I really can't see how they will send real time video at 1080p resolution with almost no lag over a DSL connection. I mean, even on a remote desktop connection the lag is pretty noticable, and that's only sending over draw instructions and the occasional bitmap.
720p being a step back from the top of line isn't a good sign for a console that claims to be about the future.
I sincerely doubt this will pay off for a few reasons. First off, the individuals behind the console itself aren't really industry experts per se - just people with a lot of money. The lag thing is also an issue. Finally, a lot of people are charged by their ISP in terms of how much they download. Something like this would both eat up download allotments and hog bandwidth like mad.
I will say this however, I think the concept itself is kind of interesting. It's definitely a prime example of someone thinking outside the box.
Last edited by Jackal on Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I think the only way it could work is if you can somehow convince your ISP to prioritize the traffic w/ QoS. Which I have a hard time believing they would do without a hefty increase in your bill.
Not to mention all the other ISPs between yourself and the host.
Once they've crossed the hurdle of lag, imagine your game still being choppy because there's 500,000 people simultaneously trying to play Doom 6. They'll need a server farm twice the size of that of Google.
The controllers look questionable too... I'm hoping since it's off a pc platform that I'll be able to use an xbox 360 pad. Or mouse & keyboard if I Choose to.
I suspect the way it'll work is that people within the immediate area of the servers will probably find this service really cool and everyone else outside will find it laggy and unplayable. So if they just take a bunch of servers and spread them out in clusters maybe they'll get enough to let everyone play.
Thats got to be one hell of a compression algorithm they use...seems too good to be true, and haven't lots of things tested well at tech demos and then really flopped when they were deployed on the large scale for the general public?
On the other hand, if it was playing Crysis at a decent level of detail without lag, that is pretty impressive.
Hey also, just an fyi to those of you living in the states, they opened up a beta yesterday for US people. Not a guarentee you'd be chosen but it's better than nothing. I think their site is http://www.onlive.com to register for beta.
I think their site is