Crytek Predicts OnLive Success, in 2013

[PhoenixFlame]

Speaking as someone with almost a decade's worth of IT and tech infrastructure experience, to say that this could work in 2013 is actually fairly feasible. The infrastructure to provide such a connection is expanding at an exponential rate. With services like FIOS out there that promise the next step in Internet connectivity and speed, it's not really out of the realm of possibility that a service like OnLive could thrive in 4 years time.

However, the main problem is the ISPs. Cable and DSL providers like Comcast and AT&T have taken the place of AOL back in the days of dial-up modem connections. They're confident and have become a household name for the necessity of interent connections, so they are able to do things like bandwidth cap with impunity. But as new, faster, better services end-run them, we might see a relaxation of those restrictions, or have them be overtaken entirely as the demand for streaming services like this and Hulu and more increase.

Basically, the potential is there, but right now? I'm extremely skeptical of OnLive's claims of immediate success. Their presentation at GDC was venture marketing 101, and as many gamers know, hype rarely translates into actual reality.

 

[Novania]

I just wanna play Crysis 2 or whatever, not Warhead

 

[Asehujiko]

Asehujiko

Your caculation is falls (if you know some basic of this thing you would si that your caculation is more BS than entire world). I worked in ISP and the isp has 1920x1080 resolution for tv program (no upscaling on the costumer end) and it has 1s lag and uses only 1mb connection. And this is done with mpeg2 (or mpeg4 it depends what is the connection max on the costumer side).

Like I said before give proof that this is imposible ow and not your "calculation" but proven facts.

There's a large difference between encoding-transmitting-decoding pre-recorded images(tv services) and trying to cram an entire screen worth of graphics directly through the internet(as is required for gaming). I know that encoding can make things smaller a couple hundred times but the resulting lag like your 1k ms would make the game unplayable.

 

[Tech Team FTW!]

I am amazed! It looks like something that will actually be difficult to pirate!

 

[aussiesniper]

Asehujiko

Your caculation is falls (if you know some basic of this thing you would si that your caculation is more BS than entire world). I worked in ISP and the isp has 1920x1080 resolution for tv program (no upscaling on the costumer end) and it has 1s lag and uses only 1mb connection. And this is done with mpeg2 (or mpeg4 it depends what is the connection max on the costumer side).

Like I said before give proof that this is imposible ow and not your "calculation" but proven facts.

I want to see someone do realtime video encoding of resolutions above 1080p while running crysis on maximum settings 500,000 times over on hardware made this century.

You see, you can compress TV programs, and they do not require much server-side graphics processing, but a game like crysis at maximum settings, being broadcasted to 500,000 people would require unfathomably huge amounts of both processing and bandwith.

 

[destroyer2k]

Asehujiko

Your caculation is falls (if you know some basic of this thing you would si that your caculation is more BS than entire world). I worked in ISP and the isp has 1920x1080 resolution for tv program (no upscaling on the costumer end) and it has 1s lag and uses only 1mb connection. And this is done with mpeg2 (or mpeg4 it depends what is the connection max on the costumer side).

Like I said before give proof that this is imposible ow and not your "calculation" but proven facts.

I want to see someone do realtime video encoding of resolutions above 1080p while running crysis on maximum settings 500,000 times over on hardware made this century.

You see, you can compress TV programs, and they do not require much server-side graphics processing, but a game like crysis at maximum settings, being broadcasted to 500,000 people would require unfathomably huge amounts of both processing and bandwith.

Look onlive doesn't mean to give above 720p (1280x720) and you must have 5mb connection (witch I don't think has a lot of people in america), so games like crysis doesn't need that resources. And about resources it still doesn't give that a problem. From what I understand they devolped a program that use the entire procesing power of each gpu, cpu, ram... So that mean if one game uses only 60% of power the other 40% will go for different user (so if you have a god hardware with enought for everyone that this is no problem). And the bandwith is not a problem for this kind of company they can just order a few 1gb connection and it is solved.

From now on I won't post same thing over and over, so when you give me proof that it is imposible I will explane the whole thing to every detail.

 

[Falien]

I've been following the OnLive story from the start. While I agree that it is still too early to predict success, I'm amazed by the veritable deluge of nay-sayers predicting its failure.

The theory behind OnLive is sound. Whether it will work in practice, be it this year or later, remains to be seen. However, it seems people are falling over themselves to criticize it. Why might that be?

As with any new idea, OnLive comes with a proposition to change the rules. The change it proposes is so major that, if it works, will deserve to be called a "revolution". And, as in all revolutions, there are those who do not want it to happen, namely everyone who stands to lose profits by people switching to OnLive. In case you don't see where I'm going with this, OnLive's proposed revolution could spell doom for console makers, as well as companies such as nVidia, ATI etc.

I'm not surprised that Crytek, whose game Crysis is single-handedly responsible for a hefty amount of system upgrades, are keen to criticize OnLive.

"Do the maths!"

 

[PhoenixFlame]

And the bandwith is not a problem for this kind of company they can just order a few 1gb connection and it is solved.

"A few 1gb connections" don't solve a bandwidth problem, because the communication is two-way - from the source, to the destination, and then back again in acknowledgment. Basic networking. Delivery from the source can be extremely fast, but if your machine has a dog slow network card, or less than ideal infrastrucuture, guess where the bottleneck is?

Streaming content is currently a bandwidth hog, and is exponentially going to be more of an issue when it requires input from the player. The infrastructure out there right now can handle some of this, but in large, massive chunks? Color me skeptical.

Whatever "new protocol" they claim to have developed in order to reduce the lag still doesn't take into account that the client side, given that they might have an underpowered machine, might have a NIC that only supports 10 and not even 100Mbps. If you're looking for "facts", look no further than the proven way that networking works, not at whatever they are claiming will make the server shoulder the burden of the networking communication.

I see OnLive as working similarly to streaming video - the server hosts the file and delivers the file and plays it, and the client just asks for it. But the client still needs to have some means of communication that can handle it. As I said before - latency and lag is a two-way street, so I'm extremely curious to see how they figure on handling this Pentium IV with an old Kingston card I have sitting at home. Delivering the same or relatively playable quality to a machine like that? I'll believe it when I see it.

Like Crytek, I believe it's possible. Just not now, or any time soon.

 

[destroyer2k]

And the bandwith is not a problem for this kind of company they can just order a few 1gb connection and it is solved.

"A few 1gb connections" don't solve a bandwidth problem, because the communication is two-way - from the source, to the destination, and then back again in acknowledgment. Basic networking. Delivery from the source can be extremely fast, but if your machine has a dog slow network card, or less than ideal infrastrucuture, guess where the bottleneck is?

Streaming content is currently a bandwidth hog, and is exponentially going to be more of an issue when it requires input from the player. The infrastructure out there right now can handle some of this, but in large, massive chunks? Color me skeptical.

Whatever "new protocol" they claim to have developed in order to reduce the lag still doesn't take into account that the client side, given that they might have an underpowered machine, might have a NIC that only supports 10 and not even 100Mbps. If you're looking for "facts", look no further than the proven way that networking works, not at whatever they are claiming will make the server shoulder the burden of the networking communication.

I see OnLive as working similarly to streaming video - the server hosts the file and delivers the file and plays it, and the client just asks for it. But the client still needs to have some means of communication that can handle it. As I said before - latency and lag is a two-way street, so I'm extremely curious to see how they figure on handling this Pentium IV with an old Kingston card I have sitting at home. Delivering the same or relatively playable quality to a machine like that? I'll believe it when I see it.

Like Crytek, I believe it's possible. Just not now, or any time soon.

Yes you have a point (in a way), but why in the world do you need 100mb NIC if you have a 1-5mb connection? You don't benefite anything if you have a 1gb NIC if you have a 1mb connection. And still onlive clearly stated that for a 720p resolution 90% of the tame it only uses 2mb of the 5mb recomended the 5mb is only needed in few moments.

But about infrastructure I can't really say if it will handle as I only know europe ISP how it works. But I really doubt that even in america ISP give more speed than the bandwith can handle. Becouse if this would be true than yours internet connection has to be break daily, becouse users uses already to much bandwith. And the information the users send to onlive is only a few kb/s.

Ow and I already stated that I worked at ISP (in europe) and I know how network works.

 

[aussiesniper]

Asehujiko

Your caculation is falls (if you know some basic of this thing you would si that your caculation is more BS than entire world). I worked in ISP and the isp has 1920x1080 resolution for tv program (no upscaling on the costumer end) and it has 1s lag and uses only 1mb connection. And this is done with mpeg2 (or mpeg4 it depends what is the connection max on the costumer side).

Like I said before give proof that this is imposible ow and not your "calculation" but proven facts.

I want to see someone do realtime video encoding of resolutions above 1080p while running crysis on maximum settings 500,000 times over on hardware made this century.

You see, you can compress TV programs, and they do not require much server-side graphics processing, but a game like crysis at maximum settings, being broadcasted to 500,000 people would require unfathomably huge amounts of both processing and bandwith.

Look onlive doesn't mean to give above 720p (1280x720) and you must have 5mb connection (witch I don't think has a lot of people in america), so games like crysis doesn't need that resources. And about resources it still doesn't give that a problem. From what I understand they devolped a program that use the entire procesing power of each gpu, cpu, ram... So that mean if one game uses only 60% of power the other 40% will go for different user (so if you have a god hardware with enought for everyone that this is no problem). And the bandwith is not a problem for this kind of company they can just order a few 1gb connection and it is solved.

From now on I won't post same thing over and over, so when you give me proof that it is imposible I will explane the whole thing to every detail.

I thought that one of the selling points for OnLive was that people with awful hardware could play on very high graphical settings. That conflicts with your claim that "they devolped a program that use the entire procesing power of each gpu, cpu, ram... So that mean if one game uses only 60% of power the other 40% will go for different user (so if you have a god hardware with enought for everyone that this is no problem)."

That statement says that graphics processing would be done by the end-user's hardware ("God hardware"?), not the serverside hardware, which makes absolutely no sense at all. If you mean that the graphics processing was done serverside on multiple graphics cards, that's been around for ages (SLi and Crossfire) and not exactly efficient or new.

Also, you did not address the issue of realtime video encoding of (what is apparently) 720p. In order to have a relatively low-lag stream of video, it must be encoded to reduce size. However, as we are dealing with video that is generated in realtime, we cannot encode it beforehand, so we must either have a massive internet bandwith, or the server has hardware that makes the i7 look like a pre-pentium CPU.

 

[Simalacrum]

i've said this before and i'll say it again, this has "The Phantom" written all over it. Which is oh so definetely not a good thing.

 

[destroyer2k]

Asehujiko

Your caculation is falls (if you know some basic of this thing you would si that your caculation is more BS than entire world). I worked in ISP and the isp has 1920x1080 resolution for tv program (no upscaling on the costumer end) and it has 1s lag and uses only 1mb connection. And this is done with mpeg2 (or mpeg4 it depends what is the connection max on the costumer side).

Like I said before give proof that this is imposible ow and not your "calculation" but proven facts.

I want to see someone do realtime video encoding of resolutions above 1080p while running crysis on maximum settings 500,000 times over on hardware made this century.

You see, you can compress TV programs, and they do not require much server-side graphics processing, but a game like crysis at maximum settings, being broadcasted to 500,000 people would require unfathomably huge amounts of both processing and bandwith.

Look onlive doesn't mean to give above 720p (1280x720) and you must have 5mb connection (witch I don't think has a lot of people in america), so games like crysis doesn't need that resources. And about resources it still doesn't give that a problem. From what I understand they devolped a program that use the entire procesing power of each gpu, cpu, ram... So that mean if one game uses only 60% of power the other 40% will go for different user (so if you have a god hardware with enought for everyone that this is no problem). And the bandwith is not a problem for this kind of company they can just order a few 1gb connection and it is solved.

From now on I won't post same thing over and over, so when you give me proof that it is imposible I will explane the whole thing to every detail.

I thought that one of the selling points for OnLive was that people with awful hardware could play on very high graphical settings. That conflicts with your claim that "they devolped a program that use the entire procesing power of each gpu, cpu, ram... So that mean if one game uses only 60% of power the other 40% will go for different user (so if you have a god hardware with enought for everyone that this is no problem)."

That statement says that graphics processing would be done by the end-user's hardware ("God hardware"?), not the serverside hardware, which makes absolutely no sense at all. If you mean that the graphics processing was done serverside on multiple graphics cards, that's been around for ages (SLi and Crossfire) and not exactly efficient or new.

Also, you did not address the issue of realtime video encoding of (what is apparently) 720p. In order to have a relatively low-lag stream of video, it must be encoded to reduce size. However, as we are dealing with video that is generated in realtime, we cannot encode it beforehand, so we must either have a massive internet bandwith, or the server has hardware that makes the i7 look like a pre-pentium CPU.

I mean that they dovolped for there server to utilize all power. About realtime video encoding you should know that this kind of thing in the last 3 months it was a lot of progres now with the help of cuda you can do 1080p realtime video encoding. And yes i7 is like a pre-pentium cpu in this thing as if I remeber it right the best procesor has a little more than 100gigaflops power, but the gpu they have almoast 2 teraflops of power (a single card) so they are about 15x more powerful than cpu. So if they utilize gpu power thay can have 10-15x more power rather than using a cpu.