Onlive - A friend to PC gaming?

[Zipa]

Its no real friend of mine , as a PC gamer I want the extra quality that I am used to (better loading speeds better graphics and mods being some ) Onlive basically turns it into a worse version of the game.

Plus not every country has fibre optic broadband lines yet, The UK for example is way behind on this front and outside of the major cities you have little chance to run onlive.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Its no real friend of mine , as a PC gamer I want the extra quality that I am used to (better loading speeds better graphics and mods being some ) Onlive basically turns it into a worse version of the game.

Plus not every country has fibre optic broadband lines yet, The UK for example is way behind on this front and outside of the major cities you have little chance to run onlive.

Again not a thread about how good On-live is as a service in comparison to playing on a local PC, as in there isn't one. The thread is about the idea that anyone using the service not via a PC is essentially a PC gamer and contributing financially to PC gaming. Don't know how many time I am going to have to repeat this.

 

[razer17]

Edit: From the comments, people do realise that On-live's service is based on allowing users with dumb clients to remote desktop into powerful PC's to play PC games. I.e anyone who uses On-live on anything but a PC, has effectively become a PC gamer and is contributing to PC game sales.

Sorry, but that isn't quite right. Onlive games aren't just the PC versions of games. They have to be specially developed to work over the Onlive system.

I know this because they were meant to release Dead Island a couple of months ago, but the devs delayed the Onlive release because they wanted to focus on fixing the bugs in the other versions before porting it over to Onlive.

Also, another way to know is that when you play multiplayer, you play against other Onlive users, not PC players, because they're not the same version. Technically you could program cross-platform multiplayer, but no one has done that yet.

 

[Bad Jim]

realized that Onlive, may be PC gamings biggest friend.

Why, because in on move Onlive has just added all mobile users to the ranks of PC gamers. Why, because any money they spend on Onlive goes towards PC game revenue. It's not console versions of the games they are running on that system. PC gaming just got a much much bigger potential user base.

Only temporarily. If Onlive ever got big, it could all change.

From an engineering perspective, the best hardware setup for an Onlive style service is to replace those PCs with supercomputers that serve many users. You can save an awful lot of money on RAM and HD space that way. You can also handle the load if some parts of some games need a ton of power and would be laggy on any PC, as long as the average load is reasonable.

Even worse, companies with a possessive attitude, like Ubisoft, might be tempted to design Onlive only games that simply cannot be played on consumer hardware. Someone might hack the servers and put the games on the Pirate Bay, they might even get the source code and compile a PC version, but it wouldn't be any good anyway because they would require 20 terabytes of HD space, 100GB RAM, and slow to a crawl whenever lots of stuff exploded.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Edit: From the comments, people do realise that On-live's service is based on allowing users with dumb clients to remote desktop into powerful PC's to play PC games. I.e anyone who uses On-live on anything but a PC, has effectively become a PC gamer and is contributing to PC game sales.

Sorry, but that isn't quite right. Onlive games aren't just the PC versions of games. They have to be specially developed to work over the Onlive system.

I know this because they were meant to release Dead Island a couple of months ago, but the devs delayed the Onlive release because they wanted to focus on fixing the bugs in the other versions before porting it over to Onlive.

Also, another way to know is that when you play multiplayer, you play against other Onlive users, not PC players, because they're not the same version. Technically you could program cross-platform multiplayer, but no one has done that yet.

So what if they are locked down PC games running on PC's. That fact that the locking down makes the games closed to the system does not matter. They need developers to make a PC version of the game before they have any hope of running it on their system. If in the future they make their system so propitiatory that they get games developed for but not for PC's in general, at that point I will take take back my assertion that ONlive is a friend to PC gaming. Until then they are contributing towards PC games getting made and the PC games market in general.

And no it is a good idea they are on their own with mutiplay as their mutiplayer will lag more than normal PC mutiplay due to the nature of what they are doing. I don't want to be on servers with lots of people who's connects are lagging as the way servers deal with that is to lag for everyone.

 

[ph0b0s123]

realized that Onlive, may be PC gamings biggest friend.

Why, because in on move Onlive has just added all mobile users to the ranks of PC gamers. Why, because any money they spend on Onlive goes towards PC game revenue. It's not console versions of the games they are running on that system. PC gaming just got a much much bigger potential user base.

Only temporarily. If Onlive ever got big, it could all change.

From an engineering perspective, the best hardware setup for an Onlive style service is to replace those PCs with supercomputers that serve many users. You can save an awful lot of money on RAM and HD space that way. You can also handle the load if some parts of some games need a ton of power and would be laggy on any PC, as long as the average load is reasonable.

Even worse, companies with a possessive attitude, like Ubisoft, might be tempted to design Onlive only games that simply cannot be played on consumer hardware. Someone might hack the servers and put the games on the Pirate Bay, they might even get the source code and compile a PC version, but it wouldn't be any good anyway because they would require 20 terabytes of HD space, 100GB RAM, and slow to a crawl whenever lots of stuff exploded.

That is all completely true, and it maybe only temporary, but my statement was not that Onlive is a friend to PC gaming and always will be.

 

[SourWhisky]

Onlive would do approximatley nothing for me, I have a high end gaming PC what possible benefit could I get through the most restricive form of DD possible, and what does it add, what I save hardrive space? That I have hundreds of unused gigs of. What if I want to tweak the game files for better performance? Guess thats out.

I don't see the point to onlive, sure as hell ain't the future if you ask me anyway especially considering the archaic network infastructre most western countries still have. And I guarantee my rig can put out better than whatever maximum quality onlive is capable of streaming.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Onlive would do approximatley nothing for me, I have a high end gaming PC what possible benefit could I get through the most restricive form of DD possible, and what does it add, what I save hardrive space? That I have hundreds of unused gigs of. What if I want to tweak the game files for better performance? Guess thats out.

I don't see the point to onlive, sure as hell ain't the future if you ask me anyway especially considering the archaic network infastructre most western countries still have. And I guarantee my rig can put out better than whatever maximum quality onlive is capable of streaming.

Facepalm, can't people read. The thread is not about Onlive being a good alternative to PC gaming but about Onlive bringing extra revenue to PC gaming, allowing mobile users in.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Well since with mobile devices there would be no other way to play pc quality games, it seems like a necessary evil. That is unless you are talking about it in comparison PC gaming locally, which again is not the point of this thread.

You seem to be repeating that statement a lot, my question is...

No, I am repeating that this is not a thread to talk about how good or bad Onlives service is or how well it compares with local PC gaming. That comment I only made once.

what mobile device have you owned exactly that is able to constantly have 1MB/s+ uninterrupted Internet connection assuming you are using it while "mobile" e.g. when you would actually be using it? And if you're going to say that you can use it at home or at work or something, why not use a proper PC to start with?

So not every mobile device has the necessary connection, some do and some mobile users contributing to PC gaming is more than we have right now.

So what if they are locked down PC games running on PC's. That fact that the locking down makes the games closed to the system does not matter. They need developers to make a PC version of the game before they have any hope of running it on their system. If in the future they make their system so propitiatory that they get games developed for but not for PC's in general, at that point I will take take back my assertion that ONlive is a friend to PC gaming. Until then they are contributing towards PC games getting made and the PC games market in general.

At the point when 5 million+ people are logged into it at once and have extensive libraries with over 40million+ active accounts like Steam and "exclusives" people want to play it'll be much to late to do anything meaningful about it. Just as it would trying to make people stop using Steam all off a sudden or stop playing on "XBox Live" because Microsoft decided to rise the price to 20$/month, it'll be just a few silenced cries in a ocean of people. The only chance to stop anything like this from happening is making it fail when it starts.

Btw. there was an article about the downsides of Cloud Gaming in a bigger German Gaming Magazine a few days back, it's somewhat broken english translate but here it is anyway: http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamestar.de%2Fhardware%2Fpraxis%2F2563556%2Fcloud_gaming_entzaubert.html

Their main points about things being lost with these services:
1. Being able to play all games at all times
2. Playing with maximum graphics details and antialiasing enabled
3. Playing high end multiplayer
4. Setting up Multiplayer-servers and hosting LAN parties
5. Playing offline
6. Installing Mods
7. Tweaking Ini files
8. Cheating (even the Offline kind)
9. Securing your Savegames
10. Being able to decide if to Patch or not

I am just not convinced Onlive will be able to separate there fortunes from PC gaming as others are. As far as cloud gaming being bad. I am not a fan, but I can see it is coming no matter what we do. At least in this case it is contributing to an already existing platform.

 

[Zipa]

Its no real friend of mine , as a PC gamer I want the extra quality that I am used to (better loading speeds better graphics and mods being some ) Onlive basically turns it into a worse version of the game.

Plus not every country has fibre optic broadband lines yet, The UK for example is way behind on this front and outside of the major cities you have little chance to run onlive.

Again not a thread about how good On-live is as a service in comparison to playing on a local PC, as in there isn't one. The thread is about the idea that anyone using the service not via a PC is essentially a PC gamer and contributing financially to PC gaming. Don't know how many time I am going to have to repeat this.

No matter the device you still will have a lot of people unable to use online at all because of internet infrastructure issues. Again using the Uk as a example you have no chance of using it out in rural areas where all forms of internet (wired satellite ect ) have weak coverage. So in those areas where a lot more people live than don't its not viable right now.
For example where I live I couldn't just take my ipad or phone or whatever , jump on a bus to the next town and get uninterrupted service.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Its no real friend of mine , as a PC gamer I want the extra quality that I am used to (better loading speeds better graphics and mods being some ) Onlive basically turns it into a worse version of the game.

Plus not every country has fibre optic broadband lines yet, The UK for example is way behind on this front and outside of the major cities you have little chance to run onlive.

Again not a thread about how good On-live is as a service in comparison to playing on a local PC, as in there isn't one. The thread is about the idea that anyone using the service not via a PC is essentially a PC gamer and contributing financially to PC gaming. Don't know how many time I am going to have to repeat this.

No matter the device you still will have a lot of people unable to use online at all because of internet infrastructure issues. Again using the Uk as a example you have no chance of using it out in rural areas where all forms of internet (wired satellite ect ) have weak coverage. So in those areas where a lot more people live than don't its not viable right now.
For example where I live I couldn't just take my ipad or phone or whatever , jump on a bus to the next town and get uninterrupted service.

All true and again not the point of the thread. Just because it is not available everywhere does not change the assertion that Onlive is making PC games available to mobile users where available, increasing the revenue to PC gaming.

 

[Flac00]

I have a good example of how it good for PCs. me. Sounds weird, but someone like me who has a crappy computer can do 1 of 2 things. 1: I can pony up some cash for a console, and leave my loving computer behind. 2: Buy a expensive but newer and better computer (despite my aversion to Windows Computers, but thats a different conversation), which will set me back about 700 dollars since I am not technologically literate in that sense. OnLive gives me a third option, play onlive. I can still use my computer for almost everything (like playing old and Valve games), and when I want to play something modern, pop on OnLive. This will entice a lot more people to use the computer and not resort to that enticing first option.

 

[Flac00]

3. Playing high end multiplayer

Actually multiplayer works perfectly on OnLive. This is because all of the OnLive computers are connected together into one singular LAN connection. Therefore, no real lag. What few I have hit is from connecting to OnLive itself, in which case it acts differently than normal lag. No rubber banding, just people suddenly not moving.

 

[ph0b0s123]

I have a good example of how it good for PCs. me. Sounds weird, but someone like me who has a crappy computer can do 1 of 2 things. 1: I can pony up some cash for a console, and leave my loving computer behind. 2: Buy a expensive but newer and better computer (despite my aversion to Windows Computers, but thats a different conversation), which will set me back about 700 dollars since I am not technologically literate in that sense. OnLive gives me a third option, play onlive. I can still use my computer for almost everything (like playing old and Valve games), and when I want to play something modern, pop on OnLive. This will entice a lot more people to use the computer and not resort to that enticing first option.

First, again with the off topic comment, I give up, sure you can all go on about what you love or hate about Onlive. It's not the topic of the thread but that seems to be stopping no-one.

Second, all you are doing is opting for a console experience (i.e locked down, etc) on a PC, so you have the worst of both worlds. Also since Onlive is only 720p it will never compare to the experience with the gaming rig you would have if you ponied up the money. Onlive is not in the same league as a minimum 1080p gaming rig. What is good about it to get back on topic is that it is going to convert money from mobile user to money for PC gaming by letting mobile users play PC games.

 

[ph0b0s123]

3. Playing high end multiplayer

Actually multiplayer works perfectly on OnLive. This is because all of the OnLive computers are connected together into one singular LAN connection. Therefore, no real lag. What few I have hit is from connecting to OnLive itself, in which case it acts differently than normal lag. No rubber banding, just people suddenly not moving.

This is should be obvious as they are just PC games with the same multiplay, just that they are locked to allow connection to only Onlive hosted servers.

"If you aren?t aware, OnLive editions of games are modified PC versions, so the multiplayer will be intact and complete too."
From:http://www.godisageek.com/2012/01/pes-2012-is-coming-to-onlive/