OnLive - the death of gaming laptops?

Alright, I might have exaggerated a bit in the thread title.

Let me start by describing how it works (with my limited knowledge): You pay x$/month to get access to a variety of games, or x$ to 'rent' a game for a certain ammount of days. The way it works is that you connect to their servers and 'stream' the video feed, thus not needing to use your own computer to power the game.

But when services like onlive get bigger and easier to use, won't the need for gaming laptops decrease by a big %? Sure, you need an internet connection, and a decent one at that, to use it satisfactorily, but say in about maybe 10-15(?) years when broadband internet is more developed, wireless forms (3g and so on) are faster and services like this are well-established the need for those big, expensive gaming laptops won't be nearly the same as it is today.

Linky: Welcome to OnLive.com

Thoughts, people?

 

the extra latency is fine for singleplayer, but not-so-much in multi...

 

Well unless there's a server in every backyard that has a GigE connection to each household, I find it very difficult to believe this business model is going to be successful. The latencies alone will turn off most of the serious gamers.

 

But aren't a majority of the heavy games mostly SP? Off the top of my head, the only really hardware-hungry game I can think if, that is big and mostly MP is BF3, and that's not even released yet.

Ah, possibly. I havn't had a chance to try it out yet, but at a couple of the forums I frequent it doesn't seem to be too big of a problem for people.

 

Onlive has already released and it didn't catch on much. The bandwidth required is quite high, the graphical quility isn't that great and there is noticable latency.

 

That, i know i could never use Onlive with my current connection. My ping is usually not bad, but the bandwidth is rather low, then what about the people who won't have access to the service due to location. Knowing the time it takes for certain things to get to Canada...

I guess our population isn't high enough or it is due to laws regarding media or both.

 

What kind (speed) of internet connection do you guys have?

 

If I can't stand the latency from Vsync..... I think onlive would make me want to kill someone.

Maybe it would be fine for console gamers used to low resolution displays, inaccurate control pads and high latency internet play with no dedicated servers.

I have standards with my games however.

 

I'm on a "oh so fast" 3mbps connection, it's just enough for my use, but there's no way Onlive would run well on that.

 

I own several games on the service. Currently, it's hardly a viable alternative for most gamers. They only have a few servers farms in the US, and you need a very fast, clean connection with low latency to have a good experience.

While the service is mostly there, that final remaining bits of input lag and video compression is a big roadblock.

OnLive does many things right though. They have huge sales every week, which can give Steam a run for it's Monday (their $5 Friday is awesome, this week it is Borderlands GOTY). They often give out free games, and you can pretty much be guaranteed a free game if you pre order one of their future releases.They also let you trial most games for 30 minutes; the full game, not a demo. Their Playpack for $10 is very unique, and while it may underwhelm most people it's hard to argue the value it has with it's growing library and the 30% off it gives you on every other OnLive purchase.

I would definitely recommend people trying it out. It is a free service to try, and pulling the trigger on a $5 Friday game is definitely a low barrier to entry.

 

Onlive removes our ability to install epic mods so that is a no go for me.

 

Onlive is pretty useful for me for instant demos, but for purchase. Can't be sure about it.

 

Even if you have a great connection to OnLive, it has a failed business model. Why would anyone want to pay full price for a game, that resides on THEIR servers, running at reduced detail, no way to play locally offline on your own machine, no way to mod, and that you lose if the company folds, which they most likely will.

Give it say, oh, 20 years when bandwidth is ridiculously fast with next to no latency, available to 90% of the civilized world, and without caps, then it will be a viable alternative.

 

Unless they have servers nearby then you will always have latency, current simply can't pass from the US to Europe and back in less than 80 milliseconds or so, enough to "feel" the lag. No amount of engineering will get around that. Then add on to that the time it takes for a frame to render on their servers, the time taken at exchanges, the time taken to decode the stream on your computer and the input lag on your display. It all adds up to some pretty serious latency issues which you definitely notice.

This is also why I laugh at people who live in the US who lie about how they once had a ping of 20 to a UK server.

 

Not really. At least not in Canada. The bandwidth caps are so low (60GB) that it wouldn't be worth it.

 

Alright, so it's not quite as promising, right now, as I thought it was.

Though, I think they have some servers i Europe now - OnLive Europe: Servers May Be Ready Soon | OnLive Informer

But I guess the 'problem' with the not so good video-quality remains. I'll try out the service soon, so that I actually have some insight into what I'm talking about.

 

it definitely wont be the death of gaming laptops. it requires constant GOOD internet connection, and if you have a good gaming laptop even if you have a constant good internet connection you will get more if you just buy the game retail or through steam.

onlive will (if it does become successful) usher in a new era of gaming netbooks. onlive allows casual pc users to play AAA pc games on thier grandmothers 10 year old computer. that in and of itself has value. it brings nothing to the hardcore audiance, but it isnt for them.

 

Internet connections are still not good enough for it.

 

My internet connection is pretty good. But where I feel like Onlive fails is that their is no native Linux support.

Onlive could have a massive Linux following as an outlet for gamers running Linux boxes. My netbook + Ubuntu + Onlive would be pretty sweet.

 

Hmm i just game onlive a try and i tested out some games. Thats actually pretty interesting. I didnt really notice any delay at all myself. Maybe i just have a really good connection. But i did notice graphics seemed slightly poor? Or it could be my laptop itself. Im not sure, it is over 3 years old.

 

The point of Onlive is that the game is rendered on their servers eliminating the need for a powerful graphics card. The data stream was probably compressed a bit too much in order to limit the bandwidth used which led to a degradation in quality.

 

You must be pretty close to their servers then.

 

They run their games pretty much as low quality as they can, and then it is compressed. So it's like playing on an old CRT TV.

 

OnLive only has 3 servers: Bay Area, Houston, and DC. They only output at 720p and settings are definitely not maxed; most seem to run on medium'ish. Many people claim the micro-consoles have a much cleaner picture compared to running on a PC due to hardware decoding.

I mentioned this in another thread, but another streaming service is Gaika and they have many more data centers. Even OnLive fans admit that Gaikai is a better product, but it seems to be a service oriented towards publishers and trying to sell their games.

Either way, I don't see OnLive's current model as being sustainable. They are practically giving away the store to try and get PlayPack Subscribers. This may work if they get several million like Netflix, but I don't see how they can keep handing out $5 games and Free games and micro-consoles all the time.

 

Tried playing the Duke Nukem Forever trial on a 15 mb/s wireless connection, let's just say I wasn't working to well. I don't see how OnLive will catch on to end gaming laptops if you have to have a wired connection...

 

I will never use a service such as this, stream my games over the internet? no way.

 

Even if you have a great connection to the service at home and can play with a very low delay, if you want to game on the go you can't even play a single player game without being entirely at the mercy of the network you're connecting to.

 

I didn't realize you could play OnLive on a laptop or desktop. I never read much about it but I thought you had to have one of those consoles. So I thought I would try it just for fun. I tried Just Cause 2 since I have it on steam and it had a demo. The resolution was terrible and the quality very grainy compared to my desktop but surprisingly I had no latency problems.

I could definitely see using this on a laptop with integrated graphics. It would allow you to play many more games and not have to worry about graphic settings. Given the choice of streaming an OnLive game and playing the same game at 800x600 with lowest settings I would take OnLive every time even with a little latency.

The main reason I think OnLive will never replace gaming laptops is the fact that many people would rather not pay for a game twice. Given the choice when buying a game only once most would play using ultra settings at home and reduced settings on the road rather than use OnLive at home and on the road.

 

Which is why OnLive is trying to convince publishers to include OnLive copies of the game when they purchase retail. Any current PC gamer isn't going to walk away from his huge library and start buying exclusively on OnLive.

 

cant really use these kind of services in canada since ppl are running out of bandwidth using netflix lol.

 

Sadly, you don't really need a gaming laptop to outperform Onlive.

Given what $450 laptops are accomplishing, (A series AMD) I am not sure why anyone would put up with Onlive's licensing scheme.

 

I have a 20mbps connection(best one in my city) and i sill lagg on this service really bad, my ping is 10ms but still not enough for onlive
Highly doubt they will take over the world any time soon.

 

Something like this is ok for a game console type setup. I can see it as something that hotels offer as a gaming service too. I might pay $10 for an evening to play some PC games when isolated somewhere, then again, I'd probably have my laptop which is ten times more capable of gaming.

 

OnLive must be hell for the guys in Brisbane, Australia.
2 years ago, I had to pay $100 for 12gb (yes only up to 12gb - counting upload and download).
Maybe OnLive should partner with Telcom/Internet providers?

 

So this is why so many people seem to suck so bad when I play against them online! Their poor performance is attributable to OnLive!

Really though, why would anyone pay so much to get raped at any game they play online. They simply cannot compete. It might even be more lopsided than if someone on a PC was playing the same game against someone on a console.

 

So i will need
a) ability to stream HD video — which give me picture quality
b) good ping to their server — which gives me no little to none input lag

I am only playing online games for the last 5 years and i dont have any problems with latency or input lag. Only difference between lets say WoW online and WoW OnLive online would be the fact that i will need to stream hd video in the same time.

Am i getting it right?

 

No. There is a lot more lag. Imagine if your mouse, keyboard, and screen had to connect to the motherboard and videocard through the internet instead of directly right there. At a theoretical minimum, it will double any lag you have.

 

So if lets say i am playing imaginable online game at 40ms i will play it at 80-100? thats not that bad at all.

Btw how does it work?
Lets say i press A
I send A to onlive
Onlive sends my A to online gaming server and sends me the picture?

This means that if onlive will somehow have super duper internet connection and 10ms ping to my game server i wont see that much of a difference. Sometimes it can even be better if you will have better connection to onlive then to your game server. Onlive will work like a proxy in this case.

 

It's not that simple Lieto. PC Gamers who are used to having responsive controls are reporting control lag. You press something and it lags, and it's annoying. Depends on the type of player you are. Cant' just go by the numbers. Gaming as you should know by now is all about feel.

 

Well, here is the other downfall: OnLive is its own secluded community. The most popular MP game on the service is Homefront, and at peak hours it has 100 players on 3-4 servers.

They have made a good effort in improving it as they include the MP of it and other games with MP in their Playpack subscription. That helped a TON. But still, only 100.

 

It would be ok for using a game controller.

 

Wow, are you serious? You can only play against other OnLive users? As if it didn't have enough issues already, that sounds like the death knell for OnLive.

 

Ah, but Lieto is used to playing WoW, which already has input lag and thus already has the limitations he will face playing any game on Onlive.

Note, Lieto... you have the lag between YOU AND the lag between onlive and the WoW server.

Assuming 40ms ping between you and onlive and 20ms ping between onlive and WoW server...
You press A, 20ms to onlive, onlive server adds 10ms to wow server.... 10ms back, 20ms back to you. (60ms total)
Still not too bad, but it does add to lag time... note it probably also adds hops AND points of failure.

Note please this is streamed data... the video will be MORE than 60ms behind in most cases and if there is a failure (outage) and reroute, there will be MORE lag. Under the wrong situations it wouldn't be that impossible to have modem-level lag (300ms)

Oddly enough Lieto, your current mac has more GPU power than onlive can ever realistically give you at this point. It also has higher resolution as of right now. 1440x900 is more than onlive can handle for now.
(Onlive is limited to 720p until bandwidth improves and they upgrade servers. Some places will NEVER get 1080p due to not enough throughput)

Where I live we have 60Mb/sec consumer Internet connections available and 2Gbit business service available. (fiber runs through the city)

Even with that kind of service removing the lag and the bandwidth problems, its still lesser quality, (same resolution to to laptop screen) lower detail, and more possible problems than gaming on my 3-yr-old $1200-when-purchased laptop.

No thanks. Even a 5-yr-old console is better at this point and at least I own the game.

 

Playing on onlive would be different from having a high ping. Although it's the same on paper it's different in reality.

In a normal FPS game, when you have a high ping you rubber band and the hit detection craps out.

On onlive it would be actual input lag. You move your mouse and then a short while later your character turns. In client side games that run on your computer there are tricks like lag compensation. With streaming this doesn't work the same. I haven't slept for over 30 hours so I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of it but the tricks they can do on normal gaming to reduce the effect of lag don't work with streaming or are less appliable.

 

The lag isn't that bad tbh. I got sub 20ms ping on a good connection and Onlive felt as responsive as playing the game locally on my computer. Even 60ms latency shouldn't be noticeable to most people. The video quality sometimes leaves much to be desired but overall I think it's pretty cool.

 

Guys, let's remember that this is an OnLive discussion, NOT an operating system/browser API discussion. Some posts have been deleted or edited. Thanks for understanding.

 

I concur, the lag is surprisingly good, but it's definitely a YMMV. The killer for me is the muddy compressed graphics, the fact the servers are running the game on mediocre settings, and the isolated and small community for online gaming.

 

Alright, I've given it a fair try now, with a couple of different games, at different points during this day and the one before. It seems, for me, that it is still too laggy/slow to enjoyable (and my internet speed is never a problem otherwhise, it's no monster (10/10) but still), and the picture quality/resolution leaves a lot to be desired. Guess we'll have to wait a bit longer and keep on gaming the usual way. ^^

 

^^ It just sounds like a good idea to me — eventually it may result into super slim devices.