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Onlive - PC upgrades extinct?


Ridman
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Sounds too good to be true like

 

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6206623/index.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=picks&tag=picks;img;1

 

http://kotaku.com/5181300/onlive-makes-pc-upgrades-extinct-lets-you-play-crysis-on-your-tv

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/47080.html

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/47082.html

 

summary about how it works, taken from the gamespot article:

"Imagine playing a computer game without any hassles. Drivers, troubleshooting, installations, compatibility, performance--all thrown out the window. Upgrading? A thing of the past. All you have to do is click on the game, and seconds later, you're playing. That's what OnLive will deliver. Should it work half as well as advertised, expect to see the gaming world thrown into upheaval by a box no bigger than a deck of playing cards. The story gets even more unbelievable when you factor in price. According to company reps, OnLive intends to significantly undercut every existing console on the market.

 

At its core, OnLive is a subscription service similar to cable TV or Netflix. In other respects, OnLive is what you get when you pump something like YouTube full of steroids. Instead of just watching a pile of videos, you're streaming gameplay at HDTV resolutions and controlling your character in real time. You get Crysis on your HDTV at the highest-quality settings--run by a computer that's hundreds of miles from your doorstep. It's really no wonder Rearden Labs spent the better part of a decade perfecting and designing OnLive.

 

Whenever a console comes out, we tend to dig in to all the gritty details--pixels pushed, mips mopped, and so forth. Sony has volumes written about its Cell processor, just like Microsoft and its tri-core CPU, not to mention their associated GPUs. By contrast, the humble little OnLive MicroConsole comes with practically nothing--just two USB connectors, a network jack, some AV outs, and some random bits and bobs stuffed in there. To make things even stranger, OnLive will run on just about any PC or Mac through a Web browser plug-in without the MicroConsole. Install the OnLive program and you're done. Even the lowly netbooks will run the newest games with high-quality details and excellent frame rates.

 

All the magic happens elsewhere, and the hardware sitting in those rooms is considerably more powerful than anything the current consoles offer. Gaming PCs in far-off server rooms sit filled to the brim with SLI setups, quad-core CPUs, gobs of RAM, and ridiculous RAID arrays to make load times a thing of the past. In its racks, OnLive has a slew of machines ranging from the mundane for simpler games to SLI rigs to power the most demanding games. Every six months, OnLive will upgrade the computers to take advantage of new CPUs, GPUs, and more to give you access to the most powerful hardware available.

 

Surprisingly, OnLive already has competition on the horizon. A startup by the name of OTOY aims to provide high speed gaming, HD movie playback and more, by using a web browser plugin. The driving force behind OTOY is AMD’s Fusion Render Cloud, a supercomputer class machine capable of petaflop processing power with over 1,000 GPUs. In a conversation with Jules Urbach, OTOY’s CEO, he mentioned that OTOY will be entering beta in the summer and should be up and running in the year. "

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Been seven years in development apparently. The official site is up now http://www.onlive.com/

You don't even have to download the game, can click on it and go. If this will work, won't companies that make computer processors and graphic cards like... go bankrupt? (though gamers aren't 100% of the market of course, they'll definitely lose a lot of money like)

 

http://www.gamespot.com/shows/on-the-spot/?series=on-the-spot&event=on_the_spot20090324 53 minute announcement video for those interested. Interesting things being said at around minute 7 regarding latency, lag etc. I still don't believe this will work as good as they promise.

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So you can get the mini console thing straight from your phone line into your TV and play the games without needing a beast PC?

 

Sounds good to me :D Always want to try the good PC games but i'll never have the money to buy a shit hot PC to run them.

 

Hopefully they'll have that Total War game on it so i can try that out.

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Guest Lazlo

I'd like to see it.

 

I just really can't see how you can stream that quality of image in the broadband structure we have atm.

 

Anyone who's played shooters/racers online knows that anything that is latent above 250ms causes problems. Remember that nearly all games played online render all the environments on your machine, the only data that changes hands is the position of your character/car etc in the same program on a host server. To stream everything is a massive undertake.

 

I just can't see how it can deliver all it promises.

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Sure there was something called Phantom or something like that which claimed it could do those a fair few years back. It died :)

 

Phantom was the ultimate vapourware.

 

Sounds like the advertising that came before that ill-fated Nokia games console / telephone thing, the name of which I forget. 

 

At least that actually came out, unlike this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gizmondo

 

Which turned out to basically be a front for some mafia money laundering operation.

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  • 5 months later...
  • 1 year later...
Guest ObiChrisKenobi

Very few internet providers these days who offer uncapped and unthrottled service (don't think there are ANY in the US). Services like these are hampered by the ISPs.

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  • 8 months later...
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  • 8 months later...

http://kotaku.com/5935767/onlive-filing-for-bankruptcy-new-company-to-take-its-place

 

OnLive, the pioneers of cloud gaming, are in dire straits and are preparing to file for a form of bankruptcy, a source inside the company told Kotaku today. An OnLive spokesperson maintains that the OnLive service, which enables people to stream games to their computers and tablets without the need for dedicated hardware, will continue. But it seems as if the company itself is hitting some very hard times.
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http://kotaku.com/5935767/onlive-filing-for-bankruptcy-new-company-to-take-its-place

 

OnLive, the pioneers of cloud gaming, are in dire straits and are preparing to file for a form of bankruptcy, a source inside the company told Kotaku today. An OnLive spokesperson maintains that the OnLive service, which enables people to stream games to their computers and tablets without the need for dedicated hardware, will continue. But it seems as if the company itself is hitting some very hard times.

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-17-onlive-lays-off-most-of-it-staff-files-for-alternative-to-bankruptcy-report

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