OnLive demoed: lag, graphics are a problem

ARS: OnLive promises nothing less than the moon and the stars: the service wants to stream games to you via your laptop or lower-end computer on their own proprietary hardware. We've seen tech demos and speeches at shows, but how does it work in practice? Ryan Shrout, from the website PC Perspective, had the fine luck to have access to the beta, and he has shared his thoughts with the world. No surprise: lag is an issue, as are graphics.

Running the games was just as easy on the system as promised. "You are seeing OnLive running Burnout: Paradise on my local system using just under 60MB of memory and anywhere from 4-7 percent of the CPU power," Shrout wrote. "My system is running on a Core i7-860 so that is a bit lower than the total system consumption you'll see on slower systems, but that is obviously much lower CPU horsepower than would be required to play these types of games locally." In terms of bandwidth, the system was using around 1Mb/s.

[Pennywise]

I knew it.

[Mr_Bun]

I think everyone expected this

[MmaFanQc]

OnLive=Phantom 2

[Guido]

I think many of were hoping. If they could make this work it would be great but until the lag is a non-issue, it will fail.

[JsonHenry]

I figured this as well as everyone else would be a problem mostly for FPS games.

RPGs, Strategy/RTS, and MMO games would not really notice the lag.

But if you want to play online FPS games then they are gonna have to do something about the lag. Maybe if the service takes off and they start including the Onlive in DVR/set top boxes the company you use your TV services/ISP will be able to have a better dedicated line to the Onlive network to help avoid those problems.

[joydestroy]

yup, what i expected as well. it needs work but has potential. by the time they've fixed those issues, something better will be on the horizon.

[Microsoft Xbox 360]

It doesn't lag in my area. I had a flawless experience with my time on the beta. I have a crappy 8mb connection too.

[RealityCheck]

Maybe they could launch with a low cost unlimited subscription, build a small customer base and over time improve their service as the technology advances.

That way they would start out as a cheaper alternatives to consoles (but yes, with lower performance too). There could be a market for that.

[tplarkin7]

Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are taking this technology very seriously. It is inevitable that bandwidth will only improve.

At the end of the article, it says the tester was not a part of the beta. He was far from the OnLive location.

[f789790]

That's a pretty expensive connection is some parts of the US.

[Microsoft Xbox 360]

"Of course, there is one large gotcha here: "I first have to admit that I don't actually have a beta account with the OnLive service; instead a friend of a friend of a friend passed to me their login information after I requested it in order to write a preview of the technology. Why is this a note-worthy point to make? There is a chance that OnLive is only selecting beta members that are on ISPs close to their current data centers and as I live outside that area that could affect my experiences with cloud-based gaming." So there is that aspect to the writeup."

Read this part before you people jump into conclusions. OnLive hand picks their beta applicants based on area for now. The only servers they have right now are in California. I was luckily selected because I reside in Las Vegas but from my experience with the Beta, it was amazing. The fact that this technology works with no lag astounds me.

EDIT @ f789790

Oh it's crappy if you're sharing with 4 other active computers not including the PS3's, phones, etc...

[Nineball2112]

I still have hopes for this tech.

I really believe this will be the future of gaming at some point... Now, whether that point is in the near future or 5 - 10 years off, I don't know.

[SilentNegotiator]

I knew it would. Ugly compressed to heck video, input lag, probably not any AA......streaming will NEVER replace hardware.

LOL @ everyone who thought this was "the future of gaming"

[DeadlyFire]

I knew it wouldn't work exactly as planned. It still has potential though. I think it was funny though they said they would only have 1 datacenter in North America or something like that at the start. Now they have 5 I believe in North America. Its funny how that changes. The Northwest section is left without one right now so its likely they will build another one for that section. At least according to that latest presentation in NY somewhere.

There is a server in VA for OnLive. I believe its not to far away or won't be from me to use OnLive. According to their map, but I don't really care for it though.

[Perjoss]

i played quake2 for years with 300 ping and it never stopped me from having fun.

[qface64]

what are you going on about 8mb/s is not crappy whatsoever
i share with 5 active computers not including the wii/ps3/360

[Microsoft Xbox 360]

Seriously dude, we are talking about OnLive here so lets not go down that route. It really varies for everyone and what you define "active". One constantly active PC used to download stuff could outnumber the use of bandwidth of 5 casually active PC's. Who are you to say MY connection isn't crappy? It's my personal experience and opinion and it's what I say it is. The End.

[The Happy Baby]

Its new. calm the f*ck down kiddos.

[dabri5]

Aw, a beta had issues and didn't work perfectly? What?

[SonyWarrior]

not the future at all. and now all the cable internet providers are capping there speeds and bandwidth so theres another problem theyll have to face

[Major_Tom]

Everyone except for a few people above me obviously did not care to read the whole article, classic N4G.

and look, most of them are sony fanboys lol.

[SilentNegotiator]

It's not a matter of little issues that can be worked out. It's a matter of an insane amount of power streaming that can't be realistically handled.

These are issues with a small amount of selective people with the better of connections. Do you really think they will be able to handle 1,000's or 10,000's of people, even with large amounts of servers when they can't even get it to work ideally with a few 100 with a couple servers?

[masterg]

Read the article guys.

He is using a borrowed account for a computer that is within the range of the server, yet he is out of range. This has been stated time and time again as a dealbreaker. All players must be within 1000 miles to play lag free. This guy could be 5 times out of range.

This article is pure fail. Badmouthing a service when he is using it wrong. My god.

[MNicholas]

that this was how it was going to turn out.

I said it before and got a lot of disagrees from idiots but the reality is that the infrastructure is simply not there for something like this to function properly.

[Bobby Kotex]

If I remember correctly, there were many skeptics on this board who were getting negative votes in the previous months. It's funny how now everyone knew it wouldn't work. Anyway, if you have the internet connection to make this work, it's likely you can afford a real console.

[Redempteur]

What good is this service if he can't become mainstream ?

Imagine the numbers of servers you have to install to cover a enough people properly ..( no lag meaning close to you somewhat) and that's considering that many people won't come to onlive because ..well because they prefer to have property over their games ..
the investment needed is just ridiculous and they areno sony , apple or microsoft to suffer loses during the years before it might become profitable

I'm pretty sure tetris with onlive , or frogger might not be an issue .but games like burnout (racing games) where timing is the key ..or fighting games ( even more important ) this is impossible PERIOD.
I'm not even talking about fps ,or tps where most people don't even have enough to play perfectly ...

The project was dead for me the moment i knew the specs ..
they didn't even dare to present their product over internet when they annonced it ( as opposed to others projects ) .

EDIT : true for tetris ..i play on master mode ( fastest speedwith all rules enabled ) and that would be too much for onlive LOL

[PirateThom]

Hell, on the higher levels, Tetris would kill you with the lag.

OnLive is useless.

[Baka-akaB]

For starters i have to ponder about such service doing test on games as "old" as ut3 and burnout .

It tells me that they knew and were afraid it couldnt run properly recent games and of course a juggernaut like Crysis .

Besides i'd always requite upfront a trial on sf4 pc . If it could handle a fighting game online then i could probably handle everything . So far it doesnt even handle ut .

Also notice how they refuse to let people ping and give actual stats .

I say expect a far better cloud service from Microsoft , Sony , Nintendo and maybe , i said maybe Gakai .

[The Lazy One]

The tech behind this shouldn't matter what game it's running.

The only things that really need to be tested are input and output lag. The only things being sent is the player input and the video/audio output.

The actual gameplay only depends on the host systems, which can have as much power as needed. If they can get it to work with UT3, they just need to beef up the host system and it will work with crysis.

[koehler83]

Naaaaah!

[AEtherbane]

We kinda of all knew this... but hey, it has potential! Lets just hope they can iron it through.

[Double Toasted]

That first friend lives in Cali I'm guessing the writer lives in NY. GTFOH!!!

[masterg]

Yup... It seems like 90% of the comments missed that important fact.

[ProjectVulcan]

We will know the true damage when they announce subscription costs. Truth is you can build a PC to run games locally @ 1280 x 720 with maxed settings for less than 400 pounds. A 60 pound two year old 8800GT can manage that resolution without breaking sweat, even in crysis. The settings, image quality, framerate and obviously the latency on the budget system would be in another league even at the same resolution compared to the compressed, 30 frames, laggy, bandwidth eating onlive implementation. Most PC gamers will turn their noses up at a mere 1280 x 720 and low IQ, the shots show that the service struggles to reach even console fidelity:

http://www.pcper.com/image....
Versus PC:
http://www.pcper.com/image....
The gap is rather stark.

Then there are said consoles. 360 can provide good quality 720P games without any of the potential issues related to onlive and the machine will set you back as little as 100 pounds for an arcade version, perfectly capable of playing HD games.

Sure there is potential, but it feels like its a good decade or so too early to be workable. Timing is literally everything in the technology industry, and this seems too ambitious too early. The alternatives are still far too attractive and onlive offers little in the way of incentives or advantages. The biggest threat is the idea that your games will not be available if you are outside the service area, or its down for maintenance, or your connection is unavailable etc etc all the reasons why cloud computing has caused worries.

Finally there is the idea that you cant pick from any game you want to play. If its not on the service, tough. If im honest Its going to be incredibly hard to justify, its going to have to be extremely cheap to be attractive.

[RealityCheck]

I agree on the pricing issue as I posted above. Whether this service survives long enough to get better over time or whether it dies at birth will all depend on pricing. It has to be priced so that it is much cheaper than buying a $199 console and $60 games.

[Letros]

Useless for any twitch based game

720p too...lol

[led1090]

Don't you people read what has been written? He was outside the coverage area. Of course it was going to lag. I am a beta tester and i live on the border of the coverage area and it runs flawlessly. So before posting comments such as "I KNEW IT", please read the entire article instead of just the title of this topic.

[Double Toasted]

...details like a price structure maybe?

[Baka-akaB]

But problem is and why people are complaining , is that in a real live use , many people wont be near the servers .

That's pretty much why we complained when it was announced around e3 . It's to easy to publish tests on site or at conventions . Of course it would be smooth then

[Alcon Caper]

I read it. And you're right. He was not in the area of the West Coast servers, which could attribute to the latency. I'm in Texas and have seen it in action and it ran smoothly. It's a shame that he found this out after he had but so much thought in his article, which is quite a nice analysis.

Too bad it's inaccurate--at least for someone in the radius of the data server.

@ Baka-akaB. The beta servers that he signed up for are on the West Coast. He was outside the radius of the west coast servers. Fortunately there will be several other data servers open when this thing goes live, each server dedicated to a specific region in the states. Pretty much his whole analysis goes out the window since he wasn't in the radius of a server. This issue was addressed in several presentations by the lead designer. Some people will have it easy, some people won't. It's a matter of logistics, which he hopefully will solve once more server sites open. But like any mass communication technology, you can't really expect the world to benefit from it all at once. It just takes time to grow.

[feelintheflow]

See what I did. Post a picture of it if you are really in the beta. Until someone who says they are in the beta posts some proof, its just typical internet drivel.

[Alcon Caper]

Well, I personally don't have the beta. My bro works for Terminal Reality.

But I don't have to prove sh!t to you. See what I did?

[feelintheflow]

in the closed beta, or their friend works for this company or their brother works for that company or they are somehow involved in the video game industry. I bet. Your right you don't have to prove anything to me, just like you don't have to respond to me. You didn't say you were in the beta, so why bother responding to my post to people who say they are in the beta unless you are feeling a bit "called out" for posting opinion as fact.

[Major_Tom]

I can't believe i had to scroll so far to read a comment that knew what they were talking about.

Learn to read the whole article N4G.

[Mozku]

1mb/s is quite low... Didn't they mention back at E3 that it would require atleast 5mb/s connection to work properly?

[mega BIG time]

but i feel bad for my buddy rockin a 700kb dsl connection.

[sulack]

Try 320kbps here. AHHHHHHH

[maniacf40]

.

[ATi_Elite]

ATTENTION ALL BOTS and DROIDS............

Say hi to your new game platform and GOODBYE to your CONSOLE.

CONSOLE KILLER console Killers COnsoLE KiLlEr

[TheIneffableBob]

It's a beta and he was outside the coverage area. Beta users who are inside the coverage area say it works fine.

[koehler83]

Excuses.

Limited ranges and restricted areas are not the future of anything; Least of all gaming.

[dabri5]

Yeah but beta testing small areas for testing purposes is part of TESTING A PRODUCT BEFORE IT GOES LARGE SCALE. They plan to set up more servers in more areas and test those two in the before release. They have stated that all of the US will be within area at launch.

[Redempteur]

Let me clarify ..all major city in the us will be in the area of use ...

Don't even expect otherwise at first ...

[koehler83]

Well unfortunately, I and the vast majority of the human race will be nowhere in the vicinity of the US at launch or any time after it.

If they ever claimed it was the future of gaming "For the US", I might have believed them. Of course, I'm sure Microsoft would have something to say about that.

[sikbeta]

Ah... Kind of Obvious, this "thing" = Shovelware at best

[mega BIG time]

is that obvious? I think you'll end up using it if it really delivers. Gonna make you look kind of foolish, no? Don't be ignorant. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're the type to give a negative review of a game you haven't played.

[Vip3r]

lol

[Pennywise]

FaaaaaaLOP.

[DelbertGrady]

It's still in beta, is it not? I think it can be great if they have time to optimize it further.

[Nicaragua]

I think there is something in this kind of content delivery but the current internet infrastructure isnt there yet.

I imagine something like this could currently work for some of the smaller PSN or Xbox arcade games where you could pay a momnthly fee for unlimited access to all the titles.

I just cant see it working on the big competitive blockbuster type games like Killzone or Halo.

[dabri5]

This isn't for console games. It's for PC games. 2nd, you pay for the service and you still buy the games. The pay for service part covers the hardware they are using to run the game at max settings always and send it to you so you never have to update your computer again. Try reading a little bit about the product before you make analytical comments about how it's business plan will fail.

[Nicaragua]

I am well aware of how this particular product functions.

I was talking about the method of content delivery (which is perfectly adaptable to consoles) rather than specifically the Onlive product. Take your own advice about reading things properly before acting like a massive c0ck.

[dkgshiz]

All you could play on this thing was old multiplatform games.

[Quadrix]

In this topic: People who didn't read the article. The dude was way out of range of OnLive's servers, so this test means nothing.

[sagapo]

I think Onlive is still pretty impressive for what it is.

[dredgewalker]

It wouldn't work for NOW. But i can see this working in 5-7 years given how fast the development of internet connections. I still don't like this tech given that i have to rely on my internet connection for gaming since not only will lag be a problem but sudden disconnections will ruin my gaming experience. Also since the games would be streamed then its definitely not gonna look pretty.

[Captain Tuttle]

"It's a BETA!!!"

[taylork37]

lol...bubbles

[BrianC6234]

These people are fools if they think they can stream games. It won't work. At least not for most people. It's too dependent on the gamer's Internet connection. I use Netflix on my PS3 and it does a great job streaming movies, but that's movies. Games aren't movies. The biggest issue I see is most gamers probably have a decent download speed but what about upload? That will be important for this too. That speed usually seems to be about 1/10th the download speed. It just isn't going to cut it.

[barakiu]

Of course, there is one large gotcha here: "I first have to admit that I don't actually have a beta account with the OnLive service; instead a friend of a friend of a friend passed to me their login information after I requested it in order to write a preview of the technology. Why is this a note-worthy point to make? There is a chance that OnLive is only selecting beta members that are on ISPs close to their current data centers and as I live outside that area that could affect my experiences with cloud-based gaming." So there is that aspect to the writeup.

[Dorfdad]

After reading this thoroughly the entire article / preview is conducted under false pretenses. He was running it from Kentucky on a friend of a friends account who lives in CA. He was well over the 1000 miles radius and was able to play most of the games on standard settings fine.

Steve Pearlmen stated that the beta client was tweaked per user account to get data so the settings for this guy were not even correct. Stop bashing the technology all will be proven wrong shortly.

[SuperStrokey1123]

Agreed, lets wait and see what happens after the beta. If the prices are right i will be an early adopter of this, assuming there is a local data center of course

[jalen247]

I won't be getting Onlive unless it works as advertised. I will be sticking with my consoles for now.

[ATi_Elite]

Sorry, this is the official CONSOLE KILLER.

Sorry Dorothy but Kansas is going bye bye

[Ninji]

Maybe it's a typo but those seem like the same problems that Natal is having.

[chrisulloa]

Says......who?

[BX81]

The mods on this site are the smartest.....

[SuperStrokey1123]

Im still waiting and hoping for this to be good, i dont expect it too but honestly im still holding out hope...

[ATi_Elite]

One thing they never cleared up but I could tell that Hawkx and Crysis are running on Directx 9 and not Directx 10 or 10.1

They have some super nice video compression that's only going to improve but this was obviously designed around DX9 not 10 or the current gen 11

I just can't imagine a Server farm full of FireGL or Quadro GPU's for what they are doing.

[led1090]

I guess they have just one server on right now. When this thing will go live they will probably have more so the coverage area will increase. Also you can check out one of their demos in which their servers were almost 1000 miles away and crysis ran like butter. My point is everyone will have a different opinion depending one where they are playing it from. So why not just wait for the thing to go live. Then we will have plenty of time for criticism(or acclaim) rather than empty talk right now

[cc_star]

They aren't even the source, they link to someone else who has played the beta and the Ars article only focuses on the negatives and non of the overwhelming positives of the source article

Who the hell approved this for n4g, as they AREN'T the source and have taken the source completely out of context

[ia_studio]

he was using a laptop, probably a 1280x720 resolution,
Onlive said that for a 640x480 you needed a 1 megabytes

for the laptop resolution you'll need atleast 3-4 megabytes.

so If there is lag there's the reason