Solve : OnLive launches in the UK?

1.	Solve : OnLive launches in the UK?
Answer» Cloud gaming service ‘OnLive’ has finally launched in the UK. The way you buy and play games may never be the same again. Seriously... Full Story: http://uk.videogames.games.yahoo.com/5e/news/onlive-launches-in-the-uk-67915e.htmlThis seems all awesome, but Quote Instead, players become subscribers who merely control the action, while all the processing takes place on powerful remote servers. Access to games is practically instant, and all user inputs are effectively streamed back in near real-time. Practically instant? and "A 3 MB line is recommended." 3 Megabytes/second or 3 Megabits/second? I'm thinking the former as I have lag so great on a 4 Megabits/second line(even with local servers) that I can walk upside down on Halo: Combat Evolved.Of course it's megabytes and not megabits. That would be ridiculous. One should really thing in bytes when talking about broadband. As in I have a 50mb/s connection so if that were bits I would have a 6.25 megabits per second which would still WORK I suppose. To be honest I thought the entire concept was a bit silly- at least for AIMING at PC gamers. It makes sense for people that have relatively crap computers and fast connections, but that just isn't a combination your average game enthusiast is going to have. Personally, my computer is rather well off for playing most games, but hilariously I find myself playing more Megaman 2 than Just Cause 2. (wether playing older games everybody else has forgotten about counts as "hardcore" is a matter of some debate, Speedrunning and TASing is definitely what I would call "extreme" gaming, even if it doesn't fit the common verbiage that the game uses more processor power than 10 adobe programs.) It makes sense for spectating, but honestly, ANY amount of delay is going to cause problems. Anybody who has tried to play a console game on a TV Tuner without disabling PVR knows exactly what I mean. Then I found out how to turn that off and was happy, until I realized that it looked worse through the tuner than it does on a TV, and I was too lazy to find my S-Video cable. In any case, the internet is going to have a delay regardless of how fast your connection is, it's practically a universal constant of TCP/IP. Even a 10 ms delay can cause problems for a "practiced" gamer (IE somebody who has played the game more than is healthy in real time). In that sense I guess such a delay might be acceptable just to be able to play the game, the fact is that the service is really only something that should be considered by those who cannot play the game otherwise, particularly since you have to purchase the games, from what I can tell, (aside from demos they provide). And if you have a computer capable of playing them, I don't really think any prospective savings on the purchase price is really worth the trade-off. I'm not saying it's utterly pointless, I'm more or less addressing this- Quote The way you buy and play games may never be the same again. Which will only be true for people who can't play the games normally. Almost all the games on OnLive, I've either had running or can run fine on this machine, so the service offers me nothing but being able to watch other people bumble about in a game. Which is all well and GOOD, and most of that bumbling may very well be a result of the ping time, but I can do the very same thing via youtube. It's an interesting concept- it's like steam (which is useful since it keeps your steam purchases available anywhere you can install steam) but it allows you to play on rather minimal hardware as well. It could be an interesting thing to have included in things like set top boxes, or even consoles, since then a console could 'play' later generation games using the service. For your average gaming enthusiast, though, I don't think it truly offers very much, at least not to the entire spectrum of gamers; and really it's not intended to, it's more for casual gamers- who also don't have a good enough computer to play it. And arguably, that is their target customer, so it works well. I made an OnLive account and tried out some free-trials of the games offered. Lag was very high, graphics quality was very low, and the prices were largely higher than most other online game retailers. The only advantage was I could play a game that wouldn't run through steam on an old P4 computer, whereas with OnLive it played, not in the best quality though...Ah... finally some first-hand testimony from immental1200. Lag was very high, poor graphics-what are your download speeds? What was the game you failed to run on the p4 computer? What do you think of OnLive? Just a novelty or does it have the potential to be popular in the future when high-bandwidth internet becomes more affordable? Quote from: Transfusion on September 27, 2011, 11:32:15 AM Ah... finally some first-hand testimony from immental1200. Lag was very high, poor graphics-what are your download speeds? What was the game you failed to run on the p4 computer? What do you think of OnLive? Just a novelty or does it have the potential to be popular in the future when high-bandwidth internet becomes more affordable? Download is 15mb/s, upload just over 1.5mbps. The game I tried was Alpha Protocol Quote Consider this a warning. Onlive is a service that you subscribe to that allows you to stream games and play them over the internet. You don't need a powerful PC, just a powerful internet connection, because the hardware is stored on the server side. Sounds great? Too good to be true? Well, the tech may or may not work well, but it's the fine print that you should be careful about, especially as websites are currently giving out "free" subscriptions to the service. 1) You "buy" full games at retail prices over the service. 2) If your account is suspended, it is deleted. No records are kept. This means everything you "purchased" is gone with it. 3) If you don't make a payment for one year, your account becomes suspended. 4) Even if you do make payments every year and stay subscribed to the service, onlive reserves the right to remove any game from the service after three years. That doesn't mean you're no longer able to buy it, it means you're no longer able to buy it OR play it. 5) If the service fails (likely because of BS like the above) you're obviously also quite screwed. Yeah. No thanks. The above quote is from - http://www.hdtvarcade.com/hdtvforum/index.php?showtopic=16336 Quote from: Transfusion on September 27, 2011, 11:32:15 AM Ah... finally some first-hand testimony from immental1200. Mulreay uses the service. I'd call that first-hand.http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/07/onlive-gets-tested-playable-but-not-ideal.ars With a 25 Mbps ADSL connection-Megabits/second. http://www.joystiq.com/2010/07/13/onlive-the-first-few-weeks/ The reviews are from some time ago, I see. I have a friend with a PSPgo who really hates the idea of downloading games in digital format only-PSN has a really limited number of titles you can download when compared to the UMD games released. DRM makes it a pain in the censored-you have to redownload the game for every PSP you own. Some PS3 games even require an active internet connection to play the game due to DRM issues. http://www.destructoid.com/final-fight-double-impact-psn-protected-by-drm-171898.phtml The PSP-go was really overpriced, IMO. No replaceable battery. Limited titles. Would make a great mobile device were it not for the limitations of WiFi. I hope the PSVITA will be better. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Microsoft+-+Xbox+360+4GB+Console+-+Black/1162184.p?id=1218228678498&skuId=1162184 I can get the XBOX 360 for the same price as the PSP go. I think I made the right choice in not jumping on the video game console bandwagon after my Xbox, which is my only video game console, and which I did an NDURE softmod to run xubuntu. I'll stick with custom built HTPCs if I really want a video game console-I am already happy with casual gaming on my low-end computers/mom's iPhone. I honestly find video games boring after a period of time-in FPSes you repeatedly shoot/melee/frag the same enemies, and after a while it becomes a long-drawn out carnage, just waiting for the game to end so you can see the cutscenes. In racing games you drive laps around a circuit, and soon you MEMORIZE exactly when to brake, to shift gear, to hit the gas, etc. The same circuits and the A.I. drivers get tiring after a while. In RPGs you go around doing missions, quests, whatever, and you simply level up, which among gamers gives you a better reputation. Games get redundant after a while... but I won't impose my view on anyone.

Answer»

Cloud gaming service ‘OnLive’ has finally launched in the UK. The way you buy and play games may never be the same again. Seriously...

Full Story: http://uk.videogames.games.yahoo.com/5e/news/onlive-launches-in-the-uk-67915e.htmlThis seems all awesome, but
Quote

Instead, players become subscribers who merely control the action, while all the processing takes place on powerful remote servers. Access to games is practically instant, and all user inputs are effectively streamed back in near real-time.

Practically instant? and "A 3 MB line is recommended."
3 Megabytes/second or 3 Megabits/second? I'm thinking the former as I have lag so great on a 4 Megabits/second line(even with local servers) that I can walk upside down on Halo: Combat Evolved.Of course it's megabytes and not megabits. That would be ridiculous. One should really thing in bytes when talking about broadband. As in I have a 50mb/s connection so if that were bits I would have a 6.25 megabits per second which would still WORK I suppose. To be honest I thought the entire concept was a bit silly- at least for AIMING at PC gamers. It makes sense for people that have relatively crap computers and fast connections, but that just isn't a combination your average game enthusiast is going to have. Personally, my computer is rather well off for playing most games, but hilariously I find myself playing more Megaman 2 than Just Cause 2. (wether playing older games everybody else has forgotten about counts as "hardcore" is a matter of some debate, Speedrunning and TASing is definitely what I would call "extreme" gaming, even if it doesn't fit the common verbiage that the game uses more processor power than 10 adobe programs.)

It makes sense for spectating, but honestly, ANY amount of delay is going to cause problems. Anybody who has tried to play a console game on a TV Tuner without disabling PVR knows exactly what I mean. Then I found out how to turn that off and was happy, until I realized that it looked worse through the tuner than it does on a TV, and I was too lazy to find my S-Video cable. In any case, the internet is going to have a delay regardless of how fast your connection is, it's practically a universal constant of TCP/IP. Even a 10 ms delay can cause problems for a "practiced" gamer (IE somebody who has played the game more than is healthy in real time). In that sense I guess such a delay might be acceptable just to be able to play the game, the fact is that the service is really only something that should be considered by those who cannot play the game otherwise, particularly since you have to purchase the games, from what I can tell, (aside from demos they provide). And if you have a computer capable of playing them, I don't really think any prospective savings on the purchase price is really worth the trade-off.

I'm not saying it's utterly pointless, I'm more or less addressing this-

Quote

The way you buy and play games may never be the same again.

Which will only be true for people who can't play the games normally. Almost all the games on OnLive, I've either had running or can run fine on this machine, so the service offers me nothing but being able to watch other people bumble about in a game. Which is all well and GOOD, and most of that bumbling may very well be a result of the ping time, but I can do the very same thing via youtube. It's an interesting concept- it's like steam (which is useful since it keeps your steam purchases available anywhere you can install steam) but it allows you to play on rather minimal hardware as well. It could be an interesting thing to have included in things like set top boxes, or even consoles, since then a console could 'play' later generation games using the service. For your average gaming enthusiast, though, I don't think it truly offers very much, at least not to the entire spectrum of gamers; and really it's not intended to, it's more for casual gamers- who also don't have a good enough computer to play it. And arguably, that is their target customer, so it works well.

I made an OnLive account and tried out some free-trials of the games offered. Lag was very high, graphics quality was very low, and the prices were largely higher than most other online game retailers.

The only advantage was I could play a game that wouldn't run through steam on an old P4 computer, whereas with OnLive it played, not in the best quality though...Ah... finally some first-hand testimony from immental1200.

Lag was very high, poor graphics-what are your download speeds? What was the game you failed to run on the p4 computer? What do you think of OnLive? Just a novelty or does it have the potential to be popular in the future when high-bandwidth internet becomes more affordable? Quote from: Transfusion on September 27, 2011, 11:32:15 AM

Ah... finally some first-hand testimony from immental1200.

Lag was very high, poor graphics-what are your download speeds? What was the game you failed to run on the p4 computer? What do you think of OnLive? Just a novelty or does it have the potential to be popular in the future when high-bandwidth internet becomes more affordable?

Download is 15mb/s, upload just over 1.5mbps.
The game I tried was Alpha Protocol

Quote

Consider this a warning.

Onlive is a service that you subscribe to that allows you to stream games and play them over the internet. You don't need a powerful PC, just a powerful internet connection, because the hardware is stored on the server side. Sounds great? Too good to be true? Well, the tech may or may not work well, but it's the fine print that you should be careful about, especially as websites are currently giving out "free" subscriptions to the service.

1) You "buy" full games at retail prices over the service.

2) If your account is suspended, it is deleted. No records are kept. This means everything you "purchased" is gone with it.

3) If you don't make a payment for one year, your account becomes suspended.

4) Even if you do make payments every year and stay subscribed to the service, onlive reserves the right to remove any game from the service after three years. That doesn't mean you're no longer able to buy it, it means you're no longer able to buy it OR play it.

5) If the service fails (likely because of BS like the above) you're obviously also quite screwed.

Yeah. No thanks.

The above quote is from - http://www.hdtvarcade.com/hdtvforum/index.php?showtopic=16336 Quote from: Transfusion on September 27, 2011, 11:32:15 AM

Ah... finally some first-hand testimony from immental1200.

Mulreay uses the service. I'd call that first-hand.http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/07/onlive-gets-tested-playable-but-not-ideal.ars
With a 25 Mbps ADSL connection-Megabits/second.
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/07/13/onlive-the-first-few-weeks/
The reviews are from some time ago, I see.

I have a friend with a PSPgo who really hates the idea of downloading games in digital format only-PSN has a really limited number of titles you can download when compared to the UMD games released. DRM makes it a pain in the *censored*-you have to redownload the game for every PSP you own. Some PS3 games even require an active internet connection to play the game due to DRM issues.
http://www.destructoid.com/final-fight-double-impact-psn-protected-by-drm-171898.phtml

The PSP-go was really overpriced, IMO. No replaceable battery. Limited titles. Would make a great mobile device were it not for the limitations of WiFi. I hope the PSVITA will be better.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Microsoft+-+Xbox+360+4GB+Console+-+Black/1162184.p?id=1218228678498&skuId=1162184
I can get the XBOX 360 for the same price as the PSP go.

I think I made the right choice in not jumping on the video game console bandwagon after my Xbox, which is my only video game console, and which I did an NDURE softmod to run xubuntu. I'll stick with custom built HTPCs if I really want a video game console-I am already happy with casual gaming on my low-end computers/mom's iPhone. I honestly find video games boring after a period of time-in FPSes you repeatedly shoot/melee/frag the same enemies, and after a while it becomes a long-drawn out carnage, just waiting for the game to end so you can see the cutscenes. In racing games you drive laps around a circuit, and soon you MEMORIZE exactly when to brake, to shift gear, to hit the gas, etc. The same circuits and the A.I. drivers get tiring after a while. In RPGs you go around doing missions, quests, whatever, and you simply level up, which among gamers gives you a better reputation. Games get redundant after a while... but I won't impose my view on anyone.

Solve : OnLive launches in the UK?

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