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Machiavellian on 14 June 2014
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Arkaign said:
EpicRandy said:
Danman27 said:
1)You do realize that the demo they showed was connected over a local network right? 2)And there's still latency. The cloud is not realistic at this point. 3) And not to mention, think that a game's gameplay will be like the CG trailer makes no sense.


1)Just like the Playstation Now demo Sony showed us earlier this year. Was there so much people telling Sony were lying???

2) Cloud processessing is use with things that could run async so latency should not be and issue. An explosion could be calculated at the moment you throw a grenade or lauch a rocket so at the moment of the explosion you will already have the data to process it.

Think about it this way: the worst latency scenario someone can experience withcloud processing is the best case scenario he may hope with a service like Playstation Now. Because PS now is totaly dependant of latency, cloud processing isn't.

3) Games will not look nor play different than they do right now.

1 - PSNow, stupid as it may be, is a proven concept that has worked before. Besides, streaming any steady video content is just a basic primarily one-way street (only thing going upstream is control entries).

Your first point doesn't really compute.  All solutions started a concept.  Then those solutiosn goes into implementation and they those implementation impove and mature as time goes on.  PSNow started from concept then the tech started to mature as the people who development started to improve it.  Basically you are dismissing cloud compute like people did with game streaming.  Why don't you wait until we see the tech and how it works and implemented before making assumptions on its success.

2 - Async = meaningless. Think about it, if you cause a large physics event, and it creates a new environment in process as a result, then you bounce/interact at close range for more destruction of those elements (or a vehicle is driving through it, secondary explosion, wind/water impacts, etc) then it needs to be as syncronous as possible or the immersion will be completely blown. Besides, you're talking about something slow like a grenade or rocket, how about a big tank shell that will take .1 seconds to travel from your gun to the wall when you press the button? And a second shell fired right after that one by a teammate into the same wall nearby? Requiring debris from both events to be calculated against each other for collision detection/new physics results.

This is a theory which has it own flaws.  You seem to forget that the developer controls the world.  Depending on how the game is made there are no random events.  If you take the Build demo, you can see that when the person fires the shot, this calculations are done client side.  The server side calculations are done when the whole building is being collaspe.  In other words, the server only does cloud compute for the bigger events not the direct input by user.  This probably will be no different in crackdown.  Explosions that are direct inputed by the user are done client side.  If those explosions causes a major event, those will be done server side this freeing up the console to mantain client side work and keep frame rates high.  I believe people really are not thinking about the problem correctly and thus going down routes that will not be implemented.

3 - Then what's the point? To spent an asston of cash and put ridiculous resources to something that has little tangible benefit?

The point of cloud compute is to free up resources that can be used for client side work but allows the game to showcase events that would take down the beefiest of machines.  In other words cloud assistance allows the game worlds to be more dynamic.  The thing is, I believe MS has researched this tech way more than us.  Its not like its something MS thought up the day they announced the X1 but probably something they have had their research teams spending years on different implementations.

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I'll say it again, for a series of super premium online-only titles, it would make more sense for Microsoft to begin installing a next-gen 'Xbox' server base that streams the ENTIRE game to you, 100% of everything cloud side processed. As long as you have a decent connection with low ping, you have something FAR better than trying to run a game calculated in two vastly disparate environments and then stitching it back together on the fly.

MS has been rumored to be doing this as well.  They actually had a demo of Halo 3 I believe streamed to one of their phones or tablets.  Anyway, there are multiple ways to implement cloud assisted calculations.  What you present I believe MS never stated they were doing.  It probably would be best to wait and get the details from MS as all your points might be totally null.