shikamaru317 said:
I didn't know about that website. Looks like I have 32-40 ms ping to the nearest Azure data center, which is in my state. That's not bad at all, I could live with 32-40ms of additional input lag while streaming singleplayer games. I used to play CoD with 100ms ping back when I had crappy Verizon DSL, before I upgraded to Comcast Cable. Plus we've heard that MS has other plans for reducing input lag while streaming. They're working on predictive algorithms in a project called DeLorean, which guesses what you will do next in a game. We've also heard rumors that they are working on a streaming version of the next-gen Xbox, which will cost less and have weaker hardware, but will use it's local rendering power to run the latency dependent aspects of a game locally (controller input, collision detection, and image processing), while the less latency dependent aspects are pulled from the cloud. |
Streaming still needs to go for the most cost effective solution. You don't get 4K blu-ray quality with Dolby Atmos on Netflix.
The improvement in performance doesn't come for free; sending those extra predictive frames and information does add a bandwidth overhead of anywhere from 1.5 to four times that of a normal streaming game client, according to Microsoft Research (those numbers would be worse if not for compression owing to the similarity of most predicted frames). Getting the service to work also required special coding on top of the tested versions of Doom 3 and Fable 3, which were modified to support the new predictive streaming system.
It's a cool research project. However when the money men step in it's going to get axed quickly. Extra coding, extra data, extra hardware, not cost effective.
Plus we're still waiting for that cloud assisted game, Crackdown 3. I don't expect much from complex clients doing half the work. The point of streaming is to have a simplified solution that works on as many devices as possible. Not a complex client that has to download half a game first and do half the processing locally. That's the worst of both worlds.
Another question that comes up is, what will happen to controllers? Will every different streaming service require their own controllers like consoles do now? At some point people will wonder why all the different controllers as you don't need a different remote either for Netflix and Amazon Prime. However controllers etc is where console makers make the most money.
