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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - What you think of Crackdown's Cloud Computing?

NathObeaN on 10 August 2015

What will happen when the servers turn off? Well, the online multiplayer won't work? That is no different to any other multiplayer game then?

They have stated only the multiplayer uses cloud computing so the singleplayer will be unaffected. It is exactly the same for any other game that has a multiplayer mode.

As for server costs, things have moved on. When MS says each building runs on a 'server', they are simply referring to an elastic VM. It's not wasting any resources. They already have a massive pool of servers which dynamically load balance based on demand (Azure). The servers will spool up when they are needed and be reassigned to other purposes when they aren't. The issue of wasting money on unused rackspace is a thing of the past.

Personally, I can't wait to see more games adopt this technology.



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SvennoJ on 10 August 2015
Azzanation said:
 

I know what your trying to do and i have seen your post history. You are not a fan of MS and will downplay anything that seems to be good for the console. Just like what your doing now.

For starters what Crackdown 3 is doing is in another league to what your comparing it to. To do those physics in Crackdown 3 requires more then what 1 next gen console can achieve which is why its very impressive. It doesnt make your console physicaly more powerful, however its like your XB1 has access to a supercomputer that allows the games to look even better then it should.

How would you make a campaign when everything can blow up? You cant, unless the sole focus of the game is blowing stuff up which isnt what Crackdown is about. There has to be a story mode which limits the player in doing things that makes him OP. Example, if you have to kill a Boss in a well guarded building and you cant do it, the player can just keep shooting at the buildings structure to over come all the games challengers. Does that sound fun? Doesnt for me. Which is why there keeping it for Multiplayer only, running around blowing up buildings with a friend sounds more entertaining and it sounds like an amazing death match mode too.

Why are you bringing up Forza 6? And why are you judging the game thats not finished? FM6 doesnt use Cloud compute because that requires the player to be always online which if you remembered in 2013 E3 when MS annouced the XB1 to be always online, everyone threw a sissy fit. Both FM6 and Crackdown 3 have a offline mode which is what most gamers want. Since multiplayer needs an online connection, they can add cloud cmpute to it if they choose to.

I dont make games, i am just using common sense. What they showed was impressive and looks to be very real to me. Its not finished yet as Crackdown 3 is still a work in progress however if your comparing it to last gen thats a joke. Completely different methods. Plus MS have the facilties to use Cloud Compute world wide since Azure is available in most countries which gives MS a huge advantage over Sony and Nintendo whos cloud services are limited. Unless Sony and NIntendo start using Cloud services outside there buisness which can be a very expensive hobby.

I don't particularly care about MS, Sony or Nintendo. I do care about tech and nonsense marketing claims.
Anyway you agree does it doesn't make the console more powerful.
I agree that the server tech is impressive in its scaleability. No more eve online slowdown and trying to solve it with time dilation.

I brought up Forza 6 since Cloudlight was brought up. Forza 6 could use that in multiplayer to achieve real dynamic weather and time to keep the game fresh in the mode that will be played the longest. Forza 5 was already boasting using the cloud, why not expand on that in Forza 6.

I'm a software programmer, and from my background the server tech is impressive. Yet my common sense tells me that bandwidth, latency and overloading the client with detail will severly limit this tech.

We'll see how effective it will be when the game is finished.

Yet I understand why they market it this way since the lay person probably doesn't know or care about the real benefits. Using Azure compute it can run on any compatible server, at any time. It can run indefinitely while servers get upgraded around it. It doesn't cost anything extra (or separate) to run and will only be cheaper to run in the future as servers get more powerful. It is a great step forward for dedicated servers and MS is at the forefront as a software company while Sony is still mass producing ps3 blades to run PSNow. Yet those benefits will only be seen in the long run, hence not sexy for marketing.



jlmurph2 on 11 August 2015
SvennoJ said:
Azzanation said:
 

I am not sure what your trying to prove. If your trying to think MS lied to the gaming world or if this tech doesnt work. They proved quite clearly this tech works and it grants more power for the devs to play with. Yes Azure Cloud Compute will deliever games more powerful then a XB1. So no, MS didnt lie and Cloud tech works, all these demos are proof.

You will be able to play Crackdown 3 single player mode offline which means they cant use Cloud Computing. The Multiplayer needs an online connection regardless so Cloud Compute will be standard for it. My guess is single player will just use standard physics for its gameplay. If you add Azure physics to the single player mode then the campaign would be too easy and broken because all you would need to do is blow up all the buildings to kill the bosses etc. Thats why its smart of them not to include it into the solo game.

It seems like you're just arguing semantics.

For one, nothing is proven until it actually runs on an XBox One in some ones living room. The tech demos are looking good however.
Secondly, it does not make the xbox one more powerful, it gives the dedicated server more resources to play with. In the end it's no different than a dedicated server tracking 256 players, projectiles and explosions, sending all that to the clients. Or an MMORPG connecting your console to thousands of other players at the same time and tracking many more AI opponents.
The innovation is that the server can alter geometry on the client on a much larger scale than has been seen before. Yet there is no extra power. It all has to be rendered. AC Unity has the most realistic lighting by storing many GBs of precomputed lighting data on the disk. That could have been downloaded from the cloud as well. Yet if it were streamed from a server instead of streamed from the HDD, would that mean the console is now more powerful?
Plus why isn't Forza 6 using the cloud to add dynamic weather and day/night cycle? They're still sticking to prebaked lighting.

Kinda funny you say it's smart not to include it in the solo game as it would be bad for gameplay. So what does that mean for multiplayer, just all out death match while blowing up buildings?


The buildings are running on multiple servers

http://www.ign.com/videos/2015/08/06/17-minutes-of-explosive-crackdown-3-gameplay-gamescom-2015?utm_campaign=ign+main+twitter&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

 

 

  



Zappykins on 11 August 2015
SvennoJ said:

I remember that demo and these were the results
http://www.ppsloan.org/publications/Crassin13Cloud.pdf


Irradiance maps would fit within the bandwidth yet don't look any better than what we already have locally.
Voxels are already exceeding the bandwidth limit.
Photons is where you start to see noticeably better lighting, yet is also way out of reach.

That 2-4 mbps bandwidth will be used to send changes in geometry to the client, and changes in direction and velocity of existing active chunks. So in a sense it does work like video compression as it only needs to send what changes, except it's lossless and likely doesn't need to update free falling objects (console can easily do that) Ofcourse there are still limits, 4mbps is 17kb per frame at 30fps, not a whole lot when everything blows up.

Wow, thanks for doing the math.  Yea, like I say, this demo is already several years old, and before current leves of compression (side note: aren't the current twings getting  compression .h265 in software updates?  I know they talk about it on the Xbox One, but I would think the PS4 could do it as well.  It's the one that allows you to stream 4k resolution in the same bandwith as today's 1080p, basically 4x better than today's for streaming.)    So they don't need to send the full frame at 30fps, but a partal map - or prerender of what they local computer needs to render.  There might be 10,000 objects falling, but only 3,000 in your view.  Then the local on bord GPU on the Xbox One would render only what your character sees.

And I'm wondering if this is one of the things they really needed DirectX 12 to do - with it's any CPU can address the GPU expansion.  Thus dismissing a major bottleneck that it would need to process gobs of graphic data.  As others have said, it's one of the things they should have shown at launch (But I don't think it was near ready.)

PS People forget that World of Warcraft use to work on a phone modem.  The servers are doing the work, the info sent to your console can be much less than one assumes.



 

Really not sure I see any point of Consol over PC's since Kinect, Wii and other alternative ways to play have been abandoned. 

Top 50 'most fun' game list coming soon!

 

Tell me a funny joke!
beeje13 on 11 August 2015

There are no servers to physically turn off as it uses Azure. If in ten years a few people decide to play some multiplayer it would be at trivial cost to microsoft. Whether it will actually possible I doubt.

Slightly suspicious about it being only possible on the cloud. Red faction Guerrilla did it on weaker CPU, much less RAM...



PS, PS2, Gameboy Advance, PS3, PSP, PS4, Xbox One

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Azzanation on 11 August 2015
SvennoJ said:
Azzanation said:
 

I know what your trying to do and i have seen your post history. You are not a fan of MS and will downplay anything that seems to be good for the console. Just like what your doing now.

For starters what Crackdown 3 is doing is in another league to what your comparing it to. To do those physics in Crackdown 3 requires more then what 1 next gen console can achieve which is why its very impressive. It doesnt make your console physicaly more powerful, however its like your XB1 has access to a supercomputer that allows the games to look even better then it should.

How would you make a campaign when everything can blow up? You cant, unless the sole focus of the game is blowing stuff up which isnt what Crackdown is about. There has to be a story mode which limits the player in doing things that makes him OP. Example, if you have to kill a Boss in a well guarded building and you cant do it, the player can just keep shooting at the buildings structure to over come all the games challengers. Does that sound fun? Doesnt for me. Which is why there keeping it for Multiplayer only, running around blowing up buildings with a friend sounds more entertaining and it sounds like an amazing death match mode too.

Why are you bringing up Forza 6? And why are you judging the game thats not finished? FM6 doesnt use Cloud compute because that requires the player to be always online which if you remembered in 2013 E3 when MS annouced the XB1 to be always online, everyone threw a sissy fit. Both FM6 and Crackdown 3 have a offline mode which is what most gamers want. Since multiplayer needs an online connection, they can add cloud cmpute to it if they choose to.

I dont make games, i am just using common sense. What they showed was impressive and looks to be very real to me. Its not finished yet as Crackdown 3 is still a work in progress however if your comparing it to last gen thats a joke. Completely different methods. Plus MS have the facilties to use Cloud Compute world wide since Azure is available in most countries which gives MS a huge advantage over Sony and Nintendo whos cloud services are limited. Unless Sony and NIntendo start using Cloud services outside there buisness which can be a very expensive hobby.

I don't particularly care about MS, Sony or Nintendo. I do care about tech and nonsense marketing claims.
Anyway you agree does it doesn't make the console more powerful.
I agree that the server tech is impressive in its scaleability. No more eve online slowdown and trying to solve it with time dilation.

I brought up Forza 6 since Cloudlight was brought up. Forza 6 could use that in multiplayer to achieve real dynamic weather and time to keep the game fresh in the mode that will be played the longest. Forza 5 was already boasting using the cloud, why not expand on that in Forza 6.

I'm a software programmer, and from my background the server tech is impressive. Yet my common sense tells me that bandwidth, latency and overloading the client with detail will severly limit this tech.

We'll see how effective it will be when the game is finished.

Yet I understand why they market it this way since the lay person probably doesn't know or care about the real benefits. Using Azure compute it can run on any compatible server, at any time. It can run indefinitely while servers get upgraded around it. It doesn't cost anything extra (or separate) to run and will only be cheaper to run in the future as servers get more powerful. It is a great step forward for dedicated servers and MS is at the forefront as a software company while Sony is still mass producing ps3 blades to run PSNow. Yet those benefits will only be seen in the long run, hence not sexy for marketing.

FM6 most likely isnt using Azure because Turn 10 doesnt want to make FM6 always online. Drivaters will be available in FM6 which is great news but to render visual benefits your going to need to be connected to the internet which limits the games audiences even further. Having FM6 playable offline is a good thing and the game looks amazing even at 60 frames, i didnt think Turn 10 can out do Project Cars and from what i have seen they have. Maybe when gamers can move over to always online, we will see Azure being a standard across gaming. At the moment they want to sell games to as many gamers as possible.



SvennoJ on 11 August 2015
Azzanation said:

FM6 most likely isnt using Azure because Turn 10 doesnt want to make FM6 always online. Drivaters will be available in FM6 which is great news but to render visual benefits your going to need to be connected to the internet which limits the games audiences even further. Having FM6 playable offline is a good thing and the game looks amazing even at 60 frames, i didnt think Turn 10 can out do Project Cars and from what i have seen they have. Maybe when gamers can move over to always online, we will see Azure being a standard across gaming. At the moment they want to sell games to as many gamers as possible.

I was talking about using the cloud to keep multiplayer fresh. Usually games diminish graphically when switching from single to multiplayer, this way maybe the cloud could offer some benefits since you're online anyway.
Project cars does full dynamic weather and time and twice as many cars on screen, not really a fair comparison. It doesn't run as well though, not really a looker either. I still have to get back to it, the witcher 3 stole its thunder.



SvennoJ on 11 August 2015
Zappykins said:
SvennoJ said:
 

I remember that demo and these were the results
http://www.ppsloan.org/publications/Crassin13Cloud.pdf

Wow, thanks for doing the math.  Yea, like I say, this demo is already several years old, and before current leves of compression (side note: aren't the current twings getting  compression .h265 in software updates?  I know they talk about it on the Xbox One, but I would think the PS4 could do it as well.  It's the one that allows you to stream 4k resolution in the same bandwith as today's 1080p, basically 4x better than today's for streaming.)    So they don't need to send the full frame at 30fps, but a partal map - or prerender of what they local computer needs to render.  There might be 10,000 objects falling, but only 3,000 in your view.  Then the local on bord GPU on the Xbox One would render only what your character sees.

And I'm wondering if this is one of the things they really needed DirectX 12 to do - with it's any CPU can address the GPU expansion.  Thus dismissing a major bottleneck that it would need to process gobs of graphic data.  As others have said, it's one of the things they should have shown at launch (But I don't think it was near ready.)

PS People forget that World of Warcraft use to work on a phone modem.  The servers are doing the work, the info sent to your console can be much less than one assumes.

.h265 can get close to half the file size for video compression compared to .h264. It is very CPU intensive though. The consoles can do it, yet it will take more CPU power. For encoding it can require 10x the cpu power of .h264, decoding doubles the cpu usage. (And the consoles probably already have very efficient built-in .h264 codecs not burndoning the CPU)
.h265 works better by removing more low fequency detail you don't notice clearly while watching moving video. How suited it is to light maps remains to be seen. Blown up accross a wall you might notice weirdly even patches.

I guess the server can limit the detail to what's close to you, yet due to lag it can't exactly limit it to what's in view. Stuff wouldn't be updated or missing when you turn around. The client will have to sort out what's in view like normal after the geometry of the world has been updated. Normally open world games have a cache of the direct area around you with detail reducing the further away from you. It would be interesting to see how they solve fast movement. Pop up already occurs while streaming from HDD, now it will also have to download all the geometry changes other players caused while you speed along.
We don't know how big the levels will be, maybe they'll keep the basic geometry of the whole level in memory while the server continously sends all changes for the whole area. The game doesn't have much in the way of textures so it shouldn't be a problem to allocate a lot of memory to level geometry.