OnLive

[null1024]

http://onlive.com/
Was surprised there wasn't a topic on this.

For those that don't know, it's gaming "in the cloud", where you don't use your machine's disk space or graphics hardware for PC gaming.
It's essentially like using VNC to play a game. It seems like a stupid idea, until you realize it's meant for use on something wimpy like a netbook or slightly older graphics hardware that chokes on new releases.

I'm on my netbook, and I just started playing a few games [in the 30 minute demo mode of course, because I don't know if they'll just die on me and I won't be able to play the games I bought, along with their rather limited selection] on it, the lag is about as bad as an HDTV playing a lo-res game [so, it's there, it's not completely crippling, you wouldn't consider playing a shmup through this, but otherwise it's fine].

There have only been a few issues, and I'm pretty sure that most of them are game specific, rather than general issues -- the DiRT games won't let you input to the UI for quite a bit of time, but are otherwise fine in-race. Also, video compression artifacts -- it's fine most of the time, but if the screen has way more stuff going on than normal, you will notice big video glitch squares. It seems to differ per game too, like they use different video encoding on a per-game basis.

What do you guys think of it?
I really love the idea, but I have issues with anything that I need to be online to be able to play. More importantly, the issue of if they go out of business and I can't play the games I paid for anymore.

[Moniker]

I didn't know that the processing happened on servers. That's pretty interesting. There are some PC-only titles that I've been curious about -- Amnesia, the Witcher 2; but my laptop can't handle anything really.

I don't know, though. I feel like I've volunteered to have my privacy invaded quite enough already with Steam, XBL, and smartphones. I guess if there's something that piques my interest enough, I won't care all that much about terms... The onlive library seems pretty small as of yet.

[TransatlanticFoe]

It's glorified renting. I would never do it because you pay money but can only play the game for as long as there are servers hosting it (at least with PC games I've bought and installed, I can play them for as long as my PC stays alive - for the worst case of the activation servers being turned off). Call me old fashioned, but I like to keep what I pay for. However, it fits in perfectly with the "play > trade > repeat" cycle most people engage in for modern gaming.

Also, my broadband connection is a pile of crap (1.5 meg) because BT delights in boosting good infrastructure rather than getting everything up to standard first. So I couldn't use it even if I wanted to.

[null1024]

It's glorified renting. I would never do it because you pay money but can only play the game for as long as there are servers hosting it (at least with PC games I've bought and installed, I can play them for as long as my PC stays alive

Yeah, this is my main issue with the whole idea. Which is why I haven't bought anything except Assassins Creed Brotherhood, which cost a dollar as my first purchase. If that goes down, I'm only out a dollar.
The subscription thing has me interested though, but the selection isn't large enough for me to feel like paying for it -- half the games don't interest me enough, and a couple that do aren't covered by the subscription.

Also, yeah, 1.5 really has to suck man. I'm on an 8Mbit connection [so, 1MB/s] and I have occasional video artifacts.

[replayme]

i just sold my onlive console yesterday. ended up using the money for a few other bits and bobs:
gta: complete pack (steam/pc)
goldeneye (wii)
ps3 dual shock controller (ps3)
psone memory card (ps1)
wii hd component cable (wii)

didn't think £50 would get me so little.

and yes, i also see the onlive system as glorified renting. if you're a fan of mainstream (established) consoles and want to implement something similar so as to "rent" the latest titles, then just head over to lovefilm.

[null1024]

i just sold my onlive console yesterday. ended up using the money for a few other bits and bobs:
gta: complete pack (steam/pc)
goldeneye (wii)
ps3 dual shock controller (ps3)
psone memory card (ps1)
wii hd component cable (wii)

didn't think £50 would get me so little.

and yes, i also see the onlive system as glorified renting. if you're a fan of mainstream (established) consoles and want to implement something similar so as to "rent" the latest titles, then just head over to lovefilm.

No idea why you'd get the standalone console. None, it really isn't worth it, considering you get a box that just connects to OnLive and does nothing more. Useless, when your computer can do this for free [if your computer was made past 2004 and has a 720p or better display, you can run this]. Does the box even get you a few free months of the PlayPack service? That's the only way I could see it being remotely worth it, and even still I wouldn't think of getting it.

And I'm starting to think OnLive mightn't be too good right now, I'm having more and more issues with the connection, despite the fact that my network has no problem, and I'm the only one on it. It's not latency [which has been surprisingly good], it's randomly going from "yay, working gorgeously" to "buffering, buffering, buffering, disconnect, wait, connection good, oh wait more buffering, repeat". I don't know if it's on their side, or what. I'm not too mad, considering I only spent a dollar towards them , and when it works, it works damn well and I can play on my netbook, but when it doesn't work, it reminds me of all the reasons I don't like the concept of games requiring constant network access [unless they're multiplayer, in which case this is the point].

Speaking of multiplayer, getting a game going is a biiitch.