Cloud Gaming

[faethor]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6867/amd-announces-radeon-sky-family-of-servercloud-video-cards
"AMD’s first announcement out of the show (GDC 2013) is a new line of server video cards. Dubbed the Radeon Sky family, these are new cards based on AMD’s existing Pitcairn and Tahiti GPUs, targeted for use in cloud gaming deployments"

AMD Claimed their Cloud technology is better. For example they compared Mass Effect 2 on Gaikei (now Sony owned Cloud gaming) with 180ms latency their Cloud GPU 132ms. Interestingly they compared FEAR3 on the Xbox 360 with 120ms latency with their new Cloud GPU of 100ms.

It's an interesting idea. Certainly as we go more mobile this should pay off as well. The con I can think of is the internet is an unknown quantity. Not everyone can own fast pipes, and the USA is bad at speeds and bad at pricing when compared to Europe and Japan, for example.

 

[Glaucus]

Ya, I don't know what to think. I suppose there are advantages to centralizing all that computing power. For example: efficiency - it might be easier to use less power in a centralized design rather then duplicating it over and over again. However, evolution tells me that efficiency doesn't trump individuality and I tend to agree. I'd rather waste resources so that I can be more independent.

Cost might also be a factor, but will it be passed onto the consumer? Perhaps, but we can certainly kiss resale goodbye. And I find that turning video games into a leased service is likely to become more expensive over time (I bought Battlefield 3 at full price, but it's pretty much the only game I play. If I were leasing a game service on the cloud, I'd probably end up paying a monthly fee despite the fact that I only play BF3 and nothing else). And you know what, I still love the idea that I can boot up my Amiga 4000 and play Dungeon Master. Kids these days might not "get" that, but one day they might grow up and think to themselves "Damn, it would sure be nice if I could replay Fear 4 again on my PS4 which still works but doesn't connect to anything anymore".

 

[faethor]

In related news my Dad brought my old Commodore 64 to my house and gave it to my son. Not sure why my Dad was hanging on to my 1984 computer but it works. My 6 year old was very excited for his own computer. We recently started programming HTML because he wanted to know how the Web worked. I wonder if he'll like the 1Mhz Microsoft Basic run machine. "What are these, Dad' - oh my the cassette tapes and 1541 5.25" floppies too?

 

[the_leander]

Wasn't there an attempt to do a service like this not that long ago... LiveOn?

Didn't turn out so good iirc.

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