1/21/10 - Onlive BETA previewed: Our Fears might become reality

[keyboardcowb0y]

First I would like to point out he stated it was a beta, and while I have been in many beta's myself over the years I can tell you things don't go from night to day most of the time.

It's not like when Onlive launches that were going to see better graphics quality, or new features added initially. The GUI will mature some bug code will be removed and the speed may slightly increase due to debug code a few FPS, but don't get the idea that it will be night and day.

I appreciate the fact that he said it was a beta, but the idea of reviewing a product based on the beta is just wrong. There is now a bunch of negative information floating around the internet about onlive because someone who was not qualified to be in the beta played it and had some issues.

As to your point about games not really changing when they go from beta to release, just because some games dont change much, doesn't mean that onlive cannot. My whole point is that it is silly to make up your mind about something until you actually try the released version.

If you do the math and understand the numbers, could gaming is a technical possibility, there is no question about that, but as of right now I don't think anyone can give a definite answer on if onlive will work/succeed or not.

With all that said, I understand that the reviewer was just trying to voice his/her opinion, but as a writer they should have been able to do it in a more responsible way.

[Browler]

First, this guy is not legally in the beta, he's going to get sued and I don't condone his actions.

Secondly, it warned him he has a high latency, he's obviously not in a location that is supported by OnLive right now, so duh it lagged. Didn't Steve say in one of the demos that OnLive seeks out the best route to each computer over the internet or something like that, its possible that even if he's within the right distance that he's just not in an area that has been added yet.

Lastly, The quality is certainly lower on OnLive, but I have to wonder if that is not a beta throttling thing or mby a byproduct of the fact they weren't made for OnLive natively.

It was interesting seeing what the beta looks like, but this is certainly not a good look into what the end product will be. I especially liked seeing the interface and games available.

[bookoo]

Yea this article really doesn't hold much weight. Since the beta may not be open in his area.

I just find it funny reading the comments, where people are saying stuff like, "This is exactly what everyone thought", "we didn't need this confirmed".

But when there are articles written about how it works pretty well and is lag-free and some beta users saying it works well, some people are so positive it will fail.


Steve Pearlman knows that lag is the biggest concern among people, and if there is a high amount of lag than it will fail, until there is a solution.

The only articles that will be worth reading are the ones that review the system after it is release and being used on a large scale.

[Browler]

It is not all a bed of roses of course for services like OnLive - there a definitely a lot of potential problems that we need to consider. First and foremost, PC gamers are used to controlling their own destiny but with services like OnLive, the "overlord" will control it all. If your game doesn't work because of some random DRM issue you are without any kind of ability to fix it yourself - be prepared to get on the phone with the guys at OnLive. For a group of people that usually curse at any kind of DRM that affects their ability to use the game they way they want, OnLive could either be a great option (like Steam only better) or a bad one (like what was initially on Bioshock).



Another drawback is that your game is going to look like everyone else's game now - there are basically no ways to improve the image quality or resolution beyond what OnLive offers. While we had access to the same video / graphics options menus on OnLive that you would find on the local games, changes often crashed the session or were reverted. Obviously OnLive wants to be able to control how much GPU power the game you are running utilizes and what resolution (and thus how much bandwidth) you are using. I wouldn't be surprised to find a 1080p option available for a slightly higher monthly subscription rate than the "basic" 720p option at launch.

Speaking of everything looking the same, services like OnLive will likely put a hold on innovative PC gaming technologies like Eyefinity mulit-monitor gaming and NVIDIA's 3D Vision.

Of course, don't forget this: if your Internet is down or you are somewhere without access, you simply can't game.

And how will gamers on OnLive participate in mulitplayer gaming? Will they be able to interface with standard local PC gamers or be limited to other OnLive gamers?

Welcome to console gaming dude, OnLive is certainly not your pc modder haven, your limited to a certain resolution, you have to play with people on multiplayer who also have your console, but at the same time, perfect compatibility and better on the developers cause they design for one set of hardware. But guess what? PC gaming is practicly dead anyway. Seriously, who in their right mind would pay thousands of dollars every 2 years updating their gaming PC when they could buy a $300 console and be in gamer heaven for up to 5-10 years? Now with OnLive you get the nice controls you get with a mouse and keyboard, or you can use a controller of course, and there is no startup cost, and remember, OnLive games have the potential of far exceeding anything local machines can run, so watch out, you might not have a choice soon when the next big game is an OnLive exclusive.

[Browler]

Yea this article really doesn't hold much weight. Since the beta may not be open in his area.

I just find it funny reading the comments, where people are saying stuff like, "This is exactly what everyone thought", "we didn't need this confirmed".

But when there are articles written about how it works pretty well and is lag-free and some beta users saying it works well, some people are so positive it will fail.


Steve Pearlman knows that lag is the biggest concern among people, and if there is a high amount of lag than it will fail, until there is a solution.

The only articles that will be worth reading are the ones that review the system after it is release and being used on a large scale.

Agreed, I want a review after its been released for about a month, mby 3, until then just give it a chance before you bash it.

[keepah]

imo someones should tell onlive about this

[Browler]

imo someones should tell onlive about this

They should, this is why beta testers are not allowed to write about their experiences.

UPDATE: I did.

[It's Onlive!]

At the end of the article he says that his ping time to Onlive was 80-85 milliseconds. Onlive is suppose to be under 80 milliseconds for the entire round trip from the time you press a button and see the screen update, so obviously there is something wrong with his connection, or it's because he is not really suppose to be in the beta, and like someone already said, his connection might not be using an "optimal route" like Steve talked about in the Columbia video, because maybe they set up these optimal routes for certain ISP's and beta users.

So this guy is using Onlive and his latency is more than TWICE as much as it is suppose to be, that is probably why there is lag. Steve said that there is 8ms for your PC to decompress the video, 1 ms for Onlive to compress it, maybe 30 ms for your ISP jitter and stuff, and after you add your ping time to and from the server it will be under 80ms, the threshold of perception.
But this guy is 80ms+80ms+1ms+8ms+ another 30ms maybe more because his ISP might not have an "optimal route" setup, so he probably is using something close to 200ms round trip, maybe more.

I don't care about the graphics though... I stopped playing games before the PS3 and 360, so Onlive looks good enough for me.

[AhmedBob]

Yea this article really doesn't hold much weight. Since the beta may not be open in his area.

I just find it funny reading the comments, where people are saying stuff like, "This is exactly what everyone thought", "we didn't need this confirmed".

But when there are articles written about how it works pretty well and is lag-free and some beta users saying it works well, some people are so positive it will fail.


Steve Pearlman knows that lag is the biggest concern among people, and if there is a high amount of lag than it will fail, until there is a solution.

The only articles that will be worth reading are the ones that review the system after it is release and being used on a large scale.

That's pretty much the extent to which I've seen Onlive being commended, that it "works well". No one's ecstatic about how it looks, which means performance is decent, but doesn't quite cut it.

[Aph0ticShield]

I'm thinking that he was saying that his ping to OnLive was 80ms. That IS round trip, but it is still well over the limit. The beta invite must have been for the west coast server, and he thought that he would play from the east coast or something.

80ms+ 20ms (for rendering) + 1 (for compression) + 8 (for decompression) + 5ms (for jitter) = 114ms. Of course it isn't going to be good.