Onlive seems to have made advances into game streaming on the net. Is this the end of the game boxes? http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j-dhCTNCDpS-d8y7tOcD5klyYXJAD975935O2
Not for any game that depends on latency.
Now your 100 ping time can be 200 ping time, just to react to a keypress.
Think about clicking the mouse button and having it go to the server and then back to you before anything happens on your screen.
I heard the strain from streaming with Xfire isn’t that bad for latency–the people making that claim might already have better than average computers, though.
Isn’t xfire a chat thing?
Yea, it is. But people on your friends list can watch whatever game you’re playing if you turn on the streaming feature.
I think I’ve misunderstood what this specific device does… it streams the game to your computer, you play it–but their computers, rather than your own, do all the data crunching and other hard work so you don’t need a fancy rig to game?
Ah ok, so with Xfire, someone can show you their screen while they play? Sounds neat.
Does Xfire allow the person watching the game to actually take control?
Today, I played some old-school CS, and had someone next to me watching on his computer. He did the spectator mode, and his screen was basically the same as mine, just slightly delayed. This was on a LAN, so not much latency. But I tried to watch his screen and use my keyboard, and it was totally unplayable. It didn’t react fast enough, even though it was basically 20 or 30 ms before it updated.
That’s how this service will work – you’ll receive the video on your TV, but the game will be on their computers. So twice the latency, and completely useless for any sort of action game. It would be just fine for games that didn’t involve quick reflexes, of course. Not to mention that it will be a GB of data per hour or so.