OnLive Latency: The Reckoning

By Richard Leadbetter Published 7 July, 2010

Can Cloud gaming really compete with PC and console response?

OnLive latency has finally been measured, and the results are pleasantly surprising. In Digital Foundry's independent tests, we achieved an optimum response of 150ms - similar to playing Killzone 2 locally, and in line with Rare's claims for lag when using the new Kinect camera controller.

The tests form part of our complete breakdown of the OnLive platform, based on extensive testing of the launch titles in the USA. This article is set to be published on Digital Foundry this Saturday and includes an extended look at the front end and the OnLive feature-set, along with detailed analysis of game performance and video encoding quality.

The crucial factor in judging whether the platform is viable has always been the lag. Just how playable OnLive is all comes down to how quickly it responds to your commands, and here is where the company's claims have been met with the most incredulity.

There are many different elements to the overall make-up of the latency of course: the lag of controller input, OnLive's processing latency, the time it takes for data to be sent and received from the server, and of course the display latency. Previous Digital Foundry features have also proven that games themselves all operate with their own individual levels of response.

In testing the system we used our Ben Heck latency controller monitor board and made use of OnLive's support for the Xbox 360 joypad. The board works by lighting up an LED whenever a button is pressed. By filming the board and the display in a single shot using a 60FPS camera, the process of counting the frames between button-press and resultant action on-screen gives us our end-to-end lag measurement.

We chose a fast TN-style LCD panel for minimal latency and compared it with CRT measurements to ascertain that the display adds an additional frame of lag which is then factored out to give us the final figure.

So let's take a look at the highlights of the latency tests we conducted.

In these tests we judge response time for shooting in Unreal Tournament III (look for the muzzle flash), punching in Assassin's Creed II and braking in DiRT 2 (signified by the brake lights on the vehicle). We count the number of frames between the button being pressed and the action occuring on-screen. Each frame accounts for 16.67ms of latency.

In a best-case scenario, we counted 10 frames delay between button and response on-screen, giving a 150ms latency once the display's contribution to the measurement was removed. Unreal Tournament III worked pretty well in sustaining that response during gameplay. However, other tests were not so consistent, with DiRT 2 weighing in at 167ms-200ms while Assassin's Creed II operated at a wide range of between 150ms-216ms. We'll be discussing the reasons behind this variance in our upcoming feature.

Our figure of an optimum 150ms end-to-end latency (166ms including our chosen display) comes with a heap of caveats, however: the nature of the Internet means that your mileage inevitably varies, as connection performance varies from ISP to ISP. Indeed, even population density of your home town can have a big impact on the quality of your line.

OnLive says that the system works within 1000 miles of its datacentres on any broadband connection and recommends 5mbps or better. We gave OnLive the best possible ISP service we could find: Verizon FiOS, offering a direct fibre optic connection to the home. Latency was also reduced still further simply due to the masses of bandwidth FiOS offers compared to bog standard ADSL: in our case, 25mbps.

Even with this mammoth connection, in our tests OnLive never meets anything like the claims made for it by company front-man Steve Perlman, on the record as describing end-to-end lag as being under 80ms and "usually... between 35-40ms".

That said, OnLive's recently announced partnership with BT, which will see datacentres integrated into the ISP's infrastructure directly, means that the service will have the best possible chance of succeeding over here, as all data should be siphoned through BT's internal systems without the need to traverse the Internet.

While latency is clearly important, the quality of the overall service is paramount. We'll be posting our complete analysis on Saturday and the results are surprising. Look out for it.

Picture of Richard.

About Richard Leadbetter

Rich has been a games journalist since the days of 16-bit and specialises in technical analysis. Commonly known around Eurogamer as the Blacksmith of the Future.

Read more articles from Richard by visiting the Richard Leadbetter archive page.

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Comments (72) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • TheRankinator #1 2 years ago

    So do you buy these games from this service? Not that I'll use it I just upgraded to a new PC :)

  • Jazzy_Geoff #2 2 years ago

    the lag isn't the main problem

    the real issue is that you have to buy a subscription and still buy games

    you can expect the games to be full rrp and the price of the subscription soon adds up to the same as a gaming rig after a few years

    not value for money
    Edited by 1 at 07/07/10 @ 21:05

  • DrDamn #3 2 years ago

    Wouldn't it make sense to test it with a normal connection rather than "the best possible ISP service we could find"?

  • jeebthegreat #4 2 years ago

    I guess the point of using the best possible ISP is to show that there's still a significant delay, so imagine the delay on a standard connection

  • AOFanboi #5 2 years ago

    The realer issue is that this comes at a time when broadband ISPs are hurrying to cap the monthly amount you get to use - a game which not only sends state and commands to a local client, but sends all input from and video output to the "thin" client will eat up that faster than you can say "hey, where did this extra charge come from?". Or they throttle your connection to lower speeds when you hit the cap, is really OnLive as fun over a 64 kbit line?

  • riceNpea #6 2 years ago

    ' the realer issue '


    ...sorry but that just made me laugh.

  • Feanor #7 2 years ago

    "Verizon FiOS, offering a direct fibre optic connection to the home. Latency was also reduced still further simply due to the masses of bandwidth FiOS offers compared to bog standard ADSL: in our case, 25mbps download and 5mbps upload."

    Are you sure you don't mean 25mbps upload?

    I have FIOS and it's 25 both ways.

  • Garin #8 2 years ago

    "Are you sure you don't mean 25mbps upload?

    I have FIOS and it's 25 both ways."

    It depends on the area you live in.

  • rotsujin #9 2 years ago

    So "less than 80ms" to see a result on screen is actually more than twice that. On fiber. And Perlman called Eurogamer ignorant!
    Edited by 1 at 07/07/10 @ 21:49

  • tiredoldandy #10 2 years ago

    I refused to play CS:S when I had latencies higher than 50 or 60ms back in the day...I think I'll give this a miss.

  • Miths #11 2 years ago

    "The realer issue is that this comes at a time when broadband ISPs are hurrying to cap the monthly amount you get to use"

    I can't believe they are still actually doing that in some countries - and supposedly it's only getting worse?
    I think it's been ten years or more since I last heard about an ISP with bandwidh caps here in Denmark (and even back then there were several alternatives that didn't). I don't even think there's much "traffic shaping" or throttling going on - I definitely haven't noticed any slowdown of any types of traffic (including torrent) with any of the two ISPs I've had while living on this address.

    I'm currently on a 50/2 Mbit cable connection. My bandwidth monitor shows I typically have between 600 and 800 GB of traffic (down/up) a month.

  • lockload #12 2 years ago

    Too much 100ms never mind 150ms isnt acceptable

    I would hate to see what some with an avergae display and average connection... would get 300ms+
    Edited by 3 at 07/07/10 @ 22:36

  • php_penguin #13 2 years ago

    These numbers don't include the lag in the games themselves, which is definitely *not* zero.

    Have there been lag testing on the games running locally? If so, maybe take these numbers into account...

    Even so, OnLive is gonna be difficult to sell unless games and the system for the average user is cheaper than just buying a rig/console.

    Finally, it's likely to be destroyed by the monopolism (in the UK) and oligopolism (in the US) of internet speeds which are in general awful.
    Edited by 1 at 07/07/10 @ 22:37

  • lockload #14 2 years ago

    Surely onlive has been consigned to obscurity in the uk by only being available for bt broadband customer similar to btvision

  • jerrymanu #15 2 years ago

    Not that I'm particularly bothered by OnLive but statments like "I refused to play CS:S when I had latencies higher than 50 or 60ms back in the day........." are LOLabale TBH. I've played all of my MW2 MP with lobby latency of greater than 150ms. It's a pain in the ass I'll admit, but it's not exactly game breaking. I've prestiged, come in the top half of most games I play and even when I do notice LAG I'm rarely alone. The chatter over coms illustrates as much.

    I appreciate that its pretty much the fundamental make or break point of OnLive but there'is soooooo much being made of LAG nowadays that I think it's getting a bit silly. I mean, who the fuck can tell the difference between 100ms and 150ms with the naked eye?

    Not exactly on topic but just a thought.

  • Sanxo #16 2 years ago

    150ms is obviously pretty hopeless for twitch gaming, but there's clearly going to be some games where that's perfectly acceptable.

    I can't see it getting much traction in the core gamer market, but might be do well in the more casual sector. I don't think we should be any more concerned than we are about Farmville, for instance. Unless you like to rage about things of course,

  • Spydy #17 2 years ago

    Pah! Cloud computing can't possibly work.

    http://ww w.eurogamer.net/articles/gdc-wh...

  • hiddenranbir #18 2 years ago

    Is Richard having to eat his words?


    Anyway, 150ms is eurgh!

  • Deckard1 #19 2 years ago

    so all the games are gonna feel as laggy as killzone? No thanks.

  • solidSnake04 #20 2 years ago

    @Spydy
    It can....just not yet

  • George-Roper #21 2 years ago

    Not that I'm particularly bothered by OnLive but statments like "I refused to play CS:S when I had latencies higher than 50 or 60ms back in the day........." are LOLabale TBH. I've played all of my MW2 MP with lobby latency of greater than 150ms. It's a pain in the ass I'll admit, but it's not exactly game breaking. I've prestiged, come in the top half of most games I play and even when I do notice LAG I'm rarely alone. The chatter over coms illustrates as much.

    I appreciate that its pretty much the fundamental make or break point of OnLive but there'is soooooo much being made of LAG nowadays that I think it's getting a bit silly. I mean, who the fuck can tell the difference between 100ms and 150ms with the naked eye?

    Not exactly on topic but just a thought.

    Yep, but when you were playing MW2 MP you weren't subscribing to play the game as well as having to 'buy' it from the service too.

    You can forgive lag when it happens on a random server and there's no real cost involved. Just drop out and try for a different server. At the point where you're paying for a service though, anything that interrupts gameplay will without doubt irritate.

  • Kaminari #22 2 years ago

    And that's even without mentioning the poor PQ due to the unavoidable multithreaded compression.

  • Darren #23 2 years ago

    Poor latency isn't the only issue with OnLive though as I'm especially interested to see what the image quality is like. I'd imagine that it won't look that great because of the fact it is heavily compressed. Still want to see it for myself though even if I have no interest in this service (I personally think it'll fail badly but we'll see).

  • Darren #24 2 years ago

    @notmyrealname - I've read HDTV reviews where the reviewer has complained about screens with a lag of 40ms in online shooters because it is noticeable, although they admit they adjusted to it in time. So 100ms+ is going to not only be obvious but annoying I'd imagine for those people.

  • gjgjg #25 2 years ago

    better than expected, in 3 or 4 years this will be a serious threat to steam, xbl and psn.

  • ukslim #26 2 years ago

    I'm really looking forward to seeing these results.

    As well as an objective test, though, I'd also like to see a systematically tested subjective test -- get a group of people to play various kinds of games, and analyse their subjective views as to how satisfying an experience it was. Partition the data according to game type (FPS, RTS, platform, driving, etc.) and gamer type (hardcore FPSer, casual, etc.).

  • djed #27 2 years ago

    "Verizon FiOS, offering a direct fibre optic connection to the home. Latency was also reduced still further simply due to the masses of bandwidth FiOS offers compared to bog standard ADSL: in our case, 25mbps download and 5mbps upload."

    I don't see how bandwidth would decrease latency. Bandwidth does obviously not mean speed, it means width. I guess there would be congestion if you had less than the required 5 mbps, but it's still a strange sentence (as you can easily get 5mpbs ADSL).

  • SixFootHalfling #28 2 years ago

    ""Verizon FiOS, offering a direct fibre optic connection to the home. Latency was also reduced still further simply due to the masses of bandwidth FiOS offers compared to bog standard ADSL: in our case, 25mbps download and 5mbps upload."

    I don't see how bandwidth would decrease latency. Bandwidth does obviously not mean speed, it means width. I guess there would be congestion if you had less than the required 5 mbps, but it's still a strange sentence (as you can easily get 5mpbs ADSL). "

    True bandwidth makes no real difference beyond the point of 0 congestion, but the use of fiber directly into the house means this is the fastest possible connection, limited only by the speed of light.

    So essentially 150ms is the best possible time, and anyone that doesn't use fiber will automatically have more latency.

  • SlipstreamDrifter #29 2 years ago

    I think a lot of you have missed the point. although the 150ms represents the best possible circumstances, the Onlive service is the first of its kind, and from now the technology and thus the response times will only get better.
    the question now is will this sort of gaming take off, can it eat into the pc or console markets, will it be user friendly enough to bring more people into gaming etc etc.

  • alcides #30 2 years ago

    similar to playing Killzone 2 locally, and in line with Rare's claims for lag when using the new Kinect camera controller.

    both famed for being rubbish.
    is DF glad because it never truly believed the tech could work? I will proceed to read on now.

  • davisorle #31 2 years ago

    Ok, you need to understand one thing. This OnLive in its current state is probably a silly choice for someone with a decent gaming rig. Now get in the shoes of someone with an intel based intergraded graphic card on his laptop that has to be moving around or whatever... THERE is where the service is convinient. Makes your non capable laptop a gaming machine.

    Personally I see no other reason for the service. Works as Steam in a manner ( not as good neither same way cause one streams and the other doesnt ) with the difference that you also get lag on top of it with no graphical edge for visual and high end gaming rig junkies like myself.

  • orborborb #32 2 years ago

    I can not enjoy games with more than 100ms or so of lag, even if they are RPGs just selecting items from a menu or walking around is too frustrating. I'm looking at you Fable II. And for an action game even the 66ms minimum on the PS3 and 360 is pushing it, arcadey games work much better on the Wii for this reason. And this is all using a CRT, I can't imagine how people enjoy the average 360 game on the average 5 frame delay LCD TV. No wonder games are trying to be more like movies, that's the only experience you are getting, a movie where you make suggestions to the main character.
    Edited by 4 at 08/07/10 @ 06:41

  • Harmonica #33 2 years ago

    Yeah, I'm not sure this is viable for anyone. You'd expect them to try and get to 15ms at least. If you sit in front of a TV with more than that response time you will notice it, it doesn't matter if you're a 'pro-gamer' or a casual one. The latency is noticeable and offputting.

    I'm not sure that we should be encouraging tech like this at such a protozoic stage of its development - not to the hardcore and not to the casual mainstream either, if we want games to be taken seriously.

    I mean, my mother was playing Carcassonne the other week and she complained that her opponent was 'a bit laggy', and she cared enough about it to stop playing. That from someone who mostly plays Zuma and Tetris and hasn't been near an FPS since I tried to get her to play Halo a long time ago.
    Edited by 2 at 08/07/10 @ 06:51

  • Shinetop #34 2 years ago

    Man, using a thin client to remote desktop to a server in the same building isn't even tolerable yet. Why would fast-paced gaming on a server on the other side of the country suddenly be silky smooth?

  • siro #35 2 years ago

    I'm suprised there was no specific info on where the server was located. Having fibre doesn't automagically make great connections. So that should be factored out or at least look upon as well.

    What was the ping to the server itself?

  • Zelos #36 2 years ago

    @djed

    As I understand it, latency is the time to send a packet with no data to the other end of the connection.

    I guess that you need to receive an entire frame of video data before it can be displayed, so the actual latency you see in game is dependent on how quickly you can download that frame, which depends on bandwidth.

  • makememoo #37 2 years ago

    The point about latency in games at the moment is they all use smoothing algorithms so you effectively feel the "average" latency of all people connected and thus it's slightly compensating for bad laggers and slightly hampering the super-ping people. Those same things cannot be used in a situation where the actual entire input to the game is being sent (and suffering from latency) as with OnLive as they currently stand so there will be a much larger feeling of a poor experience all round for anyone who has poor latency.

    Also correctly noted above, latency is not bandwidth past a certain point is it peering. Putting servers in datacenters is a nice step because the ISP can sort their routing so everyone gets great peering to the game servers, but it's still a far more unreliable situation considering they will no doubt be under some kind of SLA and not a priority for engineers working for BT.
    Edited by 1 at 08/07/10 @ 08:31

  • Zelos #38 2 years ago

    @makememoo

    Indeed, there's a huge area of game programming that exists to hide the effects of ping in games. And, as you say, none of it is relevant here because the delay is effectively between the controller and the screen, not the client computer and the server.
    Edited by 1 at 08/07/10 @ 08:56

  • Goodfella #39 2 years ago

    Lets face it, this is going to be about as successful as the Phantom.

    http://en .wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom...

  • Ryze #40 2 years ago

    Lag is a problem, as Killzone is 150ms and noticable, while every Onlive game is 150ms or WORSE.

    Then there's the broken pricing system, and the issue of how they'll make enough money to expand for top end PC titles as they're released over the next few years.

    This is an interesting concept for the future.

    If BT integrate the tech into their BT vision boxes, then they could be onto a winner if they bundle the service with their broadband at a decent price. The BT deal is the best thing that Onlive have announced so far, although I'll not be choosing BT as my ISP anytime soon...

  • jellyhead #41 2 years ago

    It's the subscription and pricing that's putting me off. That and patchy internet provision in Britain meaning patchy performance and a total reliance on an internet connection mean that i'll wait and see how it goes. I like to play games and i'm regularly away from internet access. Offline modes are a must for me and as i'm mainly an SP gamer i couldn't care less about multiplayer gaming really.

    Have they clarified if the games you subscribe to will be available beyond 2012? I know that EA had put a clause that their availability would be reappraised then. So you might end up paying a subscription fee, buying a game full price and only having access to it for a limited time.

    Yeah, i'll be waiting for the limitations and real world performance & quality info to come out before touching this service.

  • Excors #42 2 years ago

    djed: "I don't see how bandwidth would decrease latency."

    Say the game is running at 30fps, and each frame is 0.1Mbit in size. If you have a 3Mbit/s connection, it takes 33ms to download the frame before you can begin to decode and display it. If you have a 30Mbit/s connection, it only takes 3ms (and then your connection is idle for another 30ms before receiving the next frame). That means you save 30ms off the total latency.

  • Zerobob #43 2 years ago

    Well I don't want any extra lag while gaming, thank you very much. Also, why should playing a single player video game rely on a temperamental broadband connection at all? The void between the manufacturers' latency claims and Eurogamer's latency facts says it all.

    I'm sure I read recently that the image quality isn't consistant either. I can't quite see how less responsive games with worse image quality is better. The whole concept seems like a backwards step to me, or at best an idea too far before it's time.

    I think the only way this product can possibly sell is if they hand it over to Apple, put an "i" in front of the name, make it white and shinier, get Steve Jobs to do a reveal, tie it into iTunes and the Apps Store, and put out a series of sickeningly pretentious adverts to promote it.

  • hazelam #44 2 years ago

    that kind of lag would be noticeable, i don't know if it would ruin a fast moving fps or not, but i can't see it helping.
    but regardless of whether or not it works, the current pricing structure is just a joke.
    pay a sub, and then buy or rent games on top.
    no way in hell, if it was a flat rate to access anything, maybe it would be interesting, assuming it works well enough.
    but buying games and then having onlive hold them hostage.
    no, no, no, NO.

  • KingCathcart #45 2 years ago

    This is all still early days and the fact that a service such as this even exists should be taken as a positive.

    Its possible to envision that in a few years time we could all be potentially playing top end games on cheap/small devices (Netbooks, iPads, Smartphones,etc) in our local Starbuck or on a basic desktop, MAC, TV at home.

    As more services move into this space costs will come down and it's not impossible to imagine the big console developers taking this route for the next gen systems (just look how far MS, Sony and Nintendo have come with there online services already).

    The only real issue holding this back is our connectivity levels and surely these can only get better.

  • jellyhead #46 2 years ago

    The other issue holding it back is value for money not just technology. Sure the tech will improve and in 10 years time this will be a viable service for a large swathe of the population but the subscription fees, full priced games and potentially time-limited access to those games are going to put people off too.

  • SilentNinja92 #47 2 years ago

    Considering how new this is its fairly impressive but thats a lot of lag tbh.

    Im hoping they can get it down though. i personally game on a ps3 and 360 but the laptop im using whilst not that powerful (NFS MW is close to its limit, runs CS well though) its got a fairly decent 720p screen so the latest games would look nice through onlive.

    And for me going to unviersity, this would be a godsend. University accomidation isnt really designed for a 26" hd tv and a ps3 in there it would make studying in there impossible. Onlive would be a nice alternative.

  • TitusCrow #48 2 years ago

    Some of the reply's from the this gen's "dumb as rocks" kids make me dispair for the the future of twitch gaming... 150ms lag they say? Are they mad I ask? On the competitve sceen on games like Q3 or UT2004 such numbers would have been openly mocked - yes mocked I say! Are we now happy for conditions of play to go backwards? Will we now once again be in awe of those who turn up at a server with 120ms connection speed and mutter its some kind of Voodoo? In 2010 are we happy to go back to pre-2000 speeds of connection? Should I stop asking retorical questions?

    Time and time again I have viewed as sacred cows of gaming have been swept away, replaced by new norms that were always worse and to the detrement of the gamer. Who can forget the ridicule with which horse armor was greeted - now we have a culture of DLC as the expected mod of operation on all games. If we accept things like this onlive we will re-train another generation to accept 200+ latency speeds and locked down games being bought, to then double charge you as you then pay the service charge of onlive and your internet.

    Who knows, if this washes, maybe we will also get things like a E.A and acti sub to play online games, on top of the other 2 charges. In effect you are paying for the right to be a captive customer and get access to other things you can then buy as well...its all went wrong somewhere. Are we now the lesser sons of greater fathers? A bastard generation who fast forget our glory days of free maps, mods and real expansions. We are redefined and monitarized at the behest of our masters like the redoubtable Mr Kotik, a new era of high margin gaming waits to plunder any who are stupid enough to let it happen.

    Will we go quiet in the night of this type of future, or has it already happend?

    I won't be getting onlive, If anyone needs this soapbox after me its in the garden shed, next to my companion cube and stack of PC gamer mags from the glory days :) / rant

  • Grayvern #49 2 years ago

    If they are negotiating for group licenses what version of the game are they using because if it's the PC version many games will be out up to a year late on onlive, and the average consumer will miss the first party tentpole releases.

    I'm also unclear on the target market, with the games it has it certainly isn't all casual. Surely the few people who can't afford the arcade aren't going to be tempted by a subscription service.


    The only thing that makes me worry it will stick around is the Bt partnership thing.

  • jellyhead #50 2 years ago

    The BT partnership is just that, other providers will be able to offer the service also. It's not exclusive to BT as far as i can tell and hey, it might get BT to pull their fingers out of their arses and get a decent infrastructure in place.

    I'm not holding my breath though.

  • KingCathcart #51 2 years ago

    @jellyhead As more companies bring similar services to the market we can expect costs to come down. Although with the bandwidth required I'm sure we'll see a fuss kicked up by the service providers.

  • 5h1nj1 #52 2 years ago

    So, it's working fine on a dedicated fiber. Wow. What a surprise. Btw, 150ms is not so good.

  • jellyhead #53 2 years ago

    The download caps that most ISPs have in place will also put a bit of a crimp on the service's uptake and usage.

  • peterfll #54 2 years ago

    Such a service may be viable eventually, but in the short to medium term its never going to be mass-market with the sort of connections rates generally available and used. As a DF fan I surprised the article isn't a little more balanced; I think you should have taken a standard connection type\rate and tried the service on that as well, so you had some real-world basis for comparison.

    I live in the centre of London and I can tell you we aren't even close to getting fibre optic, its still years off.

  • Zelos #55 2 years ago

    if it's the PC version many games will be out up to a year late on onlive, and the average consumer will miss the first party tentpole releases.

    Indeed. It seems a bit odd that part of their sales pitch is "you don't need to maintain a high-end PC to play games" when most of the games have been ported to the PC from cheap, easy-to-use consoles in the first place.

  • Bremenacht #56 2 years ago

    QoS and reduced line contention could help on the OnLive cause, but I doubt BT would prioritise OnLive packets over it's own Vision/Canvas/etc stuff. You pay for reduced line contention, one way or another, and there's still the chance of sharing fat-pipe time with some 24/7 torrenting swine. Anyone who looked into these sort of things would probably be a PC owner or console enthusiast anyway.

    I still think it's a viable service, but I just don't understand who they're hoping to sell it to. They should really be hooking up with the WoW or SW:TOR type of consumer, rather than thinking they'll attract the CoD brigade. They'll not make enough money to compete with the Kotick creature, but at least they'd make something.

    Ach - I know: They'll flog it to hotel chains.
    Edited by 1 at 08/07/10 @ 14:14

  • ShapeGSX #57 2 years ago

    If you are also playing online, you will have to add the latency of the other player to the server, as well.

  • PearOfAnguish #58 2 years ago

    "the fact that a service such as this even exists should be taken as a positive"

    How is it at all positive? Aside from the ridiculous subscription costs, poorer image quality and latency issues, this is a bad thing for gamers because you don't own the games. You're simply renting them for limited time, and the publishers have total control of pricing so there'll be no deals or second hand purchases.

  • JensonJet #59 2 years ago

    Like others have suggested I'll never be interested in this service; 1. because my internet speed is unreliable because I'm with BT, and in all honesty they're shite (I'll be changing as soon as my contract runs out), 2. have no interest in not owning games (I often part-exchange games), 3. I will never and have never paid for DLC and this system is a back-door to more expensive gaming, 4. Don't like monthly charges, and do my best to avoid situations like that.

  • curtlikesmeat #60 2 years ago

    Makes no difference how well it runs when the vast majority of UK areas can't even get 200kb/sec - lol at my "8MB" connection.

  • rprince #61 2 years ago

    @George Roper: "Yep, but when you were playing MW2 MP you weren't subscribing to play the game as well as having to 'buy' it from the service too."

    Yep, but you're only paying a subscription as a replacement for your PC or console. If you take the amount of money you spend on a new gaming PC, and divide it by how often you replace your gaming PC (e.g. every 3 years), then how does that compare to the OnLive subscription cost? That's what you're paying for. It's not just a subscription for the sake of it.

  • Retro_ #62 2 years ago

    No No No, I want a console in my house and I want to Physically own the games I play. Maybe that makes me a dinosaur but I really don't care, thats the way I am.

  • Josh128 #63 2 years ago

    @sixfoothalfling

    Electrical pulses/data travel over copper wires at the same speed as optical pulses/data travel over fiber optics. Therefore having a non-optical connection does not "automatically" introduce added latency whatsoever. Optical data transmission allows for a much greater bandwidth than electrical, with less need for amplification over given distances, but thats about it...

  • 1471 #64 2 years ago

    It'll become a part of other service providers, like the hotel chain thing, and be full of card games, pool and mostly rubbish turn based stuff. It might have some modest success and maybe improve, but they've started out far too ambitious.

  • fknetwork #65 2 years ago

    It lo.o..k....s gr..e....a.t,
    Sor..r.y, i'm l.a.....gg.i.n....g!

  • freakzilla #66 2 years ago

    Even if the lag was just 10ms I still wouldn't get onlive because of the ISP bandwidth caps. And connection issues are quite common on the virgin media network.

  • PatTheMav #67 2 years ago

    Even with 50Mbps and 100Mbps becoming more commonplace (and even cheap) in good ol' Germany, I don't see this one lifting off - for the games where it matters, the high latencies are an absolute no-go (unless you're able and willing to turn back the wheel of time and consider crappy latencies as "state of the art";).

    With all this cloud-computing nonsense, I'm always wondering what people will do without any connection to the internet?

    - Mails are unavailable, because they're using Google Mail
    - Your pictures are unavailable, because you saved them on your Live Skydrive or Picasa, Flickr, Whatever
    - Your music is unavailable, because you stored it on your Skydrive or in your Dropbox
    - Your office documents are unavailable, as your used Google Docs or fell into Microsoft's Hype-trap
    - You can't play games, because you didn't bother to buy actual physical copies
    - You can't play games, because your game has some crappy DRM (and is not distributed via Steam OR is distributed via Steam, but has Ubisoft's DRM or Windows Live integrated as well..

    It's just the tip of the iceberg - the sheep/people are swayed so easily by the whole cloud-nonsense, that they throw reason and some foresight right out of the window. If we make ourselves so dependent on the web, we'll suffer as soon as there are problems with it - and there are constantly problems with it.

    Maybe I just got lucky and grew up with computers in a still analog world, learning the limits of computers and their wonders and knowing when to trust your own local hard-drive and backups.
    Edited by 1 at 09/07/10 @ 00:29

  • Murton #68 2 years ago

    "recommends 5mbps or better"

    The *only* ISP in the UK who guarantees this is Virgin Media, and only if you're on cable. ADSL in this country, despite industry claims of "up to 20mbps" is averaging around 3.5mbps with many people reporting speeds significantly lower than this.

    I'd also move to say that any "study" of this service in the US is completely inapplicable here in the UK due to the whole net neutrality issue. Here in the UK just about every major ISP throttles video streaming back to the stone age, the complaints BT has made about streaming services and the way they handle them is very well documented, imagine what they'll be like if this actually proves popular.

  • funkateer #69 2 years ago

    Looks promising, but I wonder how it performs on the average internet connection in a typical household. For example what happens if the girlfriend opens YouTube while you're playing OnLive, do you have to pause your downloads while playing OnLive, things like that.

    I guess it will have a place and maybe even a bright future, but it's certainly not for the hardcore gamer. Maybe it's convenient, but in the end you're renting games at lower quality for a higher price.

  • retrogamesdude #70 2 years ago

    This is epic fail. I already pay a subscription for an outstanding online service, its called Xbox Live. Also when i buy games, i actually own them physically, so i can always trade them in if i want to get rid of them to help me buy the next game. Also if my internet goes down or i dont feel like going on line, i can still play my games offline.
    OnLive = s*** imitation copy of Xbox Live without all the plus's.

  • craziii #71 2 years ago

    if I can't stand input delays of even half a second, this would be a nightmare.

  • Svalbaard #72 2 years ago

    I don't get this. The article and video were supposed to demonstrate the lack of noticable lag - but the game in the video looks so slow as to be almost unplayable.


    ?????