Cloud gaming deals with the same concepts as cloud computing nike air max fury masculino , which is essentially the same as the interplay between “smart” and “dumb” computers on a LAN (local area network), except that instead of a LAN, the Internet is used to link the “dumb” terminal with it’s “smart” counterpart.
For anyone who doesn’t know about or understand the concept of smartdumb terminals or cloud computing, here’s a quick rundown. Imagine a network of computers in an office, say ten. Nine of those computers are not very powerful, just enough to start up and run windows. The tenth computer is the “brain” of the whole network. It is very powerful. When one of the first nine PCs requires computing power for any reason nike air max 98 masculino , it tells the “brain” PC which then does the processing and sends the information back through the network to the PC that requested it. The first nine PCs only take input (keyboard and mouse) and show information (monitor). The “brain” PC is the one that “figures out” the data and sends it back to be shown on the PCs screen.
Cloud gaming works almost identically to the above example. In-fact, if you only use the above example for games, and replace the LAN with the Internet, it’s an exact example of cloud based gaming. There will of-course be more than one games-based cloud computing provider when this concept fully takes off in a few years, but for now, the only companies ready to provide us with cloud gaming goodness are Onlive nike air max 93 masculino , Gaikai and Playcast.
It’s obvious that cloud gaming has lots of benefits, such as a lower price-tag for hardware and the ability to play a game on launch day without a need for an install or any kind of wait. Updates will also be automatic and there will be no need to insert a disk every time you want to play, which is excellent for some gamers who don’t care for such annoyances. Once steam was available to the public, some gamers rushed out and re-purchased their favourite games on the platform because they hated patches or what have you. Steam lets the gamer focus on the game, which is one of it’s biggest selling points I think, and that will translate well to services like Onlive.
Cloud gaming may have some good points nike shox feminino , but it’s bad points far outweigh it’s good points, at-least for now. The most important thing about Onlive (which is the only cloud gaming service I’ve heard more than a little about) right now is the way that it handles differing Internet connection speeds. A user with access to an insane, out-of-this-world Internet connection will see all that their game has to offer in terms of graphics. Users with slower Internet connections will still get the same game-play experience as their super high flying counterpart but the graphics will be turned down several notches to keep the number of frames per second high.
This is all well and good if you live in places like Korea, but for us here in Australia, it isn’t ideal. Around here, not many people have blisteringly fast Internet. Hell nike air max 1 feminino , some people even have dial-up, or none at all! (shudder). Sure, there are plenty of users with high speed connections but plenty more low-speed broadband connections such as ADSL, which may be fine for simply playing the game with a decent number of frames per second. At these speeds, it’s impossible to see and experience the games the way they are meant to be played, and when looking at games like upcoming Battlefield 3 nike free run flyknit feminino , it’s a damn shame that every Onlive user won’t be able to experience the amazing visuals the developer worked so hard on. Wait, there’s more.
We haven’t even gotten to the topic of monthly data caps. In Australia up until recently, we have had to endure painful monthly data caps on every plan under the sun. You’d have to pay $100+ monthly if you wanted a reliable, high speed plan with a high download limit. High meaning 60Gb. Not enough for the money. What about other people in this country though? What about people in other countries with data caps? Since data is going back and forth constantly, the amount of data going back and forth in a single hour must be massive, and if someone doesn’t have an Internet plan which allows for plenty of data nike air max zero feminino , it’s gonna get chewed up real fast.
Side note! If the whole world took on cloud gaming tomorrow and left traditional consoles and PCs in the dust, titles would obviously be developed for these services and only these services. Because of the way that services like Onlive handle different Internet connection speeds, game development studios will in turn spend less money on developing the graphics of their games. Why spend $10 million on making your character models look detailed and water look crisp and fresh when only 30% of your user base will see it? Even if traditional consoles and PCs were around and being used in this scenario, graphics would suffer for the same reason. Not as badly, mind you (I couldn’t imagine the uproar if they made Crysis 3 and the textures looked like something from the early PlayStation 2 days) but they would suffer and the change would be noticeable because game devs won’t be pumping money into graphics.