OnLive is *seriously* impressive

[micrometers]

I recommend you try it out. I'm not even playing it optimally -- on a macbook air over wifi.

I cannot tell that it is streamed video over the internet. It feels as good as any local game I've played.

Only downside is some shitty video compression, most noticeable in 2d/3d games like Trine

 

[shingletingle]

I'm not going to try it.

 

[Maximilian]

I recommend you try it out. I'm not even playing it optimally -- on a macbook air over wifi.

I cannot tell that it is streamed video over the internet. It feels as good as any local game I've played.

Only downside is some shitty video compression, most noticeable in 2d/3d games like Trine

Macbook? Onlive?!

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

It is kind of an interesting concept, however my internet is nowhere near fast enough to handle the service.

 

[Soundmanred]

no

 

[NoSoup4You]

Probably the future of gaming once this service matures.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I semi-regularly can't smoothly stream youtube with my connection... games would be 1000x worse to try to deal with. If you had a decent full fledged laptop, it wouldn't look nearly as impressive to you. For someone with a rock solid connection and not a lot of power, I guess it'd look pretty cool.

 

[Dankk]

Onlive is a neat concept, but unusable for me. The input lag kills it. For those of you who say that the lag is "unnoticeable": Well, maybe for you it is. But I'm one of those people who turn off Vsync in all of their games because the extra few milliseconds of latency is unacceptable. Having extra input lag because of your internet connection? Fuck no.

Not to mention, when I play a game, I want to see the graphics in their full 1080p uncompressed glory. None of that remote streaming crap. I bought a nice computer so my games can be locally rendered perfectly in real-time. Until Onlive is truly indistinguishable from the regular thing, I'll avoid it.

Also, the bandwidth usage is probably insane. My internet connection is good, but not great. If my brother was having problems streaming Netflix in the other room, I'd hate to have to tell him "Hey, uhh, sorry. I'm playing a video game (?)."

BUT, Onlive works very well for some people, and I have no problem with that. A year ago I thought they were destined to fail. Turns out I was wrong. I'm actually really impressed with some of the stuff they're doing. They've done a good job at staying competitive.

 

[JSt0rm]

I live in the city and I admit it makes me smile from a techno nerd point of view. The iq leaves a lot to be desired though. You can download and install it and test games out for free so go ahead and play around and check it out just to experience the technology.

 

[CPA]

It is kind of an interesting concept, however my internet is nowhere near fast enough to handle the service.

Mine either, which sucks.

 

[micrometers]

From a tech standpoint it's a near miracle IMO. Also, I find that youtube for some reason has really bad performance compared to netflix, which is another one of those miracles of internet tech. I mean, netflix is honestly a better value than pirating the material.

 

[HeXen]

Its great for gaming on netbooks, Mac's...etc. devices you'd never beable to play such games on to begin with.
its the future no doubt.
though my understanding is its pre processed then buffered to your computer so your input is in realtime and not going back n forth to the server. so its not suppose to have lag but apparently results are mixed for everyone.

 

[uli2000]

I can only use it on my 6 mb/sec dsl connection if there is no other network traffic. If my wife's on her computer, it tells me not enough bandwith.

It's not bad, but I'd hate to play all my games like this. I got the new Deus Ex game from them for $1 during a sale. at times it kinda like watching a stuttering youtube video and is damn near unplayable, but if conditions are perfect, it's pretty good playing it thru onlive.

 

[Cerb]

I have problems playing fast FPS games because of monitor's input lag. I couldn't imagine adding ping times to it. Also, does OnLive do anti-aliasing?

 

[StinkyPinky]

I've seen the future and I hate it.

 

[austin316]

Onlive is a neat concept, but unusable for me. The input lag kills it. For those of you who say that the lag is "unnoticeable": Well, maybe for you it is. But I'm one of those people who turn off Vsync in all of their games because the extra few milliseconds of latency is unacceptable. Having extra input lag because of your internet connection? Fuck no.

Not to mention, when I play a game, I want to see the graphics in their full 1080p uncompressed glory. None of that remote streaming crap. I bought a nice computer so my games can be locally rendered perfectly in real-time. Until Onlive is truly indistinguishable from the regular thing, I'll avoid it.

Also, the bandwidth usage is probably insane. My internet connection is good, but not great. If my brother was having problems streaming Netflix in the other room, I'd hate to have to tell him "Hey, uhh, sorry. I'm playing a video game (?)."

BUT, Onlive works very well for some people, and I have no problem with that. A year ago I thought they were destined to fail. Turns out I was wrong. I'm actually really impressed with some of the stuff they're doing. They've done a good job at staying competitive.

Onlive is not marketed to people like you who spend $300 on a graphics card.

 

[HeXen]

If nothing else, its perfect for trying out games without installing a demo. you get a 30 minute free trial on most all the games i saw. though their selection of games atm isnt that great.

one day though, in 10+ yrs, it could be a very likable service. When that day comes, i'm ditching the expensive hardware and large cases.

 

[micrometers]

me thinks that expensive hardware and large cases (and exotic cooling setups) is half the fun.

 

[mmntech]

It is kind of an interesting concept, however my internet is nowhere near fast enough to handle the service.

I think it applies for most peoples'. Internet service in North America isn't growing fast enough. It can barely handle Netflix as is.

This will be the future of gaming though. It's been moving in this direction for awhile now, as publishers move to convert from a commodity to a service based business. More lucrative and more control over how the product is used.

 

[Matthiasa]

If I had an older system with good internet I might try it... but I don't.

I have problems playing fast FPS games because of monitor's input lag. I couldn't imagine adding ping times to it. Also, does OnLive do anti-aliasing?

You need a new monitor...

 

[Cerb]

You need a new monitor...

Not until something goes wrong with this one, or a sufficiently good deal comes along. Twitch games aren't so important as to get rid of a perfectly good monitor (now, if it were ghosting, instead of input lag, I would have upgraded long ago).

Also, it appears they do have AA for many titles, but they'll be upscaled on most monitors.

 

[BD231]

 

[DeathReborn]

Tried Patrician IV on it to decide whether or not may dad would like the series (he's old school gamer i.e. no FPS etc) and there's no tutorial, no manual, not even so much as a picture showing you what keys on the keyboard do what. Until they work massively on the user friendliness side of the system it will always suck.

 

[toyota]

I would not put a lot of stock in anything the OP says. he also said in another thread that cpus stopped mattering with dual core Pentiums and that even an old 1ghz Athlon could still play many modern games.

I have been with OnLive since they started and find it pretty terrible. if you are used to nice graphics at 1080 and no lag then it is quite a change playing low settings at 720 with some lag. if all you have is crappy pc and low res screen then its better than nothing but the slight amount of lag would still be an issue if you are sensitive like me. and I have 30 meg connection with 19ms ping and live 100 miles from their Atlanta server so its not my end.

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

I like the service. Works great on my netbook. I like the social atmosphere to it too. Sometimes I'll watch people play amnesia or see how they tackle missions in batman.

Depends on my connection but at worst it feels like playing a QW game on old 33.6. I played that shit for years and loved it. If my connection's really bad then it definitely turns to shit. You get artifacts and audio stutters real bad.

Great way to demo games w/out downloading like it was mentioned above. I played NBA2K11 and it worked great.