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[thehillissilent]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-onlive-uk

Digital Foundry has just released a 7 page review of OnLive launch in the UK. I found the review fair for the most part. It basically comes down to the service having lots of potential, but it isn't totally ready for prime time yet. They noted that when games consitently ran at 60fps, the lag was less noticable.

They did criticize the notion that games are running on state of the art servers due to graphics settings seeming to be in the medium range with some effects disabled. I think this is due to virtualization and capacity issues rather than the server hardware itself.

They also stated that they should either improve their compression algorithms or increase the video bit rate. YMMV with the service due to the unpredictability of your internet connection as well.

There is a lot more in the article that I haven't mentioned. It's a good read.

However, I wished they would have tested F3AR. That game almost looks and feel like I was playing it locally with a mouse\keyboard.

Here are the catagories:
The OnLive Micro-Console:

Functionally rich, the only "must have" technological element missing from the micro-console is Wi-Fi connectivity: on the rear of the unit is a standard Ethernet port and the unit really should be attached directly to the router, though you could in theory use a remote access point. The omission of Wi-Fi is a big issue from a convenience perspective, especially bearing in mind that the service's major selling point is supposedly ease-of-use. However, factoring in the extremely variable performance we got from running OnLive on Wi-Fi, it is probably for the best from a performance perspective.

The chip also features excellent upscaling support, so if you have a native 1080p monitor, you can use the unit itself for resizing 720p to "full HD" and cut out additional processing latency on the display. Quality of the scaling looked pretty good, but quibbling over upscaling quality is probably the least of the concerns you'll have with OnLive in action owing to the enormous issue of compression artifacting on fast-moving scenes.

Video Quality

To achieve the quality it does, it's believed that OnLive utilises the same h.264 video compression that is pretty much the standard with the vast majority of internet video, albeit with a tweak to the usual GOP (group of pictures) format that sees the implementation of periodic intra refresh. Typical internet video uses I-frames, or intra frames, to store reference information with subsequent frames based on differences to the reference frame before a new one comes along. Periodic intra refresh sees the image cut into rectangles and reference data provided on a "per rectangle" basis, updating much more frequently.

It works, but the bottom line is that it often isn't pretty. On static scenes, OnLive works well enough and is comparable to an offline experience, but introduce any kind of motion and the system has real issues retaining quality. The more motion there is, the bigger the differences from the reference data and more image integrity is impacted. The problem is that generally speaking video games have a lot of motion, and a lot of bright, constantly shifting colours.

OnLive likes to talk about its state-of-the-art servers, but the overall impression we get is that there's a fixed platform running on fairly low-level graphics cards (something along the lines of a 9800GT or 9800GTX remains our best guess based on performance analysis) in concert with a mid-range dual-core CPU. Titles aren't running at anything like max settings (think: low/medium) but the question is whether increased GPU power would actually amount to any real difference if intricate detail is being lost in a sea of compression artifacts any way.

Our gut feeling is that OnLive will improve its base PC specs, but will only do so when it feels ready to migrate on to the next hardware platform. In the recent Eurogamer interview, Steve Perlman talks about a forthcoming 1080p60 upgrade requiring 10mbps of bandwidth - what we'd really like to see is the option to retain 720p resolution but to use the higher bandwidth level. Realistically, short of a major rethink of its bespoke hardware encoder, OnLive image quality will only be improved by addressing the issue with a very significant boost in the

Latency

OnLive's recipe for playable gameplay is fairly straightforward then: run as close to 60FPS as possible and use the time saved for the encoding, transmission and decoding of video. How successful is it? Let's take a look at some latency measurements.

Unreal Tournament:
150ms (OnLive)
66ms (PC)
116ms (Xbox360)

Borderlands
166ms(OnLive)
50ms (PC)
133ms (Xbox360)

DiRT 3
216ms (OnLive)
100ms (PC)
116ms (Xbox360)



Unreal Tournament suggests that at optimal conditions, OnLive adds a five-frame lag, equivalent to 83ms. This may sound quite alarming, but some flat panel displays out there do that locally. Borderlands' local lag was tremendously low on PC at 50ms (it's difficult to imagine how much faster it could actually be), but here we see the difference with OnLive scale up to 116ms - the equivalent of seven frames, and in some cases elsewhere we even recorded 183ms latencies. An explanation for this could be that the OnLive version definitely wasn't running at 60 frames per second when we played it, adding to the delay. Finally, with DiRT 3 we see a relatively high local latency on the PC version, and again, the same seven-frame delay on OnLive. Regardless, it all demonstrates that OnLive really needs titles with low local latency in order to provide a more satisfying level of response.

In all cases, OnLive doesn't really compare with the local option, but the fact that it is playable at all is a colossal achievement, and the time differential we see between PC and console versions gives some indication on the time window OnLive has in order to do its encoding/transmission/decoding magic. It's curious that while Steve Perlman accepts the general principle in how the gulf in response between PC and console makes OnLive playable, he has some very curious arguments about how latency can be "tuned".

Game Performance

In short, OnLive delivered a 720p60 video stream, but the games themselves weren't always running at this optimal frame-rate. 14 months on, things seem to be much the same - titles we tested like Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine and Just Cause 2 seemed to possess fluctuating frame-rates that made for inconsistent gameplay - and could be in no way described as a 60Hz experience. However, there are signs that some developers are optimising for OnLive's target platform.

Moving on to Deus Ex: Human Revolution, we undertook two tests - some indoors combat, where frame-rate generally tends to be pretty solid on console, and then an outdoors test where we approach the police station in the first hub, which sees a significant performance impact on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Generally speaking, the console games operate with a 30FPS frame-rate cap, while OnLive strives to hit 60FPS - with variable results. Indoor combat is remarkably smooth, but there is only a small performance boost in the outdoors traversal test. Also noteworthy is that these comparison tests clearly show that Deus Ex's remarkable lighting system has been significantly pared back.

OnLive's Steve Perlman reckons that a game like Deus Ex would be allocated to a more powerful server in the datacentre, but all of the visual compromises we see here strongly indicate that this game is running on the exact same platform as all the others we tried - and that this platform is remarkably similar to the one we tested last year. Financially and logistically it makes far more sense to settle on a "journeyman" PC spec that is economical and runs all games and, funnily enough, that's what developers who've ported their latest games to OnLive tell us too - though we do understand that plans are afoot to move onto a more powerful platform at some point in the future.

Overall, performance on OnLive is acceptable and in certain stand-out cases it's clearly an improvement over the current-generation consoles.

Pricing/Value

In this respect, OnLive deserves credit for coming up with an innovative solution in the form of the "all you can eat" PlayPack, which offers a vast range of over 100 titles that you can play at will with no limitations for just £6.99 a month. There are no recent titles in the PlayPack line-up, but you do get some really good games: Just Cause 2, Borderlands and Batman: Arkham Asylum are in there, for starters. Multiplayer-only variants of recent-ish titles like F.E.A.R. 3 and Homefront are also available. The PlayPack proposition looks good on paper, but becomes even stronger from a value perspective if you compare all that if offers against the value of an Xbox Live or PlayStation Plus subscription.

You don't just get a raft of free games either. Subscriber status also confers the right to 30 per cent off the price of all full purchases going forward. This can help to bring OnLive's skewed pricing for newer games more into line with what you might expect to play elsewhere. For example, at the time of writing, Deus Ex: Human Revolution costs £34.99 on OnLive and £29.99 on Steam while the Xbox 360 version is currently £17.99 on Amazon. If the streaming service manages to get more titles released day and date with the other versions, that 30 per cent discount could actually result in cheaper day-one prices than some console releases.

But in the here and now, how do OnLive's latest releases compare? Here's a table with a number of interesting comparisons. With Tropico 4, which has yet to be released on 360, we see an OnLive price advantage and it does compare well with Steam. However on the other titles, OnLive is shown to be at a significant disadvantage. Not only is Steam cheaper in some cases, but market forces have taken their toll on what are now older titles, making them significantly less expensive if you want to own a physical product.

- OnLive Steam Amazon (PC) Amazon (360)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution £34.99 £29.99 £17.99 £17.99
Tropico 4 £29.99 £29.99 £22.48 £39.99 (pre-order)
DiRT 3 £39.99 £29.99 £16.75 £22.00
Red Faction: Armageddon £29.99 £29.99 £15.08 £17.19

The Infrastructure Challenge

Firstly, broadband internet is a utility, and a typical household will use that utility for many different tasks, often at the same time. In the Eurogamer review, Dan Whitehead talks about the fact that sending a single email could grind OnLive to a halt, while at the same time in other situations he could run BBC iPlayer and OnLive simultaneously and everything would seemingly work fine. The notion that the OnLive experience varies so dramatically presents very real issues to the kind of casual gamer that the company seeks to attract. Even on our 50mbps fibre connection, setting off an FTP upload while OnLive was active caused the system to seize up with network problem warnings appearing on-screen.

Right from the very beginning, there have been concerns about the OnLive infrastructure and whether it has the capacity to sustain something like a big launch or the arrival of a really big AAA game. For it to fail with server availability at launch may well be understandable due to the huge amount of interest in the service, but you can see the same thing happening at the launch of any truly major game. The solution is clear: more servers.

OnLive UK: The Digital Foundry Verdict

If OnLive is the future of gaming, it remains exactly that for now - a system in many ways ahead of its time that is waiting for the surrounding technology to catch up so the reality lives up to the potential of the concept. In the present day, what we have is a system that works relatively well some of the time, and even then is subject to limitations that make it a sub-optimal experience.

Firstly, let's talk latency. In our experiments, OnLive managed to match the performance profile we saw in the USA when we assessed the service last year. A 150ms latency would be brilliant if it were the standard across the system. Right now it isn't, but we have the target and it's obviously attainable - we just need to see the consistency across all games. The startling reality is that OnLive is just 16ms away from matching performance of a great many Xbox 360 titles: this is an incredible platform to optimise from.

Secondly, picture quality is a very real issue. With the micro-console set-up on an HDTV set some way back from the player, the quality drop isn't so pronounced - OnLive manifests in most cases as just being a bit... blurry. However, up close and personal, on a laptop or on a desktop computer screen, or in a situation where your living room is dominated by the HDTV, there's no doubt that the image quality just isn't really good enough in a great many cases.

Please Note that the UK micronsole cannot be turned on by the controller unlike the US one. There is a restriction on the standby by UK law. "Thanks Sanjay!"

Also, the prices of games in the UK are higher than the US for some reason.

Also, TalkTalk's acknowledge that there was some issues with them accidently throttling OnLive users. http://onlivefans.com/news/many-onl...-as-their-isp-are-experiencing-problems/3076/

 

[thehillissilent]

I added some quotes from the article, but I highly recommend reading the whole thing.

 

[Alexios]

Meh. I only like the idea of cloud processed games if they allow for graphical (and physical?) fidelity way beyond what PCs of the era can do. Something like this promised. I wouldn't mind having an MMORPG powered by something like that, since some of the issues I have with OnLove are inherent to MMORPGs anyway. Outside that, no thank you due to the usual issues involved, from image quality to lack of modability, lack of access, lag even in single player, and so on.

 

[Durante]

83 ms at optimal conditions renders it completely unusable for any action based game. At least for me.

 

[Oni Jazar]

One of the thing that irks me about Onlive is that it's supposed to use the power of cloud computing with beefy remote servers but the visual game settings aren't at maximum.

 

[thehillissilent]

The one thing at least about OnLive in the US is the constant sales. Every major US holiday, there is some sort of Up to 75% sale going on. The only issues with sales is their catalog.

 

[Sanjay]

Please Note that the UK micronsole cannot be turned on by the controller unlike the US one. I think there is a restriction by UK law. It's retarded.

The British government is outlawing the standby feature.

 

[thehillissilent]

As far as latency goes, Gaikai (www.gaikai.com/games) has the upper hand since they have a number of datacenter sites, which may be closer to users. However, that service is currently relegated to demos at the moment, and it can be rather unstable during peak hours much more than OnLive. Gakai does seem to be running demos at max settings, but the variable resolution leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[M3d10n]

Meh. I only like the idea of cloud processed games if they allow for graphical (and physical?) fidelity way beyond what PCs of the era can do. Something like this promised. I wouldn't mind having an MMORPG powered by something like that, since some of the issues I have with OnLove are inherent to MMORPGs anyway. Outside that, no thank you due to the usual issues involved, from image quality to lack of modability, lack of access, lag even in single player, and so on.

You are onto something. A MMO game designed around the system would mask many of the problems: the game could have a custom thin client that actually runs the game's UI and mouse cursor client-side, improving quality (you don't need to worry about text becoming a blurry mess) and response time.