News - OnLive cloud gaming service set to launch on Dell servers

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Dell is not about to be rendered obsolete once games are processed on remote servers.

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Read more.

Is anyone planning to take the plunge on this when it gets going?

If prices are reasonable I'll try Assasins Creed 2 on it.

I thought that OnLive was US only for now?

It was but due to people from the Uk sneaking in to the beta via IP routing they're going to do a UK trial soon.

If a trial comes to the UK does anyone know if the games will be free for the trial period? Don't want to spend money on games for a trial and it turn out to be crappy.

Wont be bothering... a) I don't have the bandwidth to stream 720p over the tubes, much less 1080p b) downloading anything while gaming would absolutely render the micro-console useless, a time when I'm more likely to game, c) input latency would be absurd, d) I barely like steam with not being able to transfer my license ownership to others, nevermind not owning the license at all.

The service is a great example of what you can do with mainframe-era problem solving. But it's also a great example of why we dumped that crap in favour of fat clients in the first place.

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Originally Posted by aidanjt

Wont be bothering... a) I don't have the bandwidth to stream 720p over the tubes, much less 1080p b) downloading anything while gaming would absolutely render the micro-console useless, a time when I'm more likely to game, c) input latency would be absurd, d) I barely like steam with not being able to transfer my license ownership to others, nevermind not owning the license at all.

The service is a great example of what you can do with mainframe-era problem solving. But it's also a great example of why we dumped that crap in favour of fat clients in the first place.

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As I see it mainframes existed because power could not be created in small boxes... fat clients came into being once it could and because comms tech was not up to the job of distributing a main frames' power over long distance. Once comms tech improves to near instant global reach the efficiency of centralising and sharing power becomes attractive again, thin clients are cheaper, greener and easily integrated into things... sharing central resources is more efficient. Consider thin client desktops, you wouldn't need a 120 core server to replace 30 office PCs with quad core CPUs... especially ones of shift users who are logged in different times (analogous to gamers in different timezones). All we need is comms tech sufficient to distribute the fat client experience to a thin client device, I believe OnLive is ahead of it's time not behind.

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Originally Posted by kingpotnoodle

As I see it mainframes existed because power could not be created in small boxes... fat clients came into being once it could and because comms tech was not up to the job of distributing a main frames' power over long distance. Once comms tech improves to near instant global reach the efficiency of centralising and sharing power becomes attractive again, thin clients are cheaper, greener and easily integrated into things... sharing central resources is more efficient. Consider thin client desktops, you wouldn't need a 120 core server to replace 30 office PCs with quad core CPUs... especially ones of shift users who are logged in different times (analogous to gamers in different timezones). All we need is comms tech sufficient to distribute the fat client experience to a thin client device, I believe OnLive is ahead of it's time not behind.

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You've clearly never used the X11 protocol over-the-wire, and that is lightweight compared to OnLive. IPC bandwidth isn't infinite, not even locally, much less over the internet. And while electrons travel at the speed of light, packets do not, latency over the internet is horrific for interactive systems.

This is definately the future of gaming but not only that!

Onlive need to start getting music,movies and tv onto its servers aswell and sort out there pricing model.

Why pay for onlive and then also have to purchase games on onlive? It shuold be one monthly fee to play what you want where you want whenever you want!!!! AND through in music and all other media.

That for me is the future and we're slowly getting there no matter how hard the media companies struggle for control of the market.

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Originally Posted by Denis_iii

This is definately the future of gaming but not only that!

Onlive need to start getting music,movies and tv onto its servers aswell and sort out there pricing model.

Why pay for onlive and then also have to purchase games on onlive? It shuold be one monthly fee to play what you want where you want whenever you want!!!! AND through in music and all other media.

That for me is the future and we're slowly getting there no matter how hard the media companies struggle for control of the market.

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You're paying OnLive not to have to buy beefy hardware otherwise the pay would have to be shared by both them and the game developers which wouldn't work out as a great amount.

i'd like to give OnLive a go, i read about it quite a while ago and thought... "if that actually works that could be pretty good", i have doubts about it working properly in the first beta's and i sometimes struggle to get 1080p video's streamed off a solid pipex 8mb, most home users sit around at much less than this so i doubt it can work on massive full sized, internet heavy games. and i'm also a reg freak, i'd hate to have another thing i could blame missing on ;)