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[derFeef]

Why would it be hilarious that an existing commercial enterprise actively serving up games via the cloud is better at game focused cloud computing than a service that is not currently serving up games via the cloud?

Azure does a lot of shit but Gaikai is currently the most proven commercial cloud computing endeavor focused on video games. I don't see why anyone would give MS the benefit of the doubt here when Sony's answer is actually something we can all go try out right now and their's isn't.

Fair enough, I don't give them the benefit of the doubt by any means. This cloud stuff is unproven and sounds like anexcuse to me (it came from Edge though), which even only those who are online could benefit from.

 

[shinra-bansho]

I really don't think that its so far fetched to be incredulous if you take a historical view of the companies. Development tools have always been MS' forte.

There seemed to be statements and hints that Sony's development environment had surpassed MS's in some ways already on the PS3, while it's clear that they set about ensuring they made a developer friendly system with the PS4. People were incredulous to the idea that MS's new system architecture would be overall more complicated as well. But I do get your point about past precedent.

Are you joking? The entire game runs remotely in the Gaikai/Onlive scenario. It's not simply about doing video streaming, it's about doing ALL the game's processing remotely. Doing SOME processing on that infrastructure via a RPC would be simple by comparison.

Would it? Could you or someone else technically inclined elaborate.

Gaikai processes "in the cloud" and sends a video feed of the result right? The inputs are sent to the servers, the servers process, and send back video?

That seems less complicated then the notion that there would be simultaneous asynchronously off-loading tasks to for each single frame both locally and through some sort of cloud supplement seamlessly. Which is why I imagine it's mostly blowing smoke at this stage.

 

[netBuff]

Among other things, some of MS' dev tools are ridiculously good.

From all we've heard so far: Among other things, Some of Sony's dev tools are ridiculously good. I don't expect this to be any kind of deciding factor this generation (even when Microsoft's tools finally mature).

The only console company that is in dire need of a catch-up in terms of development tools seems to be Nintendo.

 

[Pyrokai]

I'm seriously over this bullshit. So so so over it. Who. Actually. Cares. I can't stand graphix warz anymore. I just want fun games. I feel so alone. Forever alone.

 

[netBuff]

I'm seriously over this bullshit. So so so over it. Who. Actually. Cares. I can't stand graphix warz anymore. I just want fun games. I feel so alone. Forever alone.

Here's the deal: You can actually get both great graphics and gameplay, and Microsoft seems to neither specialize in the former nor the latter.

 

[Respawn]

Publishers don't want games looking different. What they want is a unified experience. You will most likely get probably better I.Q or small frame rate differences.

The people expecting double the frame rate and stuff are crazy.

First party and exclusives are where you will get the gains from hardware.

Keep believing that nonsense.

 

[tzare]

How are you going to play Xbone when the servers eventually shut down, like MS done with Xbox.

ooops so the full box would be useless too sooner or later. Unless they keep the '24h' validating server for the console alive 'forever'. If they are going this way they'd better rent the console and offer services like cable tv or such instead of selling it.

Probably not, unless the whole cloud service shuts down. You don't use specific servers, you use general processing power randomly distributed in the cloud. If they upgrade the whole service, there's probably going to be a compatibility wrapper, but then again, who knows.

That is the question, who knows, if they succeed, then servers will probably be online for a long time, but if it is not, it would economically difficult to keep them online

 

[Racer30]

So, Xbone needs to be online twice a day to download this cloud computing?

 

[TheOddOne]

 

[v1oz]

Are you joking? The entire game runs remotely in the Gaikai/Onlive scenario. It's not simply about doing video streaming, it's about doing ALL the game's processing remotely. Doing SOME processing on that infrastructure via a RPC would be simple by comparison.

Exactly the entire game runs on a server. So the only data being sent over the network is heavily compressed video/audio and controller input commands.

That type of data is more trivial to deal with using the Internet's unreliable infrastructure. Compared to doing some calculations over the cloud and some locally, whilst maintaining a steady 30 or 60fps frame rate. And also dealing with error corrections/data drop outs is easier with video than with physics calculations, AI and GPU data.

 

[Withnail]

Any of the laggier rendering stuff they talked about would be better done on GPU...and a number of more general simulation tasks could be done faster and - critically - more power efficiently on GPGPU than on a bunch of big CPUs. Power efficiency is a big deal in provisioning cloud processing, and could determine your processing budget per user.

I do think if MS is going down this path, that a network of more specialised game machines is in the works. I don't think they'll be stuck with machines designed for web service processing. But Azure is skewed more toward the latter at the moment, and investment in game orientated cloud processing is probably more or less at the same point right now between Sony and MS.

Just a thought, what if the cloud is formed of all the Xbones connected to the internet but not in use at a particular moment?

They could be used for computation, content delivery, even dedicated servers for mp. It would even help to explain why all games must be installed to HDD.

 

[waypoetic]

"Cant comment on the specs"

fucking lol

 

[madmackem]

Thats a bit misleading title, as for the cloud ms doesnt have the exclusive on the cloud haha anyone of the three can take advantage if they so chose, sony has already done that by buying giakia.

 

[REMEMBER CITADEL]

Maybe not for multiplatform games, but exclusives will be another matter. A few years into the gen, studios like ND, SSM, GG and QD will probably be figuring out ways to squeeze every ounce of power out of the PS4 hardware, and the difference will likely be significantly bigger than it was with Sony's best looking first party games this gen on the PS3 vs 360.

Perhaps, but that all depends on your definition of pronounced. For instance, the gap between Xbox and PS2 was far larger, yet games like God of War 2, GT4, MGS3 or Black (which was very similar on both platforms) still looked amazing. Today, with diminishing returns, I believe the difference to be of little meaning to most people. Of course, on the other side there are pixel counters and the like, so it all depends on where you fit.

 

[Racer30]

Exactly the entire game runs on a server. So the only data being sent over the network is heavily compressed video/audio and controller input commands.

That type of data is more trivial to deal with using the Internet's unreliable infrastructure. Compared to doing some calculations over the cloud and some locally, whilst maintaining a steady 30 or 60fps frame rate. And also dealing with error corrections/data drop outs is easier with video than with physics calculations, AI and GPU data.

So my game goes from 30 fps, to 10 fps if I`m not online?

 

[gofreak]

That seems less complicated then the notion that there would be simultaneous asynchronously off-loading tasks to for each single frame both locally and through some sort of cloud supplement seamlessly. Which is why I imagine it's mostly blowing smoke at this stage.

You need some kind of web-exposed endpoint to call from your game running locally. Make the call to that endpoint with your parameters, the server will take a thread and run the specified task, and respond with your results. The results would come some frames later, I guess in a callback function that runs on the local machine, which can do whatever it wants with the results. At the moment they seem to be talking about doing some general processing on servers around physics or AI.

A gaikai instance takes a call from a local client, but the parameter is simply a button input. It has to do ALL the frame's processing, before sending the result back (in the form of a video frame). Simulation and full rendering. In terms of the processing types involved, it's a lot more intensive and varied than splitting off a couple of workloads to be computed across several frames.

Talking about doing physics remotely, for example, is no different than what many game server hosts do already as far as complexity goes. Many games for multiplayer, with dedicated hosts, will do the physics and other game logic processing 'remotely' on the server, just passing back game object position updates to the clients.

 

[madmackem]

Perhaps, but that all depends on your definition of pronounced. For instance, the gap between Xbox and PS2 was far larger, yet games like God of War 2, GT4, MGS3 or Black (which was very similar on both platforms) still looked amazing. Today, with diminishing returns, I believe the difference to be of little meaning to most people. Of course, on the other side there are pixel counters and the like, so it all depends on where you fit.

You cant say that with any sort of meaning we dont know yet. The rumoured specs show a decent gap then the ram situation. Who knows it could be huge or it could be like you say.

 

[Corto]

Gaikai's tech was like Onlive right? It just streamed low quality, high latency, real time video over the internet.


That's trivial stuff compared to sending AI, physics and GPU calculations over teh internet.

They bought technology and infrastructure with the Gaikai deal. They will build up the infrastructure going forward and won't have to start from scratch as Microsoft.

 

[Liamario]

Microsoft can catch up. What's to stop Sony increasing the gap :-/

 

[gofreak]

Exactly the entire game runs on a server. So the only data being sent over the network is heavily compressed video/audio and controller input commands.

That type of data is more trivial to deal with using the Internet's unreliable infrastructure. Compared to doing some calculations over the cloud and some locally, whilst maintaining a steady 30 or 60fps frame rate. And also dealing with error corrections/data drop outs is easier with video than with physics calculations, AI and GPU data.

You would use TCP/IP for reliable delivery mechanism for this data rather than UDP. Those are standard technologies.

Also the whole point about any remote processing done on the cloud is that it won't be updating at 30 or 60fps reliably. It'll be applied to things you can either interpolate locally to keep things smooth, or that can afford to be updated periodically or be slightly out of date (e.g. maybe stuff happening far away).

These concepts are not fancy or new, per my last post. Authoritative dedicated multiplayer hosts already 'do this' and were doing it long before total game streaming started to be solved as a problem.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

You need some kind of web-exposed endpoint to call from your game running locally. Make the call to that endpoint with your parameters, the server will take a thread and run the specified task, and respond with your results. The results would come some frames later, I guess in a callback function that runs on the local machine, which can do whatever it wants with the results. At the moment they seem to be talking about doing some general processing on servers around physics or AI.

A gaikai instance takes a call from a local client, but the parameter is simply a button input. It has to do ALL the frame's processing, before sending the result back (in the form of a video frame). Simulation and full rendering. In terms of the processing types involved, it's a lot more intensive and varied than splitting off a couple of workloads to be computed across several frames.

Talking about doing physics remotely, for example, is no different than what many game server hosts do already as far as complexity goes. Many games for multiplayer, with dedicated hosts, will do the physics and other game logic processing 'remotely' on the server, just passing back game object position updates to the clients.

So to simplify it, some calculations (Physics/AI) could be completed quite easily at the server end and they wouldn't require that much network overhead.

Example could be:

- Loading more of the environment that isn't in view

 

[Gemüsepizza]

Perhaps, but that all depends on your definition of pronounced. For instance, the gap between Xbox and PS2 was far larger, yet games like God of War 2, GT4, MGS3 or Black (which was very similar on both platforms) still looked amazing. Today, with diminishing returns, I believe the difference to be of little meaning to most people. Of course, on the other side there are pixel counters and the like, so it all depends on where you fit.

I don't see any dimishing returns when looking at Call of Duty: Ghosts.

 

[kitch9]

and if you disconnect you get worse gfx or less characters on screen?

bs

You are not allowed to disconnect.

*Edit* the delusion appears to be strong by some in this thread.

 

[TheOddOne]

This tweet just got deleted.

 

[mrklaw]

have MS said anything about the cloud being any more than syncing saves and better online matchmaking? 'power of the cloud' is so nebulous it can be used for anything, but I didn't hear anything in the reveal to suggest that MS were saying it would affect the game client as such.

 

[Linkified]

Any of the laggier rendering stuff they talked about would be better done on GPU...and a number of more general simulation tasks could be done faster and - critically - more power efficiently on GPGPU than on a bunch of big CPUs. Power efficiency is a big deal in provisioning cloud processing, and could determine your processing budget per user.

I do think if MS is going down this path, that a network of more specialised game machines is in the works. I don't think they'll be stuck with machines designed for web service processing. But Azure is skewed more toward the latter at the moment, and investment in game orientated cloud processing is probably more or less at the same point right now between Sony and MS.

Absolutely that is why it will only be mathematical routines they would place up on such a service any rendering would be done locally - also talking about budgets, the amount of data they would have to send to the console would have to be miniscule to stop serious bottlenecks developing....

 

[shinra-bansho]

You need some kind of web-exposed endpoint to call from your game running locally. Make the call to that endpoint with your parameters, the server will take a thread and run the specified task, and respond with your results. The results would come some frames later, I guess in a callback function that runs on the local machine, which can do whatever it wants with the results. At the moment they seem to be talking about doing some general processing on servers around physics or AI.

A gaikai instance takes a call from a local client, but the parameter is simply a button input. It has to do ALL the frame's processing, before sending the result back (in the form of a video frame). Simulation and full rendering. In terms of the processing types involved, it's a lot more intensive and varied than splitting off a couple of workloads to be computed across several frames.

Talking about doing physics remotely, for example, is no different than what many game server hosts do already as far as complexity goes. Many games for multiplayer, with dedicated hosts, will do the physics and other game logic processing 'remotely' on the server, just passing back game object position updates to the clients.

If it really is as simple as made out, then I see no major advantage other than having the Azure infrastructure already - if it does become "a thing" as you say then I assume by then Sony will have sufficient infrastructure to also do "cloud processing."

 

[Chuck Norris]

Sony haven't got the infrastructure to make it a seamless experience. They haven't made the investment in 300,000 servers. I'm not even sure they have the tech like Microsoft has to do cloud computing.

Yeah I'm sure they invested in Gaikai cause they have no interest in cloud technology

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

Can't comment on the specs.....lol

 

[madmaxx350]

that edge bait !!! 10/10. I was personally expecting cloud processing...

Doesn't that confirm Kotaku's statement about MS being behind in development and some other devs statement about Sony's tools being better integrated with VStudio?

 

[MikeE21286]

Sounds like he means more powerful and better dev envirkent right now but MS will catch up on the dev enviroemt side, however the specs are what they are...

 

[Ushae]

Because new drivers are impossible on the PS4...

X1 will not catch the PS4 at any point in time unfortunately.

MS is legendary when it comes to softwarer support and development tools. They will catch up and possibly exceed Sony. That being said, well done to Sony for having a good set of tools from the get go, unlike the mess that was PS3. I really like when devs/companies learn from their mistakes really brings a smile to my face.

Kotakus article referred to games. Plus Kotaku are full of shit most of the time anyway lol..

 

[SniperHunter]

poor lad, still hoping for a spec change at this point eh?

 

[CLEEK]

Dat secret sauce drenched via cloud, I guess.

The 'cloud' claims just confirmed what I'd felt for ages. The secret sauce power was was always vapour.

 

[AgentChris]

Avalanche's new game at E3, HYPE!

 

[gofreak]

So to simplify it, some calculations (Physics/AI) could be completed quite easily at the server end and they wouldn't require that much network overhead.

Example could be:

- Loading more of the environment that isn't in view

Well, not so much loading of anything. A remote server cannot load resources into a machine for local rendering... the local machine will have to do that by itself

I think the best, or at least most familiar way to think about it is how (authoritative) dedicated multiplayer servers work.

The physics and certain other game simulation updates happen on the server and the clients just take game object transform or state updates and render them.

Things can get laggy, things can get inconsistent, so in a hybrid model you would want to minimise perception issues by doing certain things that have high player attention or that require frame-by-frame updates locally, while letting other more lag tolerant things happen remotely.

For certain other tasks that are dependent on finishing in a certain time, you might be able to offload them, but should consider the network overhead, which might make it undesirable to reach out to a remote machine even if it could, all else being equal, process the task faster.

 

[sinnergy]

I for one think, both consoles are form the same generation. So differences will be minimal. (as seen wih PS3 / X360) One can be better in some area's, but slower in others and visa versa.

 

[velociraptor]

Catch up? How can Microsoft catch up? The raw specs of both consoles are set in stone.

 

[Beermeister]

Thread title does not match thread content. Specs of both consoles are set in stone. Microsoft can't catch up.
/thread

 

[Sethos]

Catch up? How can Microsoft catch up? The raw specs of both consoles are set in stone.

Upgradable console confirmed.

 

[AgentChris]

Catch up? How can Microsoft catch up? The raw specs of both consoles are set in stone.

The cloud mang. It would be nice to see SCE utilize the cloud for computations as well.

 

[f@luS]

I for one think, both consoles are form the same generation. So differences will be minimal. (as seen wih PS3 / X360) One can be better in some area's, but slower in others and visa versa.

Its not. Faster gpu. More ram. Faster ram. = or better tools

Nothing Like this gen

 

[spwolf]

He's saying their dev environment will catch up, not so much the performance...

Anyway, I'm amazed that Sony's dev environment is currently better than Microsoft's. That rumour about MS being 6 months behind on the software side might be true?

i dont understand how is this possible, but this is even worse news for Microsoft.

 

[dEvAnGeL]

Cloud computing will be used for MP games only

 

[Glorified G]

Publishers don't want games looking different. What they want is a unified experience. You will most likely get probably better I.Q or small frame rate differences.

The people expecting double the frame rate and stuff are crazy.

First party and exclusives are where you will get the gains from hardware.

As long as you're purchasing their game they don't care version is being bought. Since the architecture is so similar it would be pretty easy to take advantage of the extra horsepower. This is wishful thinking on your part.

unified experience = "Please please please please make the xbox one version as close to the ps4 version as much as possible"

 

[shinra-bansho]

Another thing to consider is that wouldn't any game that relies on off-loading anything to the cloud require servers to be maintained in perpetuity just to enable the game to function at all. This would strike me as expensive for the platform holder and/or publisher and a risky proposition for the purchaser.

 

[Withnail]

Catch up? How can Microsoft catch up? The raw specs of both consoles are set in stone.

The powah of teh cell cloud1!!1!

 

[CLEEK]

I for one think, both consoles are form the same generation. So differences will be minimal. (as seen wih PS3 / X360) One can be better in some area's, but slower in others and visa versa.

This time it's different, due to both consoles being based on the exact same architecture. There are no unique strengths and weakness for each platform. The PS4 just is a more powerful version of the Xbone.

Think of it like buying a car. The Xbone is the basic model, where as the PS4 is the sportier version of the same model, with a bigger engine, better suspension, better top speed and acceleration.

 

[Monas]

The MICROSOFT plan

Internet Up, Logged in the secret Cloud

Internet down

 

[spwolf]

Well, not so much loading of anything. A remote server cannot load resources into a machine for local rendering... the local machine will have to do that by itself

I think the best, or at least most familiar way to think about it is how (authoritative) dedicated multiplayer servers work.

The physics and certain other game simulation updates happen on the server and the clients just take game object transform or state updates and render them.

Things can get laggy, things can get inconsistent, so in a hybrid model you would want to minimise perception issues by doing certain things that have high player attention or that require frame-by-frame updates locally, while letting other more lag tolerant things happen remotely.

For certain other tasks that are dependent on finishing in a certain time, you might be able to offload them, but should consider the network overhead, which might make it undesirable to reach out to a remote machine even if it could, all else being equal, process the task faster.

i dont see how cloud computing can bring anything to the table in this case... with large RAM pools, they can locally compute things they need later... using cloud is just inefficient. CPU/GPU are not tasked 100% as soon as you start the game... there will be plenty of periods they can compute things for later and store them in RAM.

I simply dont see any point in it at all.

In any case, original point of OP was about drivers and development tool which are currently lagging behind PS4 (which is strange but ok).