Anyone with 2mb/s or faster internet - ever used OnLive?

[Zewp]

http://www.onlive.com/

Basically, it's a cloud gaming site that streams games as you play them, meaning they're not on your computer. Theoretically, you should even be able to play the games on a netbook, because you don't need beefy hardware, only the ability to stream video. All the rendering is done their side.

Only problem is, minimum requirements is a 2mb internet connection, and I've only got 1mb. Just curious to hear if anyone has ever tried it? Would love to hear from someone who has.

If anyone wants to try and report back, you can sign up for free and all their games can be played for free for 30 minutes as a trial period. I'd seriously consider upgrading to a 2mb line just for this, as it would save me tons of money on hardware upgrades.

[hereticangel]

says its detected high latency on my line cant continue :P

tried with mweb and lantic accounts, with mweb 1mb says cant deliver good enough video quality also.

[Zewp]

Aw, damn. Didn't really consider latency. I guess it would make most games unplayable. It dropped me for connection speed.

A bit silly that it doesn't let you continue, though. It should rather just lock you out of playing games like FPS, etc. RTS and turn-based strategy games would be entirely playable with a latency of 200 - 400.

So I guess the future is not in the Cloud then.

[Jack Shizz]

latency is the deciding factor here.

I did some research when the system first started almost two years ago. it was designed for american users, and since the servers where hosted in america, latency was a non-issue.

You will never get a ping fast enough to be able to use it properly here in SA unless they had servers here, or a similar venture started up.

[modprobe]

Ha. Just signed up with Afrihost on 2mb line - no go: 1) latency; 2) low speed reported - can't proceed. 340ms ping, 1.62 mb/s download on speedtest. Anyone tried on a 10mb line? Although the latency would probably kill it again.

[Roadrunner]

10Mb/s ADSL line also gives you the 'Line not fast enough for good video' message, so I guess it is latency-dependent.

[biometrics]

Tried a few times. Always moaned about my speed and could never log on.

Didn't they go bankrupt recently?

[Bobbin]

They did and then were bought over by some independent rich guy. The services only existed in the US and had plans for the UK but not sure if they got that far. GAIKAI is another similar cloud gaming service still going. I tried to get a bunch of people on this forum to sign up to get them thinking there is demand here also but no one seemed interested :-)

While it is low latency dependent to keep the experience of keyboard inputs and video return as instantaneous as possible I believe they also run some super good algorithms to keep everything in tune. You would however need a local SA onlive server farm before it will work for us.