Please read link in beginning. I think people are just not reading that and assume I'm just asking random questions.
Xbox Cloud compared to PS now
- Thread starter David
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"They" being the media, I'm guessing? The media was leaked information about a demo from our company meeting where Halo 4 was being streamed to tablets, phones, and PC's from a location about 90 miles away. Microsoft has made no announcements about how they will or will not mature this technology to the point where it could be released to the public, and rolled out strategically, etc... it was just a tech demo... but (surprisingly), that tech demo is far more impressive than what Sony showed off at CES. At least with Microsoft's company meeting demo, the devices were using real internet connections, and streaming from a city a couple hours drive away (and only seeing about 45ms of delay)... and from the videos I've seen of Sony's "down the hall sample" of PlayStation Now - their latency was already higher than ours, and they had a *much* more ideal configuration for less latency.
No one's talking about this 'service', because MS hasn't announced anything about it. I don't speak for Microsoft in any capacity, but I'm not convinced it's a worthwhile endeavor yet. I think it's awesome tech, and about 6 years ago I actually talked with a buddy at work, and we talked through logical progressions of technology, and moving to a fully 'client/server' model for everything (including rendering) was something we dreamed about... and it's certainly achievable... but I think releasing a service of that kind now is a bit like Sega putting a modem in the Dreamcast... it was the right instinct, and it's the right direction... but it's just a bit too soon.
That said, I'm interested in how Sony handles it, and I'm interested in the experience they can create...
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I already said it, MS' claim about huge increases in graphics (You know, sending latency insensitive rendering tasks to "the cloud"...whatever the f*** that means…which ironically they have since distanced themselves from). If you're increasing/augmenting graphical fidelity via the cloud you're not going to be using a farm of CPU based servers to do such, you'll be using a farm of GPU based servers. No one's ever questioned the ability to do AI via servers because MMOs/FPSs that have online bots have been doing that since the beginning of time; right now as I type this I'm literally playing private game Star Wars Jedi Knight with my friend in Michigan and we've populated the game with bots; such amaze, such fun. Most people who have questioned MS' claims have been questioning their statements about increasing rendering prowess. And I'll stay the course on my belief MS won't deliver on that front at all.
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Yeah, that's about what I had gathered - I'm just wondering what claims specifically you recall MS making about graphics... because if I recall, there was never a "Cloud will make graphics x10 better!" kind of claim... and any inference to such was made by mistake.
I recall claims being more along the lines of, "Cloud offer 3x X1 CPU performance for offloading tasks" (which is 100% true), and claims like "Cloud will power persistent worlds, change the face of AI, improve physics", etc. - and while there's the obvious and typical PR fluff interspersed throughout the phrasing of the claims, the claims themselves all seem substantiated, from what I can tell.
Maybe I missed it, but where are these graphical claims? I recall Phil Harrison making a broad statement about cloud improving graphics, but when you look at the phrasing, it's clear he's saying that use of the cloud can offload processes which the CPU would typically be shouldered with, and freeing up CPU cycles can inadvertently improve graphics performance in cases where a few extra CPU cycles is the difference between a frame being dropped or not.
I also recall the claims around lighting, but that too has been proven to be possible/realistic. The Nvidia CloudLight tech shows it off nicely, and proves that even with a bit of a delay - complex lighting can be offloaded from the local hardware, and still be imperceptibly in sync with the real-time generated imagery from the local machine.
I've only seen modest claims about what the cloud can do for graphics, and most of them more around AI (which again is already proven), physics (which has yet to be exploited in any meaningful way from what I've seen), and in persistent worlds, which is easily true as well.
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I have yet to see any comment from MS proclaiming massive graphical improvements by offloading to the cloud.
That's where I am too. I just haven't seen/heard it... Now, I wouldn't doubt that some comments were massively exaggerated by media and fanboys to the point where false impressions could easily be the result, but I don't believe MS ever made any such claims. The graphical improvements I've seen discussed by MS reps are all fairly modest claims, with more focus on AI, physics, and persistent worlds...
THANK YOU VERY MUCH! That was every thing I needed to know. I understand now. When I get on a computer will give you an I and a like.
Nothing has been announced or discussed around a Microsoft service which would be similar to PlayStation Now.
There was, however, a leaked report about the streamed Halo 4 demo shown at the last Microsoft Company meeting. In that demo, Microsoft showed Halo 4 running remotely on a GPU enabled sled about an hour's drive away, with only 45ms of latency. That number is much better than anything OnLive or Gaikai have been able to produce, and it also seems better than what was demoed at CES by Sony for PlayStation Now, seeing as PSnow was demoed with the host hardware mere feet away from the clients streaming the content, and it was streamed over a LAN connection rather than the open internet...
Actual MS statements about what we'll be able to do with the cloud:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Xbox...ower-Gets-Explained-by-Microsoft-391633.shtml
"Higher fidelity game experiences"
Summery: By offloading processes from the CPU to the cloud, you free up CPU cycles, and therefore get more usable power without making the trade-offs you'd otherwise have to make.
"Improved multiplayer game experiences"
Summery: Free dedicated servers for any developer who wishes to implement it.
"Adaptive & evolving game play"
Summary: Think Forza's drivatar. You can make simulations and persistent worlds or features which go well beyond the capabilities of what the local hardware can do.
"On-demand compute improves game availability"
Summary: Not all games with dedicated servers have been able to be available world-wide, because most devs can't afford to have available servers world-wide. With MS's 300,000+ machines and world-wide datacenters (along with Azure's load balancer), that issue is no longer a problem.
He never claimed any such things though
He was quite clear it would only benefit latency insensitive tasks.
He never claimed any such things though
He was quite clear it would only benefit latency insensitive tasks.
That's what I had thought too... I mean, Astro's a smart, creative guy - so I think he might have supposed "what if" scenarios, where graphical computations could be done via the cloud, but I never got from his posts that "it's 100% certainty that cLOUd pOWAHh will make X1 games look like tEH realz life!!" ... no, I think his claims were also more modest than Viktor implies... It just seems like skeptics are too quick to draw incorrect conclusions about the breadth and scope of the actual claims, and then accuse those who made them as being misleading/wrong/incorrect...
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Ok. I see the Xbros have arrived so I'm outta here.He never claimed any such things though
He was quite clear it would only benefit latency insensitive tasks.
I'd just like to know what claims he actually made, and not your interpretation of the claims he actually made.
I am going to step in and make a ruling on this one. Sony fans, you can claim victory for smooth 1080P or you can claim victory for cloud streaming downgraded PS3 graphics with noticeable button lag but you cannot claim victory for both. It's like bragging about your new Ferrari and then boasting about the 8-track player you installed in it.
Not worth the time. If you didn't spend time in the OCD at TXB then there you go.
I did.
Astro was often full of s***(display panes etc, but not when it came to the cloud)
In other words, the clouds will not give any significant visuals boost to XBOX games, as some of us are hoping. I sweared I read someone from MS saying it give Xbox anywhere from 3x to infinite amount of power, & it was speculated that cloud was also as a means to bridge the graphical gap with PS4.
Disappointing, to say the least, but thanks to the clarification. Cloud doesn't sound very revolutionary from whats already available is it, or I missed something.
Only thing it does better is dynamic allocation of Servers, which really helpful for smaller studios. I bet all big games will have dedicated servers on either platform.
You definitely missed something. Don't worry about the cloud. The sky's the limit for what Microsoft will achieve once the full potential of the cloud is realized.
I think it's actually a *really* big deal that Microsoft is giving free cloud compute to devs. That means the only thing stopping *any* game from having dedicated servers is the know-how to build it... and MS is even making that easier with the cloud SDK. Traditionally, smaller devs and studios haven't even been able to consider any sort of dedicated servers or cloud compute - but now it's all there, ready for them to exploit... Sony can't match that, and most devs who've traditionally ben able to use dedicated servers now gets another option for hosting their code, and with MS's cloud compute SDK, load balancing and dynamic region adjustments are 'free'.
The 3x times the power is true - but it's 3x time the CPU power, not the GPU. That said, Azure does support GPU's and Microsoft has cloud GPU's, so it's certainly not necessarily true that the cloud won't boost visuals in meaningful ways - but it's not something MS has gone shouting from the rooftops because there are barriers to making it work well. But look at the Nvidia cloud lighting demo. It proves that portions of the light rendering can be offloaded to the cloud, and that can be a very computationally expensive... I'd be hard pressed to speculate what kind of performance boost that alone could get you, but it's not insignificant... and that's just one early advancement for a paradigm that's still in its infancy. It is certainly possible that cloud advancements could bridge or invert the graphics delta we're seeing between X1 and PS4, but it's not something which is a guarantee.
There's great potential there, and MS has a huge leg up on Sony in this regard... but again, it's still new to gaming. Dedicated servers isn't new, but offloading specific processes and functions (like drivatar, lighting, etc.) - those are very new to this client with extended cloud functionality model... so give it some time, and keep expectations in check... it won't change the world over night or somehow make X1 games look a generation better, but it's also not just some gimmick which won't meaningfully improve gaming.
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As far as I can tell noone has claimed victory for Playstation Now .However I will try it, when/if it comes to Sweden, to see if 100Mbit/s is enough. I don't trust that 5Mbit/s BS claim though, without massive lag and PS2 Graphics.
Right. If I understood correctly; Cloud would allow some CPU intensive tasks to be offloaded (AI, lighting etc) to the Cloud. As this was accomplished it would give devs more resources to use to increase graphical fidelity in games. But this is something that wasnt going to be immediate, but certainly possible over time.
I recall claims being more along the lines of, "Cloud offer 3x X1 CPU performance for offloading tasks" (which is 100% true), and claims like "Cloud will power persistent worlds, change the face of AI, improve physics", etc. - and while there's the obvious and typical PR fluff interspersed throughout the phrasing of the claims, the claims themselves all seem substantiated, from what I can tell.
Maybe I missed it, but where are these graphical claims? I recall Phil Harrison making a broad statement about cloud improving graphics, but when you look at the phrasing, it's clear he's saying that use of the cloud can offload processes which the CPU would typically be shouldered with, and freeing up CPU cycles can inadvertently improve graphics performance in cases where a few extra CPU cycles is the difference between a frame being dropped or not.[/QUOTE]
“The cloud architecture can provide additional lighting, physics, and motion effects beyond the capabilities of the console's 8-core AMD processor and custom GPU.”
When I read something like that, it's definitely not "clear" that someone is just talking about offloading CPU tasks.
You mean Nvidia's Cloudlight that leverages their GPU based cloud system using their top of the line K20 GPUs that they've been selling to HPC companies, animation/rendering firms, etc? The same one in which they show how slow it would be on a CPU based cloud system. Not really helping the argument here.
And none of which are "new" in any meaningful way. Persistent worlds? Yea they're called MMOs. AI? Yea...every online game with bots ever. Physics? I'm not expecting anything groundbreaking any time soon outside of prerendered animation set pieces ala...a bunch of games that doesn't even need "the cloud".
I'm willing to bet Playstation Now will come to fruition for end consumers (and will probably suck) way before we see vastly improved lighting/motion based effects/physics/etc from the cloud.
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Which proves that GPU in the cloud can be used to offload process intensive lighting calculations, and even with minimal latency it's completely fine, and looks great.
I agree. I was referring to a different quote. Thanks.
In any case, that’s not a strong claim. Providing additional lighting, physics, and motion effects is a far cry from claiming it’s revolutionize graphical prowess, or some such nonsense like you and some of the other ridiculous nay-sayers seem to cling to.
Of course it’s helping my argument. Dramatically so. Pivotally so. Azure is already equipped with GPU’s. Ever heard of Galactic Reign? That ain’t CPU rendering. MS has GPU farms (and a GPU-enabled Azure OS sku), and they’re growing.
So obviously if GPU’s in the cloud can provably provide complex lighting calculations for real-time rendering, it not only helps my argument it *proves* MS’s claim to be true on the lighting front. 100% proven true, in fact. Demonstrably.
I think you're intentionally minimizing the difference.
MMO’s traditionally charge for memberships. Why? Because it’s extremely expensive to host them. With Xbox One’s cloud support, it’s 100% free to developers… so now, persistent worlds don’t just have to live in MMO’s… they can live in games of all genre’s without needing to require dedicated monthly subscriptions. Persistent worlds aren’t new – no – but persistent worlds for *any* game in *any* genre for FREE is, and It’s hugely different. It unlocks all kinds of potential and scenarios for devs… and not just big devs. Indie’s. Smaller studios, etc…
AI – Bots? Bots are *nothing* like what Forza has accomplished… so for you to make any claim like that as some “argument” just exposes your ignorance on the topic. If you believe that argument, you're behind the curve.
As for physics, I’m not sure I disagree with you much there… I’m not sure it’ll make much sense to offload it to the cloud, but it’s possible, and that’s all MS claimed.
1. No one claimed “vastly improved”. That’s just hyperbole from you.
2. Playstation Now will certainly come to fruition, but you and I both agree it won’t live up to what Sony’s promised.
3. I notice you specifically avoid mentioning AI, because that’s provably and non-debatably already been proven advantageous by the Cloud with a LAUNCH game.
Bottom line – the claims you imply MS made are exaggerations at best, and simple falsehoods at worst. MS’s claims about graphics improvements via the cloud are very modest. It was never, “the cloud WILL make games 100x better visually!” – all the claim as ever been is the cloud CAN help in areas like, X, Y, and Z. That’s a very modest claim, and demonstrably true.
The claims which have been much bigger and more prominent are the ones around what cloud compute (CPU usage) can offer… and so far, it’s already delivering… and for a completely new paradigm introduced to gaming – I’d say making real progress at launch is something to be commended
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