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Crackdown 3 uses cloud-based physics processing to enable environmental destruction

The (10 min video) tech is impressive, but I would like to see a Xbox only take on the scene to see if the server side makes all that difference that the PR tries to imply.

The Xone + Cloud sure will be better than the Xone alone, but is the difference that great?

And will be the server side destruction scalable with the bandwidth?
- 4M full destruction
- 2M 50% less debris
- 1M 75% less debris and no glass shaterring
- 512k Xone only but still playable?
 
Replication of VMs is exactly what cloud providers allow. MS Azure in particular. One would just have a pool ready to go and spin up more when things pass a certain threshold, and shut down after it goes below that threshold.

You can build a finely scalable software architecture on top of conventional IaaS. That's what I am talking about. Microsoft themselves have a research project that applies the Actor model to a cloud-based software architecture: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/orleans/ That framework isn't a generic solution, though. You still need to make that specific software architecture and scalability mechanism for your particular use case.
 
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/crackdown-...-one-takes-series-cloud-nine-fourteen-1514395


Nice to see some extra detail about the game, I wonder how much of what they had planned was for the original game. I remember reading an early preview of Crackdown and it really sounded very significantly different to what we ended up with. There was a really big focus on the agents being genetically engineered and there were some levelling up mechanics that involved your DNA and allowed you to mix it with other characters and other players to keep improving your stats.

Also, no mention of the Agency themselves yet, who as well all know are basically evil themselves.
 
Guess it's console warriors or people that can't grasp the technology in their head and should be called out but yeah click bait pr speak is big in the article.



Umm ok, good point, just don't see how it had to do with what my post said. Just because Azure servers are accessible to the xbox division does not make them special, also it doesn't make a pre built box more powerful. Again, server side calculations by a scalable server is great technology but it isn't downloading ram to your xbox.

By 'most powerful console', I'm assuming they mean what they can do with their cloud technology versus what other people can do, not what's in the box. Microsoft a massive company so they can afford to do a lot more
 
The (10 min video) tech is impressive, but I would like to see a Xbox only take on the scene to see if the server side makes all that difference that the PR tries to imply.

The Xone + Cloud sure will be better than the Xone alone, but is the difference that great?

And will be the server side destruction scalable with the bandwidth?
- 4M full destruction
- 2M 50% less debris
- 1M 75% less debris and no glass shaterring
- 512k Xone only but still playable?

3MB is the min. recommended speed for online gaming on Xbox One.
https://support.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-one/networking/slow-performance-solution
 
Obviously you can't do the same level of physics calculations on any other console,
no, we haven't seen anything remotely close to that.
This isn't controversial at all.

Whether the tech works smoothly when you're actually playing the game, though, or whether the cloud can be used to make games "look better" in a traditional way (extremely doubtful right now imho) that remains to be seen.
 
In this corner we've got PlayStatuon fanboys who desperately want to justify their purchase.

And in this corner we have Xbox fanboys who desperately want to have the better console for once this generation.

Let's get ready to rummmmmbbbbbllleeeee.

No but seriously this tech looks awesome. I'm more interested in seeing how MS uses it in future games. Can they do more than destruction? What are the limits of this tech?
 
Basically in DBZ terms it's like

Goku (XB1) < Brolly (Crackdown 3 MP)
Goku (XB1) + Z Figher's Ki (Azure) > Brolly (Crackdown 3 MP)

On his own, Goku ain't shit against Brolly. Combined with the help of his boys though, he is effectively stronger.

Simple shit.

XB1 ain't going to get magically stronger, but effectively it will be.

More like:
Goku (XB1) < Brolly (PS4)
Goku (XB1) + Z Figher's Ki (Azure) > Brolly (PS4)
 
Welp, its over, gap closed and now opened again but to the other side. Its over Sony's done. bye NeoGAF I hardly knew yeh, joining misterxmedias forum.
 
Of course, with things such as Docker. But that isn't necessary with a traditional MP game when you can scale VMs dynamically.

Docker is not what I was talking about. Docker is basically a more lightweight "VM-like" container, but it still replicates on the level of a very basic runtime environment for your monolithic application. See that Orleans link I posted for a more elaborate description of what kind of thing I mean.
 
So does this mean that in 10 years Crackdown 3 will become non-functional as the servers are shutdown/reassigned to other more modern games and tasks?

If so, the retro collector in me hates the idea that games have a very set shelf life beyond which they cannot be played in any real way.

Outside of that, sounds kinda cool. It'll be interesting to see how other big companies (Sony/Valve) adopt this sort of tech and leverage it with their platforms.

At worst, Its the same the same thing that happens to any other MP game when the servers go offline... Your stuck with the single player...
 
watching Xbox live from gamescom. its on now
they confirmed
20x times the computational power of the Xbox One via cloud

its multiplayer only with Crackdown

it was Larry talking to the person who handles 1st party studios
her name was Shannon Loftis
 
Docker is not what I was talking about. Docker is basically a more lightweight "VM-like" container, but it still replicates on the level of a very basic runtime environment for your monolithic application.

We aren't talking about monolithic applications though. We are talking about GAMES. Only reason Halo used Orleans was because of the absolutely enormous amount of analytics they collect. Had nothing to do with the actual multiplayer server. There is no storage tier to communicate with, so the need for all that crap is not there.
 
I wonder why this was such a shock to people? Hasn't cloud computing been taking off? Hasn't some colleges netted PS3's all over the world to create the most powerful simulation or something? (i remember hearing about this)

So, i guess my question is why did people doubt MS's claim about cloud computing power for gaming?

Crackdown 3 looks bonkers.
 
and what if its like crackdown 2?

Crackdown was made by Dave Jones and his team over a period of years.

Crackdown 2 was made by a third party team consisting of some of the team in 8 months.

Crackdown 3 is made by Dave Jones and his team over a period of years.


The odds are in favour of a good Crackdown game.
 
I disagree in the sense that the main market will shift there and accept it as the internet of things comes into fruition. I think there will be an offering of offline play in some form obviously, but I do see always online or something very similar being the norm. Not arguing whether that is good or bad though. It does have some worrisome consequences or it could.
The "internet of things" is a meaningless buzzword phrase. The market reacted clearly and violently to the idea of "always online", and that is all that matters. If you think that other entities in this space didn't take note, you don't know business.

That said, we should probably continue that discussion in another thread.
 
No, we won't.

Always Online as a concept in relation to single player experiences is beyond toxic - it's radioactive.

You'll never see it applied as a console-wide "feature" again, seeing as how this generation has played out. Consumers will be on the watch for any hint of that creeping back in, and rightfully so.

I disagree. Cloud tech will make its way into SP campaigns with an offline mode included. It will be a while, but it will come. MS will definitely try it with 1st parties. Times change and with that perspectives and what's accepted will change as well. Hardware+cloud tech is the future. I think the demand for what is capable with cloud is going to pretty high...that will encourage devs to do SP+cloud.
 
I like your DBZ analogy, but you missed a trick.

Crackdown multiplayer will effectively be magically stronger, not the XBO.

I thought offloading processing to the cloud frees up resources to do other things with its hardware. If my understanding is correct, Azure empowers both.

It's like Piccolo ditching his weighted clothing.

More like:
Goku (XB1) < Brolly (PS4)
Goku (XB1) + Z Figher's Ki (Azure) > Brolly (PS4)

XB1 + Azure (Goku + Z Fighters' Ki) > Brolly (PS4) is implied in > Crackdown 3 MP since the PS4 couldn't handle it.
 
So it starts, this is how MS gets their original, always online policy back on track.

MS: "You see this awesome destruction, well it only works when Xbox One is online but we can't really use this in single player games unless you forgive us and let us make Xbox One an always online console again"
 
We aren't talking about monolithic applications though. We are talking about GAMES. Only reason Halo used Orleans was because of the absolutely enormous amount of analytics they collect. Had nothing to do with the actual multiplayer server.

I suspect that you only skimmed the link that I posted. Multiplayer servers are traditionally monolithic applications, that use an application instance as coarse-grained unit of replication. Developing them into distributed applications, for instance by using something like Orleans, is what is required to truly improve efficiency and harvest processing power, and that is the kind of development effort I was originally talking about. Somehow you mixed some thing up here.
 
My connection is about 4-6mb (depends on the weather...) so I'm glad to hear that they are optimising for shitty connections too!
 
Until we are past the tech demo stage and this is actually in player's hands, I will not buy in.

I believe in the Cloud as a concept. It's obvious and has been for years that distributed computing is extremely powerful.

Where they lose me is saying that the internet is ready for real-time distributed computing to the level MS wants people to believe in. That can't be proven by demos, because Demos have several advantages a real game will not. The same type of advantage that turns into Bullshots.

If the actual release does what's advertised, then kudos to MS.

But people chalking this up as a win for MS's claims based on what we've already seen are as likely to be disappointed as not IMO.

I too remember how impressive the Kinect demo was.
 
The (10 min video) tech is impressive, but I would like to see a Xbox only take on the scene to see if the server side makes all that difference that the PR tries to imply.

The Xone + Cloud sure will be better than the Xone alone, but is the difference that great?

And will be the server side destruction scalable with the bandwidth?
- 4M full destruction
- 2M 50% less debris
- 1M 75% less debris and no glass shaterring
- 512k Xone only but still playable?

Their Build presentation earlier this year was exactly this. The framerate slowed to a crawl once the destruction started.
 
No, it makes it the best used cloud computing to date, which has nothing to do with XB1 hardware. You could leverage the same tech for the Vita if you really wanted to. Hell, the same tech is leveraged in your cellphone, it is called Siri. "The power of the cloud" is what allows that rapid speech processing to happen. It is like putting your Civic on the bed of an 18 wheeler and saying, "This Civic has the most torque ever!"
This.
While this is really cool, the flamebait title is just cringeworthy and factually wrong, lol.
 
So it starts, this is how MS gets their original, always online policy back on track.

MS: "You see this awesome destruction, well it only works when Xbox One is online but we can't really use this in single player games unless you forgive us and let us make Xbox One an always online console again"

Interesting interpretation.
 
I suspect that you only skimmed the link that I posted. Multiplayer servers are traditionally monolithic applications, that use an application instance as coarse-grained unit of replication. Developing them into distributed applications, for instance by using something like Orleans, is what is required to truly improve efficiency and harvest processing power, and that is the kind of development effort I was originally talking about. Somehow you mixed some thing up here.

You will need to explain yourself there bud. Traditionally, instances of MP matches have no need to communicate or provide any information to anything outside of itself and it's clients. Certainly not to other MP matches. A simple health check to the master server is all, and that certainly isn't going to be on the same physical server let alone VM. Orleans would provide no value there.'

But I agree that MP matches are a nice unit of replication. I said as much earlier.
 
I disagree. Cloud tech will make its way into SP campaigns with an offline mode included. It will be a while, but it will come. MS will definitely try it with 1st parties. Times change and with that perspectives and what's accepted will change as well. Hardware+cloud tech is the future. I think the demand for what is capable with cloud is going to pretty high...that will encourage devs to do SP+cloud.

  • I think it will come gradually to more and more titles, both because it may offer some relief AND unique possibilities to aging, fixed spec hardware but also because of other factors.
  • Digital purchasing is becoming more and more common, there is an increasingly larger pool of players that has access to an internet connection.
  • Beta's and paid Early access are now starting to show up for Single Player games and games themselves are being created with this in mind (See Hitman)
  • Episodic gaming has had a few hits, see Killer Instinct and Life is Strange.

Throw in Freemium titles and Free to play games and you it feels very much like the gaming landscape is changing. Whilst "Online only" games are never going to occupy all genres and games, I think that we will end up at the point where we are all effectively connected all the time (I'm pretty much there already)
 
The "internet of things" is a meaningless buzzword phrase. The market reacted clearly and violently to the idea of "always online", and that is all that matters. If you think that other entities in this space didn't take note, you don't know business.

That said, we should probably continue that discussion in another thread.
drag him
 
Interesting interpretation.

Well it could lead to some interesting questions. If this can only be used when online, it does limit the tech to multiplayer only games, which is a shame.

Unless developers give us different graphics options for single player games depending on if it can connect or not, but that will leave some players with a gimped version of a game.
 
You will need to explain yourself there bud. Traditionally, instances of MP matches have no need to communicate or provide any information outside of itself and it's clients. Certainly not to other MP matches. A simple health check to the master server is all. Orleans would provide no value there.

Sure it would. If you distribute an application, not because it inherently needs to communicate to other nodes due its use case, but for performance reasons, you allow it to scale more efficiently. The unit of replication becomes smaller, allowing for more precise and fine-grained resource allocation. The multiplayer server would still only communicate with 16 external clients (for a 16 player match), but if the application itself was replicated across runtime environments, all application instances would saturate the resources better, and could use their aggregated processing power for computation that allow that.

Scaling on the level of VMs causes much larger chunks of unused server time.

I really is the same as running a multi-threaded application on a multi-core CPU. It's just more complicated due to the obvious issues, like latency, bandwidth, and reliability.
 
I just hope they don't hit any snags during development and delay the game due to it being the first game to leverage the "cloud" like this. I definitely like what they have shown so far, although I'm not sure about the single player mode being farmed out to someone else.
 
So it starts, this is how MS gets their original, always online policy back on track.

MS: "You see this awesome destruction, well it only works when Xbox One is online but we can't really use this in single player games unless you forgive us and let us make Xbox One an always online console again"

Look out everyone. Nostradamus in the house.

Forget about discussing how revolutionary the tech is. Let's start worrying about a hypothetical situation that has no evidence to support it.
 
the cloud, kids, is the future.

when I was young we had records and record players. then came 8 tracks
and cassettes and CD's
now I am all digital [yeah I know vinyl as they are now called is making a comeback]

I like change...I watched TV's go from tubes to the smart TV I currently have
my mother would go to Woolworth to buy tubes for our TV.. black and white screen

I could say the same about phones, cars, computers etc

the world is changing at a fast rate and I have been fortunate to be alive to see the changes in the past decades

and I am glad to see the cloud and what it is capable of and will buy crackdown
and am looking forward to the game
 
Anyone been able to find any documentation on Xbox Live Compute from a developers standpoint?

Specifically I'm looking for information around whether it is simply VM support or more of a Services based architecture
 
the cloud, kids, is the future.

when I was young we had records and record players. then came 8 tracks
and cassettes and CD's
now I am all digital [yeah I know vinyl as they are now called is making a comeback]

I like change...I watched TV's go from tubes to the smart TV I currently have
my mother would go to Woolworth to buy tubes for out TV.. black and white screen

I could say the same about phones, cars, computers etc

the world is changing at a fast rate and I have been fortunate to be alive to see the changes in the past decades

and I am glad to see the cloud and what it is capable of and will buy crackdown
and am looking forward to the game

Happy 843rd birthday to you.

Surprised you didn't use the term "it was all fields round here when I was a lad."
 
Sure it would. If you distribute an application, not because it inherently needs to communicate to other nodes due its use case, but for performance reasons, you allow it to scale more efficiently. The unit of replication becomes smaller, allowing for more precise and fine-grained resource allocation. The multiplayer server would still only communicate with 16 external clients (for a 16 player match), but if the application itself was replicated across runtime environments, all application instances would saturate the resources better, and could use their aggregated processing power for computation that allow that.

I really is the same as running a multi-threaded application on a multi-core CPU. It's just more complicated due to the obvious issues, like latency, bandwidth, and reliability.

You are describing what Crackdown is doing. Not typical MP servers. A typical MP server(full box or single VM) is a "multi-threaded application on a multi-core CPU" that happens to be running remotely.
 
Everything changed when MS attacked. Seriously MS is the fire nation, the cloud is Sozen's comet and PlayStation is the air nation.

Playstation is Earthkingdom bro.

Nintendo are the water tribe.


NA = southern tribe JPN/EU = northern tribe.



Ouya is Air Nation.
 
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