It's almost like one company made billions by charging for P2P for 7 years and now they have more of an infrastructure in place.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Respawn Entertainment gives more detail about the Cloud and Titanfall
- Thread starter ComputerMKII
- Start date
It's almost like one company made billions by charging for P2P for 7 years and now they have more of an infrastructure in place.
Garrett 2U
Member
It is pretty easy to understand how AI could be improved using the cloud.
Instead of decision making happening on the client's box, that CPU intensive process could be offloaded to the cloud and decisions streamed back to the client.
Players won't notice a 200ms delay in-between AI reactions.
In open world games, areas you aren't exploring can be simulated on the cloud.
Graphics wise, I can imagine a level of detail system working asynchronously with the cloud.
And if you only look at it as having dedicated servers, it still opens up so many opportunities for developers.
A game the scale of Battlefield could not be networked peer to peer.
Even games that could utilize peer to peer networking will have a noticeable increase in quality with dedicated servers.
Name one person or dev in this thread that said a single thing about "4 times more powerful than without the cloud"-amazing.
Bingo. It's a diversionary tactic employed by those that would do anything to downplay the "cloud" and the advantages it brings to the Xbox One.
It's about MS' claim of the former. Real life examples like this game show that it's factual nothing but a flexible server system, which is AWESOME but not like MS claims.
Selling "the cloud" as something that it isn't is just soooo wrong. Why not just flesh out the benefit it actually HAS (like respawn here does). That would be way better than throwing around buzzwords.
Azure-system is gorgeous for devs and dedicated servers are awesome for gamers (at least for most games), so why not keep it at that?
What... 200ms where an enemy AI NCP stands there doing nothing?
So i'm playing splinter cell, drop down in front of a enemy armed with a knife, 200ms he reacts? He'd be dead. Many times over.
Or does the game process a default more basic AI routine client side while it waits for the 'cloud' to come back with a more indepth AI action? So half way through an action or after the first action the AI NCP stupidly starts doing something completely different? How's the game manage that? Or what if i change weapons half way through the 200ms processing to a rocket launcher? The original AI response sent was based on me holding a knife...
200ms is a massive delay. In a single player FPS, 200ms is half a dozen bullets.
That's also assuming its 200ms round trip, what if you've got 400ms round trip. So what the AI NCP is going to stand there motionless for almost half a second?
What if the packet drops?
What if my internet drops?
What if my internet connection bandwidth dramatically drops down?
How this AI going to handle that?
How is it going to provide real time AI when it has a 200ms handicap?
Such abilities are available on client side games too. Elderscrolls for example.
It's not like online games haven't done this sort of simulation before either.
So Azure isn't really offering anything new in this regard, just simplying it and perhaps making it more cost effective for a developer to implament.
To improve on what? To offer what?
How does it overcome latency? Bandwidth?
lastflowers
Banned
See my example of an interesting use (at least to me):
One of my basic thoughts is changing level structure of ai opponents based on the gaming collectives' history with a level. Say there are 10 different ways to enter a compound. Vanilla level has guards mainly tightly controlling 6 of the ten tightly (b,c,h,i,j,k), and 4 of them in larger paths (a,d,e,f,g). After 80% of gamers targeted a certain 5 of the entrances (a,c,d,f,g,h), guard routines are sent down by the 'cloud' to adjust their paths. Now, (a,b,c,d,f,g,h) are the tightly covered entrances with lower 'spook' meters--making these entrances much harder to use.
The ai routine defaults to a certain path and structure, but the cloud offers the ability to dynamically alter the weights of certain locations on the game-map. Cutting off previous scenarios and encouraging players to move a certain way through the map that hasn't previously been explored by other players.
Ignore the PR speak and think about the real-life possibilities of enhancing experiences. Utlize arguments that dont' make much sense to pivot to a more plausible scenario. Outright dismissal does nothing for anyone other than stroking your own ego and increasing your opinion of self-worth and critical analysis. It's easy to be skeptical, a cop out. It's much more beneficial for everyone to look for scenarios that benefit both yourself and your gaming peers. Discussions are more helpful to acknowledge the PR, and pivot off it. Unless you truly hate M$ and da klawd, only bringing up scenarios and talking-points that tear them down only detracts from conversations. It feels oftentimes like the American political system here, where the extremes are the only valid positions. The only talking points are the extremes, rather than the middleground in between them.
Okay, I'm seeing a few discussions on what, "the cloud," can actually do for developers.
Granted, I'm far from the final authority on such things, but here's my read based on what I've read.
Reduced Lag: Yes, verses peer to peer, using dedicated servers greatly reduces lag.
Improved lighting: No, or at least not in the way being advertised. There's too much lag even under ideal conditions for the cloud to meaningfully play a part in dynamic lighting. It could help with pre-baked lighting, but pre-baked lighting can usually be handled system side with little trouble. The best thing you could say about doing it this way, is that it may help spare some resources for other tasks, but it isn't going to look all that good.
Improved graphics in general: A bigger no. Any boost to visuals cloud computing can provide is going to be in very specialized instances. It won't be able to take a console that can render 2 million polygons in real time, and make it so it can render 10 million polygons in real time. Anybody that implies the Cloud provides you with that kind of boost, is definitely trying to sell you something.
Improved AI: Yes, but its more applicable in some games than others. Cloud computing can help direct units, and assign behaviors on a larger scale than a single participant in a multiplayer game could. However, this isn't a silver bullet either. Remember that the most recent Sim-City used Cloud AI as well, and it was extremely simplistic and flawed in most respects. Badly designed AI, isn't going to be made suddenly better by offloading it to a server. Additionally, single player games get little benefit from this. The big benefit comes from instances when a huge number of units need to be directed at once. For the handful you typically encounter in single player games, this would be overkill, and introduce potential lag issues.
Improved physics: Mostly no. Dynamic physics need a very small low latency environment to work properly. You can off load static pre-baked physics to the cloud and watch the results, but you would never be able to really interact with these physics effects. Additionally, even older CPU's can do a decent job at this task. Recall the pre-baked physics scenes from Half Life 2: Episode 2. These pre-baked scenes could be passably handled by two core Pentium 4, a modern CPU could go through this with very little trouble. Once again, the best thing you can say about this, is it frees up resources for other tasks. Given that its only applicable to certain kinds of physics however, even this is of little utility.
This does NOT mean that Cloud computing is of no real value. The areas in which Cloud computing, "CAN," help, are of immense value. I'm merely wish to point out there there is a lot of marketing speak in a lot of Microsofts recent statements about the Cloud.
I honestly don't blame them, but functionally its little different than saying that the PS3 will get power boosts from Cell Chip enabled television sets and appliances. Though to be fair, at least cloud computing is something that actually exists.
Granted, I'm far from the final authority on such things, but here's my read based on what I've read.
Reduced Lag: Yes, verses peer to peer, using dedicated servers greatly reduces lag.
Improved lighting: No, or at least not in the way being advertised. There's too much lag even under ideal conditions for the cloud to meaningfully play a part in dynamic lighting. It could help with pre-baked lighting, but pre-baked lighting can usually be handled system side with little trouble. The best thing you could say about doing it this way, is that it may help spare some resources for other tasks, but it isn't going to look all that good.
Improved graphics in general: A bigger no. Any boost to visuals cloud computing can provide is going to be in very specialized instances. It won't be able to take a console that can render 2 million polygons in real time, and make it so it can render 10 million polygons in real time. Anybody that implies the Cloud provides you with that kind of boost, is definitely trying to sell you something.
Improved AI: Yes, but its more applicable in some games than others. Cloud computing can help direct units, and assign behaviors on a larger scale than a single participant in a multiplayer game could. However, this isn't a silver bullet either. Remember that the most recent Sim-City used Cloud AI as well, and it was extremely simplistic and flawed in most respects. Badly designed AI, isn't going to be made suddenly better by offloading it to a server. Additionally, single player games get little benefit from this. The big benefit comes from instances when a huge number of units need to be directed at once. For the handful you typically encounter in single player games, this would be overkill, and introduce potential lag issues.
Improved physics: Mostly no. Dynamic physics need a very small low latency environment to work properly. You can off load static pre-baked physics to the cloud and watch the results, but you would never be able to really interact with these physics effects. Additionally, even older CPU's can do a decent job at this task. Recall the pre-baked physics scenes from Half Life 2: Episode 2. These pre-baked scenes could be passably handled by two core Pentium 4, a modern CPU could go through this with very little trouble. Once again, the best thing you can say about this, is it frees up resources for other tasks. Given that its only applicable to certain kinds of physics however, even this is of little utility.
This does NOT mean that Cloud computing is of no real value. The areas in which Cloud computing, "CAN," help, are of immense value. I'm merely wish to point out there there is a lot of marketing speak in a lot of Microsofts recent statements about the Cloud.
I honestly don't blame them, but functionally its little different than saying that the PS3 will get power boosts from Cell Chip enabled television sets and appliances. Though to be fair, at least cloud computing is something that actually exists.
Pretty much. And, I don't think anybody questions the fact that "the cloud" can provide large computation capacities. Hell, when I need to run a heavy numerical simulation, I run it on a remote cluster, which is comparable to some extent.
The issue is there's a lot of hand-waving regarding all that supposedly new, extra stuff that'll make games better somehow. The convenience for devs/publishers to have direct and easy access to an allegedly cheap, scalable bank of servers is great. Good for them. That's not what I'm personaly interested in, and that's not what microsoft has been selling with talk of the "infinite power of the cloud" and "4X the computational power when your xbone is plugged into the cloud."
Offloading AI to servers is nice. People were also doing that in early 2000's with bots on dedicated CS servers. Is "the power of the cloud" going to turn next gen AI into something more? Is computational power what's holding back AI in modern games? Maybe. I'm honestly sceptical. Would love to be proven wrong and see actually competent AI in games (for a change. Yes Ellie, I'm looking at you sweetheart).
There's been a lot of talk about computing illumination in the cloud. It is computationaly heavy, doesn't necessarily need frame-by-frame refresh, and results can be downloaded back as reasonably small chunks of data. It's however also been pointed out that these computations could be performed before release, and that this small chunk of data could be stored on disc. Streaming from disc being a hell of a lot more rapid than downloading from servers. Not to mention, performing the computations once and for all ahead of time would seem to make more sense than recomputing the same sets of data for each user, on servers you're renting. In addition, the lighting thing has, as far as I recall, only been mentioned as "something that maybe could work down the line, theoretically, but we're not doing it right now."
So, in terms of visible, measurable-by-the-player benefits of the cloud to games, we're left with: dedicated servers, running AI, possibly running physics (I don't believe specific details have emerged on that yet?), maybe computing illumination down the line ("but we aint doing it now"), and the prevalent "maybe other cool stuff, people will eventually figure it out lol."
In terms of "infinite power of the cloud," that's a little thin. It also is all wrapped in a vague, magic mystical veil of confusing mystery, see the OP,
I have no doubt that in theory, you could do a lot of stuff. What I'd be interested in knowing however, is what can I reasonably expect the impact to be, in practice, for games I'll play.
NullPointer
Member
I would love this. Basically adding dynamism through heatmaps or adjusting AI tactics to compensate. THIS is exactly the kind of salve we need to counter the overly scripted overly linear corridors that go for many modern campaigns.
NemesisPrime
Banned
You are missing the point totally.
Everything can be done client side. It is a silly argument.
Some (and notice the word SOME) things can be offloaded to a cloud server freeing up the local machine to do MORE stuff. That is basically the core of it. The fact that MS is providing this from the start at a low price is an amazing feat and a big win for gamers TBH.
TBH this is a perfect example of something that can be offloaded to Azure and it exactly the stuff that I am expecting on X1 this gen. Analyzing gameplay data and applying some of those results back to your game.
Doesn't work for dynamic content. Stop thinking in current game terms. The age of static gaming content is ending.
Agreeeeed! Though I might add that I really am skeptical of claims of Cloud Powered physics, beyond the pre-baked variety. When you're trying to calculate how things will move as your character is moving through them, milliseconds can make a difference, at least once you pile enough of them up.
Another problem that a lot of people seem to be ignoring here, is of course, even if you could do some of these things, it doesn't necessarily make it a good idea to do them.
Take, graphics in general, for example. As a developer, would you really want your visuals falling apart mid-game, because of network congestion, or a server hiccup, or one of the numerous other things that could affect your customers internet speed?
Same with physics, a momentary burst of lag could potentially derail a physics calculation pretty badly. Best case scenario, things look a little funny, worst case scenario it causes the game to crash.
Now, AI is a little different, the sort of AI they're likely talking about shouldn't need a lot of bandwidth to function properly, and there are ways to mitigate the problem when your customers internet has a split second fit.
For the most part though, I wouldn't want to build a game around resources that the consumer may not have, or which may not be entirely reliable.
Azure's funding doesn't come from XBL, and it doesn't exist solely for gaming, nor does your claim refute the post you're responding to.
Yes, AI is very computationally expensive, but it's also not nearly as attractive as graphics (processsing power) or audio (disc space), which, as anyone who knows anything about audiovisual media will tell you (and game reviews will relate), is the most important part of any audiovisual medium, even games, is how it looks and how it sounds. That's why graphics and sound get the most precedence in video games. Nobody ever really seems to notice sound, however, but if you look at any of the 'best rated games of this generation' lists, you will find games that have great audiovisual presentation. Hi Bioshock, Portal, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect...
The sad thing is that this is actually more important to people than gameplay... which is where AI's actually a big factor.
Console games have never really been about AI (Halo is the big exception, but a lot of this is done more through fakery than actual AI--the same is true of FEAR, and, to an extent, STALKER, though GOAP AI is kinda fascinating in its own right, even if it's not a form of 'true AI') as much as the PC has, in large part because of their limited resources; if you want to go find games with really good AI, you'll start digging really deep into games by studios such as Looking Glass or GSC Game World. PC simulation is the arena that AI has received the most attention in, and the Immersive Sim as a genre is basically a genre built around the concept of AI (one of the big reasons people complain about games like Bioshock and Deus Ex: Human Revolution not being as advanced as their predecessors is because their AI appears to be a great deal simpler than it is in those games).
So it's kind of a... one problem leads to the other. AI is computationally expensive, and people value graphics and sound more, so resources are dedicated to that instead, which is why a lot of 'great' games have such crappy AI (like every one of those games I listed above).
There has been a quote from a TitanFall developer on YouTube (can't find the video right now, it is somewhere in my post history), where he refered to calculating impact points of bullets on the server-side, which is what dedicated servers, of course, need to do to play the role of the "referee".
They can't mean real-time physics like calculating how fragments of a destructed wall move in 3D space. I have seen an implementation of such an algorithm in OpenCL on a GPU, and it's way to time-critical to do. (It has to be done in a fraction of the time of a single frame.
Moreover, you could call some kinds of game world synchronization "physics", for instance Battlefield 4 is synchronizing the calculation of ocean waves over their dedicated servers so that every player sees the same world state regarding ocean waves. However, this must have to with the synchronization of time and parameters so that waves are still calculated locally but synchronized.
Hmm While I think that this is incorrect, especially since Devs have alluded specifically to it being Exactly the same Azure service, also add in that PR could be playing semantic gymnastics. I will leave this point alone until there is further clarification.
fwiw i do not think that XBL = The Cloud = Azure
I think XBL is different from the Cloud similarly to how Gaikai is different from PSN. (which is the crux of the comment you quoted)
But I will leave it alone.
Dude, what if your house explode while you're playing? How the AI will handle that? If you want these kind of precise answers you'll have to develop a game yourself or wait for a GDC panel or something like that.
It's a good to read how developers are going to use the cloud infrastructure. I'm also glad MS are making it available for PCs too.
I would have hope MS were not charging developers or publishers for this. They already charge for Xbox Live and I was hoping that this cost could be taken from that.
I'd be OK with the idea of cloud games requiring Xbox Live Gold if it meant that devs got to use the Azure infrastructure for free.
Developers develop a game and if the resource is free the more likely they can use it and not have to worry about long term maintenance costs. I can now imagine that these servers at some point will become not profitable to run (or the developer/publisher goes out of business so MS can invoice anyone) so will get shut down and AI in some games will no longer work making the game unplayable. If it was free to use and even if the player base was tiny they could just leave the server running as MS would still get money from the users gold sub and the developer would not worry about it.
I would have hope MS were not charging developers or publishers for this. They already charge for Xbox Live and I was hoping that this cost could be taken from that.
I'd be OK with the idea of cloud games requiring Xbox Live Gold if it meant that devs got to use the Azure infrastructure for free.
Developers develop a game and if the resource is free the more likely they can use it and not have to worry about long term maintenance costs. I can now imagine that these servers at some point will become not profitable to run (or the developer/publisher goes out of business so MS can invoice anyone) so will get shut down and AI in some games will no longer work making the game unplayable. If it was free to use and even if the player base was tiny they could just leave the server running as MS would still get money from the users gold sub and the developer would not worry about it.
Sounds like MS is using that money to make dedicated servers available cheap to developers.
Garrett 2U
Member
200ms is a fifth of a second. No, you wouldn't realize it.
Go test your reaction time.
Unless you score under 200 ms, the cloud AI would react to you dropping down, faster than you could press the knife button after noticing you hit the ground.
Unless your gun shoots 30 bullets a second, you could not shoot half a dozen bullets in that time.
In any event, the client could have some automated routines in cases where there needs to be an immediate reaction or if a message from the cloud isn't returned in time.
The great thing about Microsoft's cloud is that they have servers everywhere. I can't imagine you'll have more than a 100ms ping to a close server. 200ms response time is very fair.
You're right, games have simulated other parts of the world client side.
The whole point of a cloud based environment is if you can do it off the box, you should.
Also making it more accessible enables developers to use it more often in their games, so hopefully you'll see more games using these features that couldn't before because it was just too costly.
The whole point of offloading computation is more resources can be used on the client for other things. That is what it offers and improves.
Third party developers might not use the cloud capabilities right away for anything besides dedicated servers. (which alone is a huge benefit)
But you can bet to see some interesting things from first party devs.
link1201
Member
That was interesting to try, thanks for posting it. I now have a reference for that sort of thing.
Really? A launch window game doesn't make spectacular use of it, hence it has minimal value? Isn't that basically every console ever?
I guess Cell, BluRay, EDRAM and the WiiMote are all totally worthless since none of the launch games for those systems really made good use of them.
I hope Sony comes out and guarantees dedicated servers for all MP games. I flipped before the 180 but that's the thing that always worried me*... I enjoy MP games and Xbox handles them better and timed exclusivity and now dedicated servers.
I keep telling myself it'll be ok but honestly i'm in a wait and see mode with both consoles on pre-order day one guaranteed but only the PS4 locally. Titanfall looks epic as i'm a big CoD fan but I keep telling myself it's coming to PC although I prefer a controller.
Edit: * well that and the fact that since the One is underpowered it may end up being lead platform again and everything just ported to the PS4.
I keep telling myself it'll be ok but honestly i'm in a wait and see mode with both consoles on pre-order day one guaranteed but only the PS4 locally. Titanfall looks epic as i'm a big CoD fan but I keep telling myself it's coming to PC although I prefer a controller.
Edit: * well that and the fact that since the One is underpowered it may end up being lead platform again and everything just ported to the PS4.
I don't believe that's what he means. His argument is that he doesn't believe xbone+azure necessarily allows to do more than other solutions would allow. He's saying that the notion that maybe something down the line might happen isn't enough (to conclusively establish that xbone+azure does allow to do more).
I think we're all in agreement that dedicated servers are a positive. That has certainly more than "minimal value."
Not looking to get into an argument here, but I was pretty happy to be able to play bluray movies as soon as I picked up my launch PS3, and I thought Wii sports made a pretty outstanding use of the wiimote, but, whatever.
Trogdor1123
Gold Member
I like it too lol, averaged about 275... thats pretty bad judgeing form the other averages people have...
How do you know how much they make on ads and how would you know it was enough to cover the cost of running Xbox Live? How do you know how much they lose or make on Windows Phone?
Lastly, if they are using Gold fees to cover losses then where is the money coming from to subsidize the dedicated servers for any developer?
Don`t bother answering. I know you were just pulling numbers out of your ass.
More on topic. Having cheap dedicated servers for those that want them is a great advantage for the X1.
Except nowhere says it will be cheaper than other cloud services. Microsoft hasn't said anything about the price, only said it will be "available" to anyone. When I pressed, Dko5 from Respawn said he didn't know either. I doubt we will ever find out.
Then I guess you didn't read DKo5's posts. At best, they (Respawn) gave conflicting answers. We also don't know if the discounted price is for everybody (i.e., no-exclusive 3rd party).
He also said it was "much cheaper for us to use".
... than to buy and rack thousands of servers. " Nowhere mentioning other cloud service providers, i.e., Azure's competitors.
Again the OP talks about the other providers and still said MS provided the most affordable. We will see soon enough if others start using Azure too.
PSYGN
Member
If you've ever played Black Ops 2, the bots there are pretty convincing at times. No, they won't mimic the best players out there but often mimic your average players decision making. In Black Ops 1 and in many other games they just tended to scan the area as they walked. In BO2, they actually pre aim around corner at times, plant stuff on the ground in areas that make sense, look over ledges for cover, jump over obstacles to get to vantage points, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if Treyarch already did some player gameplay sampling and having the bots make decisions based on real sample data.
Absolute BS.
We're talking about AI, physics, 200ms is massive.
Left clicking when the colour green comes up is not even remotely relavent or applicable.
Even then i averaged 290ms. That was for me to react and click and on my work pc. No doubt could do even better on my home machine.
Try living in Australia.
lastflowers
Banned
oh boy, counterstrike must be a blast for you
Hey we have dedicated servers for Counter Strike!
20-30ms, wont seem me even attempting to play any online FPS with 150+ ms ping.
Which again highlights just how bullshit this argument that '200ms is acceptable' is.
Try playing COD, BF3, CS:S, or any modern FPS with that kind of latency. It's like hell.
20-30ms, wont seem me even attempting to play any online FPS with 150+ ms ping.
Which again highlights just how bullshit this argument that '200ms is acceptable' is.
Try playing COD, BF3, CS:S, or any modern FPS with that kind of latency. It's like hell.
Garrett 2U
Member
Why are you comparing receiving live updates from a player to computing AI?
When updating unpredictable players you must receive updates as quickly as possible to maintain the illusion of seeing the same world.
AI isn't just predictable, it is pre-determined.
In fact, AI decisions are given artificial delays in order to simulate at least realistic reaction times (which turn out to be 150-200ms), and often even longer for balancing purposes..
I didn't mention anything about physics. The fact is 200ms is not massive for AI.
The reaction test is relevant.
Even when you know you were being tested for reaction time, and you were expecting something to come, and you were waiting; you weren't able to react to it in less than 290ms on average.
It doesn't really matter the situation, you wouldn't react in under a fifth of a second.
And that is plenty of time for the machine to send an update to the cloud and receive a decision on what the AI should do.
And I'd be surprised if Microsoft doesn't support a Xbox Live cloud center near Australia.
Because it's a perfect example of were latency is a big issue in gaming.
Massive assumptions there.
Really depends on how the developer implaments AI.
200ms lets keep in mind would just be the round trip, then there's the latency involved with the cloud processing the AI request, and the client recieving the AI data and processing it. So really you're 200ms likely is 300-400ms by the time it actually occurs on screen.
50-100ms for cloud and client to process.
Yet i can't bare to play online FPS with round trip latencies above 100ms. All because of how laggy and degraded the experience is and that's down to 100ms. 200ms, i wouldn't even try playing....
Again highlighting how big an issue latency really is despite your attempts to claim other wise.
Garrett 2U
Member
Those numbers just are flat out wrong, you clearly have no experience on this topic, you're the one making assumptions.
50-100ms to calculate an AI's decision?!
That would be over half your computational power if you have 10 enemies on screen.
And 200ms is the probably WORST case scenario for a ping to a server.
I can't even imagine it taking that long for anyone with a broadband connection.
My friend, the usage of a multiplayer server is not the same as using a cloud server.
You'd still be the "host". Everything you do would occur in real time.
The AI decisions would be slightly delayed, but unnoticeable.
The game wouldn't be checking your actions with the server before registering them, like they do with multiplayer servers.
The client would just send the server updates, and the server would execute its own logic, and send the client back data.
This whole process would be asynchronous, the client wouldn't stall waiting to receive data.
Brad Grenz
Member
Microsoft is a publicly traded company. As much as they'd like to obfuscate the numbers they can't keep everything secret. Here's a Penny Arcade Report story from last year about the dashboard advertising. You can do some quick and dirty math based on the amount advertisers are paying for impressions, and the numbers of impressions MS reports for single units to see the business is easily north of 300 million a year in ad sales. If they can't deliver the matchmaking and VoIP so many competitors offer for free with that they are completely incompetent.
How about they stop engaging in business misadventures knowing that tens of millions of users will blindly subsidize their failures? People are supposed to be happy that instead of paying for Xbox Live the money they send to Microsoft is in fact being used to prop up things they didn't use and have no interest in? What kind of absurd bullshit is that? Or how about they cover losses by pulling money from other profitable divisions where the customers have already gotten the product they paid for (Windows/Office) instead of engaging in this duplicitous charade where they need to get paid twice for the same service?
PS4 GPU : 1.8 Tflops
XBone GPU: 1.2 Tflops
2 Core Azure Instance: (Approximate) 25 Gega flops
To get to 600 Gflops, MS needs to dedicate 24 Cloud VM for each Xbone.
300,000 servers wont even cover 12,500 people.
http://blog.cloudharmony.com/2013/06/value-of-the-cloud-cpu-performance.html
I just dont see how the cloud can compensate for the hardware.
XBone GPU: 1.2 Tflops
2 Core Azure Instance: (Approximate) 25 Gega flops
To get to 600 Gflops, MS needs to dedicate 24 Cloud VM for each Xbone.
300,000 servers wont even cover 12,500 people.
http://blog.cloudharmony.com/2013/06/value-of-the-cloud-cpu-performance.html
I just dont see how the cloud can compensate for the hardware.
shungokusatsu
Member
In case anyone cares, the respawn dev who originally introduced lag compensation into the CoD series has been answering various, general online questions (lag comp, dedicated servers, hit detection, etc.) in a thread on the their forums here.
This is why I've always been a fan of the original IW - they always acknowledged their issues, accepted feedback, and did their best to correct the issues. It's the exact opposite of what we now see from Treyarch, where they basically say "prove it's an issue or gtfo".
This is why I've always been a fan of the original IW - they always acknowledged their issues, accepted feedback, and did their best to correct the issues. It's the exact opposite of what we now see from Treyarch, where they basically say "prove it's an issue or gtfo".
Can Crusher
Banned
It's really not supposed to. I believe the cloud was going to be a big thing for MS just like it was going to be for Sony. Mostly for QOS reasons, added services and even cool stuff like Drivatar.
I bet MS only decided to start talking about the cloud as a difference maker in terms of processing power when they realized they needed something they could reasonably counter Sony with after PS4 specs were announced. And they decided it was going to be the cloud.
Did you see how first party and MS execs kept mentioning the Cloud? It's a marketing maneuver.
Garrett 2U
Member
Cloud integration has been happening for years on Xbox.
First was the cloud saves for Xbox Live Gold members, then there was Smartglass which functions through the cloud, and then the Xbox One required internet (those rumors started months before PS4 announcement).
It makes sense that the Xbox One is heavily integrated with the cloud.
And you know, integration with the cloud isn't something that happens in a couple of months.
They need to develop the infrastructure (which takes years), then the tools for developers, and then developers need to learn those tools, and then they need to design cloud features for their game, and then implement those features into their game.
Not only does that take a lot of time, but also a lot of money.
Microsoft's global cloud infrastructure probably cost them billions of dollars.
You're damn right they are going to talk about it as a key feature of the platform, because it is.
Darth Tigris
Member
Isn't it interesting that no one from Sony or any devs have attempted to discredit or downplay anything that MS or other devs have stated about their cloud goals. Nope, just internet know-it-all's ...
Hawk269
Member
Page 14 of this thread is pretty good. Some good ideas and thoughts on how things might work with the cloud.
I still think there is more too it that what some of you are stating. I think that developers/MS are going to be doing things with the Cloud that we are not thinking of or we think cannot be done. No, I am not thinking they will magically turn my Xbox One into a Supercomputer, but I believe that there are some things still to be talked about that none of us are thinking of.
The instant great thing is dedicated servers for games. That is such a big win. Yeah, we have them now for certain games, but now having them for all games is a big plus.
I still think there is more too it that what some of you are stating. I think that developers/MS are going to be doing things with the Cloud that we are not thinking of or we think cannot be done. No, I am not thinking they will magically turn my Xbox One into a Supercomputer, but I believe that there are some things still to be talked about that none of us are thinking of.
The instant great thing is dedicated servers for games. That is such a big win. Yeah, we have them now for certain games, but now having them for all games is a big plus.
Can Crusher
Banned
Oh come on. Really? The game is getting a 360 a version for christ sakes. Somehow, it's only on MS platforms yet there isn't a deal between you guys EA and MS?
And then somehow, 1 year later like every other timed exclusive it will show up on PS4 because resources appeared out of nowhere. It's just incredibly hard to believe, specially knowing how the industry works and how rumors about Titan fall being a 1 year exclusive appeared before it was even unveiled.
Hawk269
Member
Hmmm...Good point. Now that I have thought about it for a while, why has Sony not called MS on that? I mean they called them out on the Used Game, the 24 Hour check, why not call it on the Cloud stuff? I mean, I know some here on Gaf think they know more than MS and Sony combined, but you would think that if it is all bullshit like is repeated here daily with new threads with different spins on them that a dev, publisher or anyone on Sony's payroll would of said something?
Before anyone get's their panties in an uproar, think about this logically. If it is all bullshit and MS been touting "The Cloud" since they started talking about the Xbox One, don't you think someone in the "know" and has clout would of called them on it?
Can Crusher
Banned
Oh I believe Cloud was in the cards all along. I just think it wasn't going to be used as a way to market the console's processing power.
Rising_Hei
Member
They are triying to sell something that has existed for a long time as new... even many PS3 exclusives had these "cloud" functions, whereas most of 360's didn't have dedicated servers
eddfromtheriver
Banned
Why would they?... they're not the ones at a technological disadvantage in need of coining up things like... "the infinite power of the cloud"... *cringes*