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Xbox One | Understanding Microsoft's Cloud claims | Tech panel and ArsTech article
- Thread starter nib95
- Start date
Something Wicked
Member
WoolyNinja
Member
Cloud computing is not an MS thing. Anybody can use cloud computing today. Making network calls to a server has been around for years. Server farms have been around for years.
I don't understand why Microsoft keeps pushing this as a unique feature.
I don't understand why Microsoft keeps pushing this as a unique feature.
It's not prebaking when it is being calculated in real time
You take grey scale images which compress extremely well and apply them to textures
May be a couple frames off or so but for GI? It's great stuff.
Also other things handled by cloud... Foliage
Environmental stuff can be far more powerful, other things that can have plenty of beneficial are special effects of any kind, cutscenes, and gaming calculations towards your player indirectly like mob moving enemies, wind, any calculations non-millisecond input sensitive, lovely waterfalls flowing anyone?
Details, games can have far more details and offload it from the hardware, just it.
This is HOW it works, it's on Microsoft's hands to make good use of it.
The API for developers to squeeze the most of its potentials, no one likes to code from scratch everything, this is why gaming engine market is so profitable.
famousmortimer
Banned
Because anyone in the world has used both gaikai on the ps4 and the azure server farms to power xbone games?
Like i said before... For both of these things: SHOW US!
That was the exact same claim made for simcity, that calculations HAD to be done on a cloud server so that the system requirements are lower. IT turned out that the entire game could be played offline due to a hacker. Not hard to see why people are skeptical.
It is possible, but I'll believe it when I see it. You'd need an unusually powerful connection and it would have limited uses...
What I'm interested in is the persistent world and interactive sharing stuff. Like demon's souls on steroids or something.
This is just drm to me though.
Have a Nice Day
Member
wasn't that the same thing that EA was telling people for why SimCity needs to be always connected and it turned out that you can do it without problems in offline?
I deserved that. My dad is really credible but I won't bother. I'll take the lumps lol.
You should hear what my mom said though.
Winterfang
Banned
Does that means that Microsoft can offer huge ass open worlds but keep the graphics at a very high level?
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Simcity claim it works offline?
I'm not a hardware engineer or anything but maybe they should have made the Xbox more powerful instead of claiming they are going to have all this computation power available in the cloud.how do you support a game that sells a couple of million copies the first month,have 3x the servers up? Bullshit.
They aren't pre calculating
The game connects to a cluster of servers and they do heavy operations there and send info back and forth in between the X1.
It's like having a massive CPU with a small high latency link in between it
WoolyNinja
Member
How can lighting be pre-calculated? That makes no sense to me? How does it know which direction I'll be facing by the time the response is sent back from the "cloud"?
NightAntilli
Banned
Hm. I'll believe it when I see it.
No, just the opposite. They claimed SimCity wouldn't work offline because "the cloud" was doing an ton of computations.
Kazuma Kiryu
Member
think of the advantages of being always online! 3tflops of power in your xbox one!
Not just a prediction, common sense. It's what will happen.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
I will stick to my opinions as I commented in the other thread but this stuff is PR fluff. At least the 40x claim.
Oh that is how its work. lol but it s the cloud its infinite!!! UNLIMITED POWER!!!!!!221231!!!!
Crazy you can use that much power through a laggy 2.5MB/s connection... lol
It just them trying to push always online console.
What's the minimum internet connection bandwidth needed to actually take advantage of cloud computing anyway?
Sending light maps for textures
Won't be handling reflected or refracted light.
Depends on the intended use
One thing is for sure, if both consoles release, and PS4 games continually end up looking better, Microsoft will find it hard to live down these sorts of claims.
What they are proposing is a logistical and technical nightmare. Potentially considerably complicating the development pipeline further, but that's just my opinion. To me, they would be better suited to just using those servers to offer dedicated servers (which I think they are) for low latency advantages in ping, less lag in online games, bigger maps, more players etc.
What they are proposing is a logistical and technical nightmare. Potentially considerably complicating the development pipeline further, but that's just my opinion. To me, they would be better suited to just using those servers to offer dedicated servers (which I think they are) for low latency advantages in ping, less lag in online games, bigger maps, more players etc.
It definitely seems that way to me. Rendering, in the end, HAS to be one locally. People saying this could be used to render foliage is insane, even if the foliage cannot be interacted with. The system still has to update every frame of the foliage locally because the player and camera is changing. When you change perspective when looking at foliage, the frame has to change and that has to be calculated in less than 33.3ms, no way around that. The cloud is more accurately, is a system to send you prebaked data that can be updated in the regime of 100 to 200 ms. I just find it difficult to imagine that this is hugely advantageous to simply including prebaked data on the disc. There may be some advantages, of course, I just don't see it having a huge effect.
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Maybe if they didn't spend money on Kinect, and extra non gaming features they could have better tech thus negating the need for the cloud. The cloud just adds another layer of DRM and shit that could go wrong. If your game needs needs to offload data because the system can't handle it, you're doing it wrong.
Not an unreasonable stance IMO. I'll admit it certainly possible MS has the infrastructure and resources to figure out a cool solution for offloading some of the gaming load to remote servers but its all very vague so far.
The fact that their initial discussions about it were so long-term and generic make me think its's not something we'll be seeing for a while. And maybe it's something that never really works out... wait and see is the order of the day for me.
WoolyNinja
Member
What's the benefit of doing that in the cloud? Wouldn't light maps for textures that won't change based on user interactions be something that could just be loaded in the background on the system? I thought that stuff was very non-processor intensive overall?
They have already said games will have dedicated servers.
D
Deleted member 8095
Unconfirmed Member
Do we have any concrete reason not to right now? Jumping to conclusions one way or the other is fucking dumb.
MWS Natural
Member
Anyone that has even a small understanding of cloud architecture would know these things are possible, but on GAF it gets lost in all of the fanboy drivel.
They should be toting that line stronger, not saying the system will be 40x more powerful vs the 360 with the cloud ....
GI is very intensive, for example
so they can do reflected light for fixed position lights
especially in a game where you have day/night cycles this could be very useful
i agree, it's also partly because people not exactly understanding what it is MS is selling. (which GAF today has more than proved the general populace don't understand the concept)
That's what it's all going to turn out to be nothing but dedicated gaming servers, MS is known for over promising and under delivering. Anyone who believe this "Infinite power of the Cloud" nonsense are in for rude awakening.
Outtrigger888
Member
From what i heard, the claims regarding the cloud, its still up in the air.
Ba-do-dum-chish...
Ba-do-dum-chish...
tough crowd...
Above everything, it'll all be about consistency across a varied set of speed and ping rate. And equally importantly, just how many third parties do they really expect to invest their time in creating bespoke pieces of information for a fragmented userbase?
Not having the money, infrastructure, and/or experience to implement 300,000 servers around the world?
Have there been any comments on twitter etc regarding this? I want to believe but why not at least show some bs target renders or something if its going to be such a boost. It's hard to over state how unimpressive COD , Forza, and the sports games were but I guess all we can do is wait for E3 and hope they show something truly next gen.
WoolyNinja
Member
Anyone that has even a small understanding of cloud architecture over the current internet would know these things are not possible
3-4 TeraFlops? Holy mother of ..
Ambient light and shadows are still lighting, even with day phases it can be pre-calculated.