OnLive Responds to Bad Beta Press
Internal testing service only works based on location.
OnLive was introduced last year as the future of computer games – a PC-based set top box that does away with physical media and streams full games from the Internet to your TV. It's currently in Beta, but some preview testers are complaining about lag and graphics issues. OnLive, on the other hand, is calling 'BS'.
Ryan Shrout of PC Perspective used a “friend of a friend of a friend's login information” and noted that resolution and control problems with games such as Unreal Tournament 3 became apparent. A blog post from OnLive's CEO, Steve Perlman, states that the nature of Shrout's login was the very reason he was having issues.
“While the production OnLive service will adapt to different configurations each time you connect, during Beta testing each user is setup only to test a specific computer configuration, a single Internet provider and, most importantly, a particular location,” Perlman writes.
“If you change any of these factors, OnLive Beta may not even run, or if it does, the lag and/or graphics performance may render games unplayable. OnLive will try to detect these conditions and warn you, but when you are using OnLive in a different location, you are not providing us with usable test data.”
So basically, your connection is only as good as your location, relative to your designated OnLive server. This is said to change on the service's launch, but it would certainly explain all those niggles Shrout kept experiencing.
It hasn't quite quelled the concern from other Beta testers though, as Ars Technica received comments from anonymous users who also had problems. One such response reads; “OnLive performance is pretty shoddy. Besides the resolution cap at 720p—which, mind you, doesn't look so hot on a reasonably sized monitor—anything you do on the service will literally cause a jitter. This includes moving the mouse and pressing keys.”
OnLive is slated for a release later this year, with public US Betas opening in the Summer. Do you think that gaming on the cloud is a viable idea? Let us know your thoughts in the comments area.
Ryan Shrout of PC Perspective used a “friend of a friend of a friend's login information” and noted that resolution and control problems with games such as Unreal Tournament 3 became apparent. A blog post from OnLive's CEO, Steve Perlman, states that the nature of Shrout's login was the very reason he was having issues.
“While the production OnLive service will adapt to different configurations each time you connect, during Beta testing each user is setup only to test a specific computer configuration, a single Internet provider and, most importantly, a particular location,” Perlman writes.
“If you change any of these factors, OnLive Beta may not even run, or if it does, the lag and/or graphics performance may render games unplayable. OnLive will try to detect these conditions and warn you, but when you are using OnLive in a different location, you are not providing us with usable test data.”
So basically, your connection is only as good as your location, relative to your designated OnLive server. This is said to change on the service's launch, but it would certainly explain all those niggles Shrout kept experiencing.
It hasn't quite quelled the concern from other Beta testers though, as Ars Technica received comments from anonymous users who also had problems. One such response reads; “OnLive performance is pretty shoddy. Besides the resolution cap at 720p—which, mind you, doesn't look so hot on a reasonably sized monitor—anything you do on the service will literally cause a jitter. This includes moving the mouse and pressing keys.”
OnLive is slated for a release later this year, with public US Betas opening in the Summer. Do you think that gaming on the cloud is a viable idea? Let us know your thoughts in the comments area.
Companies:
OnLive
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