This thread as the title suggests is about cloud gaming, playing games based on streaming data from a remote computer.

Let me start off on some thoughts I have regarding cloud gaming.

I just don't see cloud gaming taking off in the near future for the following reasons:

1) Internet speed. This goes without saying that in some countries, internet speed is just not fast enough causing low video streaming resolution and input lag. Also, the major ISPs impose a bandwidth cap that can easily be used up in a month.

2) You are potentially sharing resources on a remote computer with several people.

Even if the remote computer you are accessing has a GTX 1080 TI equipped for example, it is not possible for multiple people to access the remote computer and play games at 4K resolution at 30 fps. Cloud computing does not magically increase the power of the CPU and GPU to allow multiple people to simultaneously utilize the full capability of a computer. Cloud gaming companies would want each of their remote computers to be shared by as many people as possible to at least break even on the cost of their equipment, otherwise, it doesn't seem like the business is sustainable.

Maybe 10 years from now, I can see cloud gaming taking off as even the cheapest GPUs can handle photorealistic graphics at 4K resolution.

What do you mean by "taking off"? If you mean "replaces local gaming completely for all gamers in the world", then I agree with you.

If, however, you mean "becomes a feasible way to play, and many might subscribe to such services"... then I am unsure. Naturally, streaming gaming is not for everyone, just like e.g. Netflix isn't either. If you have a poor or costly internet, then you most probably don't want to subscribe to either streaming gaming services nor Netflix or online HBO which require a good and steady internet connection where you can transfer lots and lots of data. Heck, for many people even Steam or GOG.com might be too much, unable to download 40 gigabytes for The Witcher 3.

But for people who have good enough internet, they might subscribe to these services. One idea in cloud computing in general is that you won't be using the full computer resources 24/7. When you are not playing The Witcher 3 on that streaming service, reserving a certain amount of computing power from their computer farms, then those same computing resources can be allocated to someone else that is playing while you are sleeping or taking a dump.

You are allocated certain amount of computing power and transfer speed from the farm of lots and lots of computers, not necessarily the same specific remote PC every time you log into the service. It is the same idea that e.g. telecom companies and internet service providers do: they don't expect all their customers to use full-speed data transfers all the time, even if there are busier and calmer times.

Anyway, I personally am not really interested to cloud gaming, at least with single-player games. For free-to-play multiplayer games like Team Fortress 2, there I even might be interested because:

- I need a steady online connection for online games anyway, so it could just as well be streamed for all I care.

- If the processing is performed remotely for the game, maybe, hopefully, that makes also cheating harder, maybe even impossible (e.g. occasionally in PC online games like TeamFortress 2, cheaters are a real nuisance).

I am interested in how cloud computing will impact the future of how single-player games are delivered. Most game developers may abandon offline functionality in favor of "games-as-a-service" to co-exist with the cloud gaming environment.

I also wonder if consumer computers will be replaced by cloud computing endpoint devices like the Steam Link or Nvidia Shield or if consumer computers will become more expensive as more people become completely dependent on cloud endpoint devices.

Cloud gaming or streaming game is the pinnacle of drm, control totally and unequivocally at source alone. Not only that it creates a monopoly, and a closed data capture and mining platform. Bless they piped anthrax down a pipe to the user I can't think of much worse than this.

Both good points,and I think it will happen.For instance,most games purchased in a shop/box now need online activation which is saying to me,that all people are pirates and can't be trusted.It's the old,trust no one and give them nothing and unfortunately we have NO choice but to except it or lump it as boycotts in this instance would never work.

Steady online gaming could be done on very early, super slow network, like 300~1200 baud modem.
Modern online gaming also use very few bandwidth, compared with YouTube or Netflix.

Many users could play recent MMO without problem, but can not afford a steady 1080p video streaming.
Watching video smoothly with a lot of downloaded cache, is very different with realtime gaming.

I think the caps are going to be a bigger issue than speed. ISP's love giving you speed but then cap you from actually taking advantage of it.

There is nothing to discuss: streaming games is a huge ripoff and always will be. It's not something that will ever be worth participating in, much less paying for. DRM clients are already outrageous and unacceptable without anything else added to them. Streaming games is insanity.

So how was it now then? I got an impression from your first message that you don't believe cloud gaming could take off, but here it seems you consider it a possibility, and fear what it would mean to gaming?

The "good" news is that cloud gaming takes some investments and the service providers have hard time figuring out what would be a good price point that people are willing to pay for it (for not having to have as much local processing power). I'd say that is one of the reasons Onlive.com failed, not enough people were willing to pay their prices for streaming gaming so they had to close their doors. Similarly, I recall seeing articles about Sony's (I think) streaming gaming system where it was wondered who was really willing to pay that kind of prices for streaming gaming. Someone HAS to pay for the remote processing power, even if it shared intelligently in cloud computing/gaming.

Not all game developers will have resources to keep their own "streaming servers" either (like Blizzard is doing for Diablo 3), so even if cloud gaming would take off, I don't see it wiping out local gaming. They will probably both co-exist. It is mainly some of the biggest publishers who are pushing the idea, and even they might offer it mainly for selected number of games, not all their games.

I think the most feasible "cloud gaming" service I've seen so far is the one discussed just earlier here:

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/cloud_based_gaming_on_gog/page1

As far as I could understand it, that "Snoost"-service takes an interesting approach to cloud gaming. It is not like they are trying to act as a store from which you buy "streaming games" (like Onlive tried), instead they just offer to you computer capacity in the cloud for a monthly fee, which you can also use for playing your digital PC games you've bought elsewhere, e.g. Steam, GOG, Origin, Uplay... I presume the only restriction is that you can't play physical (CD/DVD games on it, the game has to be digital so that you can upload and install it on your "cloud PC".

The strength of this model is that Snoost doesn't have to try to get game publishers to their service/store, and they don't have to guarantee and test which games work on their server farm. It is up to you to install and play your games on your "cloud PC"; if the game doesn't work, well, install some other game then.

Also from the gamer's point of view, you don't have to worry that the "cloud gaming company" would suddenly just remove a game from their catalog that you are still in a middle of playing.

Also I am unsure if "Snoost" is really running a server farm themselves, or are they just renting the capacity from Microsoft, Google or Amazon as they go? So if Snoost sees they are getting lots of new customers who like the idea of having a "cloud PC", then they just rent more capacity from the big cloud companies. Meaning, Snoost doesn't necessarily have to have big initial hardware investments either.

While I don't see myself using Snoost (simply no need), I generally like their approach, and it doesn't even collide with local gaming. You can play the same (purchased) games on it that you can play on your local PC, as far as I can tell. You can have the cake and eat it too.

Yeah I was going to mention that streaming gaming does require higher transfer speeds than current online games (where most of the game processing still takes place locally), and low ping times is more important currently. However:

- It just so happens that if your internet connection has great ping times, it generally has a pretty good transfer speed as well. So even if an analog modem or ISDN connection transfer speed might still be barely enough for some kind of (action) online game, its worse latency would still make it unplayable. Also if your internet connection becomes congested due to using all the speed capacity, that seems to usually worsen your ping times too, So, there is some correlation with low ping times and high transfer speed capacity.

- Games like Team Fortress 2 do sometimes also need to transfer lots of data, like when the game is pushing a several gigabyte update to you before you can play, or if you try to play a map you haven't played before and it needs to download the map first. So you may still be in trouble if you are restricted to low transfer speeds, or strict data caps.

So what I'm getting at that if you already now have an internet connection that feels comfortable for modern online games, then quite probably it is suitable also for streaming (movies, games etc.).

Anyway, that gave me a reason to actually check how much a game like Team Fortress 2 demand transfer speed, I think I'll try it shortly. I saw some discussions about it but they were like 5-9 years old discussions, and it seemed people were mainly guessing what kind of peak data transfer rates, or amount of data transferred per minute, are reached. Better check it myself.

I guess Windows 7 resource monitor can give a snapshot of data transfer speeds, but I'd actually like an utility that saves the highest peaks too, in case it varies a lot within the game (sometimes not transferring much at all, sometimes needing several Mbps...).