Portable Gaming Via Remote Desktop: Truly Next Gen?

Hydrazine

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I think I found what is truely the best way to play high quality games on the go: remote desktop. Essentially creating a personal private cloud gaming service that works with all games you already own. Without paying for something like onlive, and without dealing with a limited game library. Better visuals/scope/selection than anything from handheld console or native mobile game.

Affirming, this is not theoretical but already at early stages. It is already possible via software like Splashtop and I have tried it. It's real.

This method allow playing any AAA or indie titles on the go, this is I believe the ultimate evolution of portable gaming. I don't see how portable gaming can get any more ideal in principle. Yes, there are limitations right now, but then will go away in the future as networks get faster and latencies reduce. What do people on this site think?
 

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I'm with Celice here. There is certainly something to be said of just connecting to your home PC and let it do all the calculations, and that it already has a huge connection is also interesting...but it simply isn't fast enough (yet?) to allow for smooth gaming. At least games with a real time element (which happen to be most games).

And honestly...more challenging? That's a joke, right? If not: just try playing a FPS on a server with above 150 ping. In order to hit someone, you'll need to shoot ahead of them. Something as simple as jumping to a ledge becomes a hit and miss thing, and you'll often die while it looks like you're in perfect cover. And this is all assuming you've got a STABLE connection to the server: a lag spike of even as little as a difference of 50 ping (that's 0.05 seconds) can seriously make everything look cluttered and surreal. And while I think this is less of an issue if you're the only one on the server (you're connecting to your home pc, after all) it's something to take into account.
 

Sakitoshi

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I tried something similar but more like a wireless HDMI receiver, stream from my laptop to my smartphone and connect it to my TV via HDMI.
tried many options and none of them could do a decent work, like 5 seconds of latency since I moved the mouse to be reflected on my TV, and I was connecting directly to my phone using WiFi tether(and made sure WiFi N was used). BTW my phone was a Xperia Pro at that time, maybe I should try again now with my Xperia acro S.

also another problem with streamed gaming is that a constant network connection can consume more battery than a beefy processor on portable devices, just try to compare the time the Vita goes from full charge to nothing seeing youtube videos versus playing games and you'll see what I mean.
 

Hydrazine

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And honestly...more challenging? That's a joke, right? If not: just try playing a FPS on a server with above 150 ping. In order to hit someone, you'll need to shoot ahead of them. Something as simple as jumping to a ledge becomes a hit and miss thing, and you'll often die while it looks like you're in perfect cover. And this is all assuming you've got a STABLE connection to the server: a lag spike of even as little as a difference of 50 ping (that's 0.05 seconds) can seriously make everything look cluttered and surreal. And while I think this is less of an issue if you're the only one on the server (you're connecting to your home pc, after all) it's something to take into account.

That's a limitation of current internet networks. Ping will go down over time as networks are improved. I'm not saying this method is ideal TODAY. But in a decade, it will probably become ideal.
(and made sure WiFi N was used).

That wouldn't help at all. Wireless A/C is much faster and more stable than Wireless N. Using wireless N hindered you.

also another problem with streamed gaming is that a constant network connection can consume more battery than a beefy processor on portable devices, just try to compare the time the Vita goes from full charge to nothing seeing youtube videos versus playing games and you'll see what I mean.

THIS is rarely an issue. Remote desktop play won't consume more power than streaming a video, cause that's basically all it is. You'll probably save power, cause 3D native android games can drain battery fast. The Vita incident is probably just exclusive to the Vita.
 

Sakitoshi

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That wouldn't help at all. Wireless A/C is much faster and more stable than Wireless N. Using wireless N hindered you.
wifi N should be more than enough to stream video, audio and controls. PS4/Vita remote play can even work fine under wifi G(albeit connecting only the PS4 and Vita to said network to reduce unnecessary traffic that would reduce wifi bandwidth).
and how I was supposed to use wireless AC when the devices that support it are just coming out??
also wifi AC will not become widespread in almost a year, even there are people still using wifi G.

THIS is rarely an issue. Remote desktop play won't consume more power than streaming a video, cause that's basically all it is. You'll probably save power, cause 3D native android games can drain battery fast. The Vita incident is probably just exclusive to the Vita.

remote desktop consume more power because is a bidirectional connection, the client must receive video and audio and send inputs to the host(and maybe receive force feedback), while your typical Youtube video only needs to send you audio and video without receiving any response.
 

Taleweaver

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That's a limitation of current internet networks. Ping will go down over time as networks are improved. I'm not saying this method is ideal TODAY. But in a decade, it will probably become ideal.
Possible...but I'm not sure. Streaming video's is one thing, but remote gaming is quite another. Which reminds me...
THIS is rarely an issue. Remote desktop play won't consume more power than streaming a video, cause that's basically all it is. You'll probably save power, cause 3D native android games can drain battery fast. The Vita incident is probably just exclusive to the Vita.
What? No. Look...I can't speak on behalf of the vita, but it is certainly NOT the same as streaming a video. This is for two reasons:
1. youtube (and similar video streaming sites) is a huge-ass server that is built and optimized to stream videos to wherever you want to watch it. It is built on professional servers that are linked on one of the most fast-paced networks in the world. Streaming from your home-pc is...quite another thing. Unless your PC happens to be positioned in a data center.
2. playing games is a two-way system. On one hand, you want to stream the audio and video from your PC to your handheld, but AT THE SAME TIME you want to send all commands you make in a game to your computer. And while that may look like a minor issue (the data that has to be sent to your pc is easily 1/10th or less of what has to be going to your handheld), it DOES mean a different protocol is required. One that allows for both sides to send data to the other end at the same time. And such a protocol will always be slower than streaming, which is by definition data only going in one way.

It's also worth mentioning that a video can easily be streamed because of the buffer time. Basically: as long as you're receiving the video faster than the actual display time, the rest is unimportant. Take a 5 minute clip...If it takes me an AVERAGE of 0.9 second to download 1 second of the clip, I can play it immediately. Within a few seconds, it doesn't even matter if there are spikes of a speed of 1.1 seconds per one second of video footage; as long as the average remains the same, the video will keep playing. This is because the 0.1 second extra it receives is stored in the buffer on the client side, and will be available to be played even if the connection drops completely.
On a video game, there is no such buffer, as you want that time to be CONSTANTLY below 50 milliseconds (okay, unless you're watching a cutscene). There is no way to predict ahead what the video screen will show, so it cannot buffer any screen time...and that's a serious handicap.


EDIT: blegh...2nd point is ninja'ed. I'll keep it here nonetheless. :unsure:
 

trumpet-205

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That's a limitation of current internet networks. Ping will go down over time as networks are improved. I'm not saying this method is ideal TODAY. But in a decade, it will probably become ideal.
Your method doesn't just stop at network limitation. Current modern computer does not have dedicated video compression ASIC built in. So not only does the server has to rendered the game, it needs to compress video and audio stream before transmission. This adds lag and put even more performance demands. Both streams need to be compressed before transmission because uncompressed version takes 100x more size than compressed one (Not even Wireless AC is capable of handling uncompressed stream).

On the otherhand portable device needs decoding ASIC built in.
 

FAST6191

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I have experimented with RDP also using virtualisation as it does RDP well and also increasingly speaks to my graphics hardware..

Before too long it will do for my local LAN and maybe my local area, though UK upload rates are not usually that great and not so likely to improve any time soon.

Also though it could still happily exist in the same setup do I need fully realised games? I actually like handheld games and doing other things feels a bit like reading a massive tome on the beach rather than a trashy fantasy book or something. With the way things are going on portable devices we will probably arrive at the software metaplatform thing before someone fiddles with remote enough to have it fully working. That said phones and such devices seem to be stalling now.

I should also mention lag as you know it today may not be quite the same as remote streamed gameplay, if nothing else if everybody connects to a single server (farm) then lag it instantly clears up the lag issue as most see it and that is worth a lot.

Also companies improving latency on their internet connections..... classic.
 

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