Untitled Document
Not a member yet? Register for full benefits!

Username
Password
 Moving Video Games to the Clouds

This story is from the category Computing Power
Printer Friendly Version
Email to a Friend (currently Down)

 

 

Date posted: 24/03/2009

OnLive, a Palo Alto, CA-based startup wants to do away with gaming consoles, game resellers, and the need to buy any more expensive graphics chips. Today the company announced a service that lets any computer run the sorts of graphics-intensive video games traditionally reserved for high-end gaming systems. Games can also be played on a TV using a small device offered by the company that connects a television to a broadband Internet connection.

The idea is to separate games from consoles or desktop computers, says Steve Perlman, founder and CEO of OnLive, a spinout of a Silicon Valley-based incubator called Rearden.

The intense computation needed to render each game happens remotely, in a specialized server farm with thousands of computers crunching numbers. But critical to the success of the venture will be a number of new compression algorithms developed by the company to let even the most graphics-intense games--including the realistic first-person shooter Crysis--render on a player's screen in real time.

Perlman, who helped develop the QuickTime video compression format while at Apple, says, "You don't need a high-end PC to run these games. The all-digital distribution means that you'll never need to upgrade the hardware in your home."

See the full Story via external site: www.technologyreview.com



Most recent stories in this category (Computing Power):

19/02/2017: Printable solar cells just got a little closer

04/02/2017: 1,000x more efficient nano-LED offers possibility of faster processors

31/01/2017: For this metal, electricity flows, but not heat

26/01/2017: Google brings AI to Raspberry Pi

12/01/2017: Researchers turn memory chips into processors to speed up computing tasks

08/01/2017: Intel announces Compute Card – A full PC the size of a Credit Card

23/12/2016: Scalable energy harvesting of unused mechanical energy in the environment

28/11/2016: Japan kicks off AI supercomputer project