Titan Quest is arguably a better game, but I prefer Torchlight for its simplicity and quicker rewards. Titan Quest takes forever to get a decent loot drop or level up enough to get skills that are actually fun to use.DJ_Lae

I agree with this guy right here. Titan Quest definitely has more depth and a ton more unique items, which is awesome, but everytime I sit down for my ARPG fix I find myself booting up Torchlight. I don't know, I have a ton of hours into Torchlight, but I still find it more fun than Titan's Quest. What would be awesome if they took the Torchlight formula and artstyle and added the amount of depth, complexity, classes and items as Titan's Quest. I don't think I'd ever stop playing.

I don't understand why people claim that console gaming is cheaper than PC gaming. Consider this:

A year and a half a go I built my own PC for $800. That PC doubles as my gaming box and my personal computer. Lets say I buy 6 new games a year (which is rather modest) for $50 a piece. Online play is free, since you can't pull that XBOX LIVE stupidity on the PC.

After three years, about the time my PC will last me before I may want to upgrade my graphics card, my total cost is

PC: $800

18 games: $900

Online multiplayer: $0

Total: $1700

Now, for the console player. An overlooked consideration is that, while the console is cheaper, they still also own a computer that cost money. The importance is the cost of the console over the computer versus the cost of a gaming pc over some crummy pc. At the time I built my computer the 360 was still going for $400. Console player also buys 6 games a year but at $60 and pays for XBOX LIVE which costs $50/year. We'll assume that at the time the console gamer was buying their console they also decided to buy a new laptop to replace their 5 year old desktop. After 3 years the total cost for the console gamer is:

Low end laptop from Best Buy: $500

XBOX 360: $400

18 games: $1080

Online multiplayer: $150

Total: $2130

As a PC gamer, with the $430 I saved after three years, I have more than enough money to upgrade my graphics card, add some ram and maybe even get a newer cheap processor, thus further extending the life of my gaming PC.

Also, note that this assumes the console gamer spends as little as possible on some cheap laptop. The nicer the laptop a console gamer wants, the more savings they could have gained by going with the gaming PC. Also, the more games a gamer buys per year, the more they will save going PC.

[QUOTE="mrbojangles25"]

It might be your internet. Games need to authenticate with Steam servers after installation. Sometimes if your internet is slow, or the Steam server are overloaded, it wont go through.

Keep trying, if that fails consult the Steam forums (steampowered.com iirc)...every solution to every problem Ive had was found there and fixed in five minutes.

snover2009

Yeah the internet here kinda sucks.

Another problem I noticed, I went to the steam customer support website, went to log in, apperently the Account that I have just made does not exist.

Wow all of you are talking out of your a$$. None of us know what they are fully developing so its completely useless say its going to fail. First everyone was saying its going to be an "ePiC Fail" due to input lag and then they come out and say they made a new algorithm lowering latency to 1ms within a 1500 mile radius. Now everyones jumping boat on resolution. Watch when they release an even newer algorithm sending 1080p on a 5mb connection, what are you going to complain about then?BlackStalker

You do realize that it takes light 8 ms to travel 1500 miles, right? I don't care how great of an algorithm they have, they are physically limited by the speed of light. Now, your signal has to travel there and back so double the lag to 16 ms.

Now, your signal doesn't travel 1500 miles in a straight line, it has to travel through actual wiring, so optimistically that doubles the distance the signal has to travel. Now we're up to 32 ms, best case scenario. That doesn't even account for the network lag induced by your ISP. That signal doesn't flow uninterrupted from their server to your computer, it gets handled and transmitted through network nodes(this is something the people of Onlive have no control over), which, optimistically doubles the transit time so now we're up to 64 ms of lag.

Now that doesn't sound like much, but think of it this way, at 60 fps the time between each frame is roughly 16 ms. If your experiencing 64 ms of input lag, that means it takes 4 frames of video for you to see every action on screen. That's the equivalent of playing a game at 15 fps. Sure, your getting(allegedly) smooth 60 fps, but it "feels" like your playing at a choppy 15 fps. Now I don't know about other people, but I feel anything below 30 fps unlikeable and anything below 25 fps completely unplayable. and this is based on 64 ms of latency, which is pretty low. 120 ms of latency certainly isn't uncommon and that would double your input lag again so now it feels like your playing at 7 fps.

So input lag is a big deal and you shouldn't just right it off, because the onlive people claim they can defy the laws of physics. Now hey, maybe "feeling" like your playing at 7 fps (remember the video should still be 60 fps, but your actions feel like they're happening at 7 fps) is fine for you, but I certainly wouldn't enjoy it.

The person who tried it at GDC09 was a game journalist. Regarding them having the equipment in the back room in order to fool the people testing it out...well I guess that could be true. I have a very hard time believing this is the case though. These guys obviously have invested MILLIONS of dollars and have been working on it for 7 years...dnuggs40

To be honest, I don't trust game journalists a whole lot, they're always looking to jump onto the next big thing. As for your point on investing millions of dollars, that's all the more reason to make sure you provide the best possible experience at a demonstration.

I really do think this thing looks interesting, though not my cup of tea, however, there are significant technical hurdles that it somehow overcomes that I find hard to believe it has succeeded at.

I did read your post, but I have doubts you read mine. They said quite plainly it was "completely playable" and "most importantly, quite responsive". He is talking about the playability of the game...ie...responsiveness of the game. Also, if you took the time to watch the videos, they cover how they deal with inputs. And your remote desktop example is failure...this is a different technology. Welcome to 2009. Anyways, read the articles, watch the videos...your concerns have been addressed.

"EDIT: I accept that they may get decent response times in their testing environment, right there with the server. I do not for one second believe anyone who is situated hundreds or thousands of miles away is going to see anywhere near acceptable reponse times. If they tell you otherwise, they're trying to sell you something(guess what they are)."

If I am not mistake,n this was tested at GDC09, not at their testing environment.

dnuggs40

You make some good points and I'll admit that the remote desktop example is an exaggeration, I was using it to illustrate the idea of input lag and how noticeable a problem it can be.

I just find it very hard to believe that they've found some method of negating it. For instance other than handling the network on their end, they have very little control over the signal, and its transit time, between their server and your computer, which is where the majority of the input lag is going to arise. I mean, most servers that are anymore than a couple of hundred miles away are going to have lags of 100-200 ms. If that lag was applied to your response time, it would be huge.

Now, I know they claim it's smooth and responsive, but they are trying to sell a product. Just because they demonstrated at GDC doesn't mean they weren't running it off a computer on site(I don't think they claimed otherwise?). Maybe to someone who doesn't really game much, a response lag of 0.1-0.3 seconds wouldn't be a big deal and they would think the response is just fine, but anyone who plays any amount of FPS or any other fast paced games
would notice it immediately and it would be unplayable.

It might work just as great as they claim, but I remain skeptical. Honestly, I'll be very surprised if it manages to overcome this problem. I'm actually afraid that rather than overcoming these issues, a service such as this will succeed despite of them.

"They" wasn't the developers of said technology..."they" was a reporter who tried it out at GDC09. Let me guess...they paid him off.dnuggs40

Well, that doesn't mean he wasn't playing through to a server that was on site at GDC.

Heck, they could have had him connected directly to the computer he was playing on and he wouldn't have known(I'm not suggesting they actually did this...).

[QUOTE="tmbroe01"]

I think people are missing the bigger issue here. It is not a question of whether your internet connection can handle the task of streaming the video feed. The real problem is INPUT LAG, not video lag INPUT LAG. Even if you imagined you had a perfect networking protocol, the speed of electricity is finite. This means anytime you press the jump key, anytime you click LMB to fire, anytime you try to turn, your input is sent from your computer, across hundreds of miles to their servers where it is processed and then sent back hundreds of miles before you even see the action happening on your screen. Imagine trying to play anything fast paced, like Quake or Unreal, where you have to wait 0.2-0.5 seconds before seeing the results of your actions. It certainly wouldn't be a whole lot of fun.

You can't get around this issue with a "latency reducing techniques" because it doesn't change the fact that the signal has to travel a set distance at a finite speed. People commonly complain of server latency in the range of 0.1-0.2 seconds. This only affects updating the position of everything you see on the server. Now imagine playing this way but, no only do you experience the usual server lag, but now you have the same lag affecting the very control of your character. Unless they put a server in your house, your going to notice issues.

None of this even addresses the modding scene, which would not be possible on this type of system

dnuggs40

The cool thing here is that your only requirement is a capable internet connection and some sort of computer. In theory, you should be able to play Crysis on a netbook. A handful of us have played the game, at its highest settings, on a MacBook Air with the service. Not only is the game not normally available on the Mac (outside of running Boot Camp), but the MacBook Air is hardly a gaming device, and yet we were able to hop in and play it as smoothly as a nicely-specced machine. We also played Burnout Paradise on a similarly-equipped PC laptop, and despite how quick that game is, it ran and played fine as well. Do the games run at 60fps? Technically, yes, but the video stream makes it feel less so. They're still smooth, but Burnout wasn't as brisk as it is on a PS3, for instance. But make no mistake - everything we tried was completely playable (and most importantly, quite responsive), and being that you're able to play these games without any dedicated hardware, that's a huge, huge thing. article

Did you even read my post?

He's talking about video lag, or how smooth the video played. I'm talking about INPUT lag, the amount of time between when you input a command and when it appears on screen. I fully believe they could have developed a smooth method of streaming a video feed. There is no way, however around the fact that there will be a noticeable amount of time between when you input a command and when you finally see it carried out on your screen.

Have you ever connected to another computer using a remote desktop program? This is the exact same thing. When I connect to my university's computer through a remote application, even when I'm in the same building as the computer and I'm connected over a LAN I notice a difference in the time between input and action.

Here's an experiment for you. If you have two computers, connect them over a LAN. Then connect to your gaming rig remotely using the other computer and try to play a game. Watch the hilarity ensue.

EDIT: I accept that they may get decent response times in their testing environment, right there with the server. I do not for one second believe anyone who is situated hundreds or thousands of miles away is going to see anywhere near acceptable reponse times. If they tell you otherwise, they're trying to sell you something(guess what they are).

I think people are missing the bigger issue here. It is not a question of whether your internet connection can handle the task of streaming the video feed. The real problem is INPUT LAG, not video lag INPUT LAG. Even if you imagined you had a perfect networking protocol, the speed of electricity is finite. This means anytime you press the jump key, anytime you click LMB to fire, anytime you try to turn, your input is sent from your computer, across hundreds of miles to their servers where it is processed and then sent back hundreds of miles before you even see the action happening on your screen. Imagine trying to play anything fast paced, like Quake or Unreal, where you have to wait 0.2-0.5 seconds before seeing the results of your actions. It certainly wouldn't be a whole lot of fun.

You can't get around this issue with a "latency reducing techniques" because it doesn't change the fact that the signal has to travel a set distance at a finite speed. People commonly complain of server latency in the range of 0.1-0.2 seconds. This only affects updating the position of everything you see on the server. Now imagine playing this way but, no only do you experience the usual server lag, but now you have the same lag affecting the very control of your character. Unless they put a server in your house, your going to notice issues.

None of this even addresses the modding scene, which would not be possible on this type of system