Microsoft has released a new video, showing the importance of the cloud in games that are packing a lot of physics effects. This tech demo was showed off at Build 2014 during Steve Guggenheimer’s keynote. In this video, one side is a single computer doing all of the physics calculations real time by itself, the other is a computer taking advantage of remote destruction servers doing those calculations. As noted by Microsoft, this is real-time physics and lighting calculations and not scripted. It looks amazing, though we’d love to know the specs of the PC that was running those physics effects locally. Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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if this translates into gaming it would be incredible
Microsoft cloud computing is real, with this, games on Xbox One would be awesome and far more better than ps4 games and even PC games. Marvelous !
And I not even being a fanboy when I say:
It must be nice to live in fantasy land.
The future is here…
NB4 the “Not even Da Cloud can achieve 60fps, LOL.” comments. Did I do it right? ?_?
not fan of any system, but i own a xbox one. But this cloud i belive its real, but i notice some diffrences in the video. the one with cloud the physics lagg or run at lower frames watch the rocks falling its not as smooth as none cloud falling rocks, feels around 20-26fps while the none cloud runs smooth physics the first few shots then crumbles.
so i belive cloud is very effective for massive scale but there are still minor noticeable weakness.
Cloud is the future, no wait, VR is the future, ah no, Emotional Story Driven games are the future, ummm, motion controllers are the future, no, 3D is the future
Sht tonn of lagg is the future?:P omg I choose less fps, and no lagg… not to mention they had to go into a bottleneck to crash the game with local physics, othervise less lagg would have made it better…
it sure is the future :))
THUMBS UP!!!!
So hard, couldnt agree more, you forgot always online mmo game sctructure.
:)) sorry, let me add these too:
always on and always connected are the future. oh another one, social features and facebook are the future 😀
Think the only thing cloud would be useful for would be for Multiplayer ,mainly ridding of client side cheats and hacks ,almost all mp games have some annoying person ruining it for others.Cloud will only mean SP might not working done the road if implemented.
You launch a rocket to a building:
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Press F5 to refresh or try later
what happens if your internet drops?
Same can be said about your electricity. What if it drops? Nothing that these games run on is 100% reliable. Your power can go out making the console useless just like the internet could go out making a game useless. The point of this article is that the cloud s REAL and it can help games push the envelope of what they can do.
What a brainless comparison, so you are saying the common power outlet standard in America is 110 v and it fluctuates all the the time lets say 90 to 130 v ? lol imagine if that really happens, say goodbye to all of your electronic equipments. In data communications is totally different story you are always fluctuating 10 % to 20 % below of your actual connection and that is if you have a good internet service provider that can go even lower. Lets say your provider gives you 10 Mb of connection in the contract, the real value you will get on your home will be 7 to 9. Mb something. and that fluctuation will impact on your online gaming and that is what we call lag because certain bits of information get lost on the transfer process to the other end.
Energy flutuates in the same way. The switching power supply in all your equipment sensible to that flutuation will correct that.
In case of an internet flutuation disconnection the game could tone down the physics. If only a flutuation occur it will not do anything. Bandwidth and latency neccessary for physics is not enormous. I will post about that later on this comment section.
in actuality, electricity actually fluctuates in real life, this is why there are surge protectors.
anyways, it’s clear you talking about lag and I’m sure they will have contingencies built in for when that an internet connection slows down a little.
–
anyways, if you don’t have good internet then stay away from online games because you will always complain about lag.
What about when this is used in single-player games? People were angry about the possibility that they’d need to ‘check in’ with their One to keep playing single-player games. With this, you could only play that game when you had a constant and stable internet connection through your entire game session. That’s even worse yet people suddenly don’t mind because they’re desperate for the One to have some edge over the PS4.
additionally, from what i understand, the calculations are sent and stored locally, so for a lot of applications, even if there is a blip in internet service, you would be non-the-wiser until all the your local machine cannot predict the physics anymore. i think for the space/galaxy/astroid-y demo, Frank was saying that internet would have to go out for around 2 hours for it to be an issue. However, that was only true with that particular demo. not sure how long you would have in this demo.
My internet drops out a hell of a lot more than the power does.
I hope that’s true for you, too.
then there’s no internet connected game you can play. no online cod, bf, etc nothing.
asking “what happens if your internet drops” is sort of a stupid question to me.
Stupid question.
all hell breaks loose.
Remind me what happens when the internet drops out when you’re trying to play PS4 digital games..?
Nothing happens. You still can play your digital single player games. Guess you were one of the people who fell for that video of the guy deactivating his entire system to “try” and say the PS4 has DRM..
Digital Single player (campaigns) play just fine without an internet connection.
Oh look, another clown who fell for those Xbot videos from two weeks ago.
The problem is that this is just a tech demo with no concern for actual gameplay and LATENCY. Physics calculations *are* very demanding, but that’s why I don’t see this working very well. If the objects are going to react in real time to player actions the latency is a huge issue. Blasting down a building so it falls it all well and good, as the player is only *initiating* the destruction. But what happens when objects *already in motion* are hit by players via gunshots, explosions, vehicles, etc.? Suddenly there is a huge amount of additional calculation and latency introduced with all that back-and-forth interaction, and that goes up exponentially as the physics objects are pushed into each other. That might be alleviated by distributing some of those calculations locally on the machine itself, but talk about a logistical nightmare.
It also results in Xbox One games that are always online, which I thought was something people were flipping out about? I mean, when Microsoft decides to shift their physics servers to a new game, what happens? Your game, even if it was on disc and single-player, is dead.
Cloud offloading bandwith and latency argument debunked
We have latency around 20-30ms in almost anywhere with a Titanfall server nearby. Almost everything is less latency sensitive that will seems. We could get physics more latency sensitive on local calculations and less latency sensitive on the cloud. It’s more simple than you are supposing, not more.
The arguments I’ve seen on the internet appear to consider the cloud is rendering some part of the scene and not just calculating the subdivision of the building into chunks after collisions with gunfire. I just couldn’t undertand how someone could think like that after watching the presentation. The local system is rendering the entire scene just using the calculating the cloud provides. Comments on internet about this are pathetic.
The entire geometry of the scene can be pre-stored in the cloud . If anyone entered the area in the game, they need only to make a copy of that using local bandwith. The same copy and calculations could be used for all the players if the game is a multiplayer one. The only thing that needs to be sent from the client to the cloud is the initial position, the trajectory and the acceleration of shots. 20 bytes is sufficient to transmit all of these data with enough precision per each bullet. Usually as a weapon does not fire more than one shot at a time, we need 20 bytes per transfer. A machine gun that fires 10 shots per second will lead to a consumption of upload bandwidth of 200 bytes per second plus the IP headers bandwidth for each transfer (20 bytes for IPv4 or 40 for IPv6 + extensions/optional headers). 240 bytes per second is a requirement of negligible bandwidth. A 56k modem connection could handle that.
The returned data required for the local system will normally be greater in volume, but it’s calculated in much the same way. In addition to the previous information about the bullet that can be treated as a point, it is necessary to send the geometry of the chunk created by the collision and the rotation of the chunk. Geometry of the object, initial position and the centripetal acceleration are the only data needed on the local system. I’ll bet a 100 bytes per chunk as an aproximation. It’s neccessary just send the data at the beginning of the separation of the chunk. At the peak of the video there were 36,000 chunks , which would be compatible with a connection of 50Mbps download if all these data were transmitted every 100ms, but these chunks were not generated simultaneously. There aren’t more than 100 generated chunks in the same time. A connection that could send 10,000 bytes, tops, every 100ms is all that is needed. 1Mbps connection would suffice to it handily.
I used a 100ms response time that is good for physics which is also consistent with what we’ve got in latency these days. My local latency to Titanfall Azure servers is between 19ms and 33ms. Is it pretty reasonable to do it, no?
I beg you all to check if I talked a lot of nonsense before using this text, please. English is not my first language, but I’m a developer with experience in low level game programming (I’m developed a homebrew game and my own engine and graphic tools) and I know something about cloud use.
I’ll go with what you’re saying, but I remain skeptical. We’ve all been burned on technical lingo that turned out to just be marketing lingo (who doesn’t remember Blast Processing?), so can you blame anyone for thinking this seems flakey? And there are still the other concerns, like the game being unplayable when the servers are taken down :/
Though I’m a bit skeptical about pro-Xbox posts from someone named “XboxFanDev” lol
You could be skeptical as much as you want. I’m skeptical too, but I know and demonstrated that bandwidth and latency are a no issue if you have something like 1Mbps download and 128KB/s upload.
Any use of this tech in single players games should have at least:
1- Cloud computing aided version
2- Cloud computing with less bandwidth and more latency version
3- Totally offline version
The game could only have less chunks and is good to go. Or a more aproximated chunk creation and trajectories. It’s very possible.
And I’m a developer and a Xbox fan, since the first one: 120GFLOPS againts 6GFLOPS on PS2 and people still consider be something the differences now without the correct use of all Xbox One resources.
Why would anyone care what you “think”? I can “SEE” with my own eyeballs. I mean how much more evedence do you need? Do you need MS to come to your house, set it all up, show you, build a “AAA” game in your living room, show you the code, then let you play it? Is that what you need? No one cares about people like you. You can deny it forever, but it’s right there!
wow MS is at it again, look closely. on the Server physics side the debris and the overall server physics part is not 30 fps is way below that I would say 15 to 28 fps, on the other hand the local physics at the beginning that is 30 and a little bit more. This video is complete BS!
And that’s with no actual gameplay going on, minimal textures and lighting, and no advanced post-processing effects.
They are showing what the cloud can do with thousands of calculations happening at once. Remember also that whole games won’t run entirely on the cloud since the textures and lighting will be done on the console side.
its destruction simulation, apparently that takes alot of power, i am curious to see what will happen in the future the result will be interesting wherever its a win or fail.
Ah right…. And the high end PC that’s struggling with the local computation…. We’re just going to ignore the performance delta?
I love how you kids love to type out “I’ll believe it when I see it!”…. Then Don’t.
let me guess what console you play on…
sony trashbox ofcourse
trashbox rhyme with xbox just saying.
trashstation 4.
😉
it wil be funny if xbone beats ps4 on perfomance, just saying.
How we need a cloud computing solution to overcome our lousy design of our Xb1. And we need to find new ways to spy on people because of our backdoor agreement with the NSA.
Ofcourse well optimized games for just the pc isn’t an option.
Clearly you have your tin foil hat on. I guess next you will tell us the Sasquatch and U.F.O’s are real.
Too be fair sony and facebook and google spy on us too.
This video is old. PC GPUS can already do this level of physics without the need of an expensive and lightning fast internet connection and constant connection to a cloud server that likely wont exist forever. What happens when the servers doing the calculations for a certain game get switched off so that the bandwidth can be used elsewhere?
There are still many, many people who dont even have access to a fast internet connection. Cloud streaming alienates these people and until a larger majority of gamers across the world have super fast internet then it will never really catch on.
This was likely demoed on LAN where the ping to the “cloud” server is ~0. For most people, it will be: Shoot building, 3 seconds later chunks fly out, stuttering and freezing several times before hitting the ground.
This video is from a week ago. Stop talking nonsense.
Actually the presentation itself was a week ago, not the video (although MS showcased the same tech demo during that presentation, only slightly a bit different). The video is brand new as it went live a couple of hours ago 😉
Week OLD news is OLD.
Oh, and please tell us how awesome Gaikia will be, or DriveClub…. Since it’s only “old” and unworthy of discussing if it’s a feature exclusive to Microsoft.
Cloud computing is not feature exclusive to Microsoft.
And you might want to point out where I said anything was unworthy of discussion… Oh thats right you cant, …because I didnt…
The way you assume Im a PS/Sony fan is quite amusing as it does show how PS4 success so far is effecting the people who bought into XBOX.
For the record I would not own either console if they where given to me for free. They would be straight on ebay while they are still worth something.
Remind me which other cloud network is doing compute for consoles…. ?
Remind me of where I mentioned anything exclusively about CONSOLE cloud computing?…
yeah those are the problems that i have with it as well. The idea is to use cloud to do all that without a powerfull gpu. However in the actual graphics and connection the result wont be that good or that stable. I really wanna see how it turns out.
It will be interesting.
This power of the cloud talk is getting old. Show games, not a tech demo, that’s what people want. While showing off how server physics can be better than local physics the same can be shown by Gaikai and how low level hardware ( like a tablet ) can play games like HAWKEN multi-player online while being projected on an ultra HD screen while only using Gaikai ( cloud based gaming )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2i01vGsbOk
.
Yes we all know that Gaikai and Azure are different but gamers don’t care how it works as long as it does work with min-fuss.
Think about this. A piss poor TABLET playing a game on a Ultra HD Screen while using Gaikai which was running approximately 60 fps = AWESOME for hardware not even made for gaming needs. That alone looks better than what any mobile device can render locally. A win win situation for gamers online
Please. It looks horrible and not realistic at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O04ErnJ8USY
And mind you, this video is kinda old by now.
That looks much more impressive, if you look closely even the dust from the parts that break reacting and settling on the envinroment.
Agreed.
true but that a destruction simulation in a rendering farm, this is just an example of how cloud suposelly can do massive renderings without needing high end hardware in your setup. I wanna see what happens it will be funny if it manages to beat ps4 perfomance.
… oh wow what a difference?
This is two different technologies. Gaikai is like Netflix in that it streams the video of a game you’re playing on a server.
MS cloud allows local hardware to lessen the load so you’re playing on your hardware with no latency, it’s local.
You’re right, Gaikai is like netflix, but it has an extreme upside and is in a way, more forward-thinking than cloud computing. Even with cloud processing, games will get more demanding, and eventually too much for the Xbox One.
Gaikai on the other hand, will run the game from servers and just stream your gameplay to any device, such as tablets, smartphones, TV’s. The servers can always be upgraded to the latest and greatest and do the heavy lifting. Thus the end user’s hardware will not be as important. That’s why a lot of people are saying this is the last generation that will require you to buy a console.
All that will matter is your bandwidth. Playstation Now requires 5Mbps and with advances, latency will continue to be minimized. The average internet speed of the US is around 8Mbps (I personally have 75Mbps). Imagine playing all games on ultra settings on a tablet or smartphone, or computer build 10 years ago… yep, I’ll take that over cloud computing any day.
extreme upside and is in a way, more forward-thinking than cloud computing.
Oh deer….. No, streaming is not more forward thinking. Streaming is 1/4 the tech required compared to what you are seeing in this demo. Streaming is entirely putting at the mercy of the quality of your connection and the priority you have on the server. I guess we can pretend that Gaikai won’t suck, just as OnLive “didn’t” suck with most people’s connection. Everything you wrote in the pro category also applies to cloud compute. You do realize that Cloud Compute can be from 1% to 100% on the server side, and streaming is always entirely server side with no option otherwise.
The crazy part about your post is you could not be more mistaken in regards to which is more advanced. Cloud Compute is streaming on steroids in terms of benefits but at the cost of much higher complexity. Cloud Compute can do far more than Gaikia can do, including being set up to stream itself (To Be PSNow). Which they have already shown with Halo4 on a tablet.
Funny, haven’t seen Halo 4 yet running on my tablet, meanwhile people are already playing The Last of Us in the PS Now Beta. They announced Halo 4 running on tablets 2 years ago, where is it? They showed a computer generated tech demo, nothing more. PS Now has had hands on from the entire industry. Sony is delivering, while Microsoft is giving Forza drivatars.
“Funny, haven’t seen Halo 4 yet running on my tablet,”
Well, if you haven’t seen it, it must not exist. Clearly. They haven’t had a public demo, just internal and for investors meetings, what you should actually be asking yourself is if streaming is so perfect, why are they instead releasing Last Of Us (their big push for streaming) as a local hosted game instead?
But I’m sure you’re right, lol. I mean, you can’t understand the difference between Azure and Gaikai on any single level, but I’m sure Sony has a great 300 million dollar ace up their sleeve. Meanwhile, MS just “wasted” a billion dollars worth of upgrades-alone to only the Iowa datacenter in June.
It doesn’t matter Azure can do everything Sony’s streaming service could do and far far more. MS is just a bunch of money hungry dummies, while Sony is just a benevolent group of enthusiasts just seeking to enrich the user experience. I get it now… Heh
I’m sorry I just realized you still think Gaikia is LIKE netflix…. I shouldn’t pick on you.
Halo 4 could run on mobile phones or “low-end hybrid PC”.
Unsurprisingly this feature would be exclusive to Windows devices. However, the company backed off the technology, ( Something people forget to mention ) stating that while the technology was impressive in certain circumstances, but “It’s
really cool and really problematic, all at the same time”
That Demo was in sept-2013, and the backed off the technology statement was in Nov-2013 ( a month later )
We all know that MS wants to offload computational tasks onto the cloud so that the hardware doesn’t have to use it, but you still need decent hardware to play games.
Now computational power of the cloud will undoubtedly grow, meaning there is no doubt that as time goes on, software that takes advantage of the cloud computing which will perform better as the cloud becomes more powerful. ( but here is the thing Xbots forget ) Azure is NOT only usable by MS as it’s open to others, so what is to stop Sony using Azure LMAO!
While on the other hand Sony using Gaikai has proven you don’t need decent hardware at all, which is better than needing hardware IMO. MS stated they could push the Xbone further beyond the system specs when using the Azure Cloud System, BUT that’s what Sony and Gaikai have already been doing ( without decent hardware )
Gaikai has proven this fact in the past while running games from a tablet while also being projected onto an ultra HD screen that games can be played with just using a low quality hardware product ( even to just using a TV for extreme game settings )
Example look at PS3 games running on Vita, or when Sony stated….. “PS Now will allow users to engage in the world of PlayStation, whether they’re existing fans or have never owned a PlayStation platform”…. Hell even Beyond: Two Souls, and God of War:Ascension was running on a TV using only PS-Now / Gaikai.
Why wait for Azure and all of Microsoft promises while Sony using Gaikai technologically allows gamers to play games no matter what hardware they own.
And that’s why I posted …”Yes we all know that Gaikai and Azure are different but gamers don’t care how it works as long as it does work with min-fuss”…
it will be funny if the cloud beats ps4… i hope it happens sony drones will cry.
Gaikai already beats PS4. A tablet playing a game on a ultra HD screen shows that. But the good thing is that Sony owns Gaikai now and has seen how streaming is happening more and more each day as time goes by. Netflix = streaming / lovefilm = streaming / Gaikai = streaming / PSN = streaming / XBL = streaming, ect ect.
gakai sucks hard.
Geez, how old are you? What a contribution to the conversation, from someone who has likely never used the service.
why you think sony bought it?
…. Ok, so MS’s Azure apparently must prove itself in real world, because a tech demo which is really just code from an upcoming game won’t cut it…. Cue the arguments of how it could never work because of latency and etc…
But you think Gaikia is something special… LOL.
Well I used Gaikai in the past and it works, with MS and their Azure you’ll still need hardware as it’s just CPU based, while Gaikai does full cloud processing so the hardware isn’t needed. IE you could use a TV and play games with extreme settings, while Azure gaming will still need hardware like a Xbone, ect.
…So let me get this right…
Azure / Live Compute (with an infrastructure cost somewhere north of 5 billion dollars) can supplement the local computer by offloading physics, AI, NPCs, map generation, syncronize massive scale events and effects for the locally hosted game. OR it could be used to entirely stream a game to any host device (Halo4 on a tablet for instance). OR It can be used to provide some of the best dedicated servers ever seen in multiplayer gaming (latency reliably under 50ms where EA servers are over 150ms and unreliable).
Gaikai / PS Now (with an IP, infrastructure, all existing properties and debts valued under 350 million dollars) can only stream and this at an extra subscription cost.
… Somehow this makes Sony’s online offering “better”. I think I see why… It has a “SONY” or “PLAYSTATION” in front of it, so obviously that automatically makes it better. I can’t believe I didn’t just “get” that before. Man, I feel like a dummy!
About streaming. People thought streaming would be a bad choice when in fact it worked out to be really good and better than people once thought.
When people knew that films were going to be streamed some people out there didn’t think it was a good idea and to the point of saying it will flop. ( It didn’t flop it boomed ) Even to the point that some stores that done video renting closed down due to the online services being cheaper and instant while holding a bigger film catalog.
Then when people got told that HD will start streaming people yet again believed that it would flop due to peoples internet being poor, or HD would use to much bandwidth to cope with ( it didn’t flop and boomed ) More and more HD content was released, and is now the most used format.
So for streaming Is netflix good and popular? Is Lovefilm good and popular? Answer = yes very much so. So much so that PSN and XBL do it, as well as SKY TV with their Demand services, ect. ( It’s catching on more and more everyday ) ( even Youtube / Twitch ect proves that people use this feature ) so much so that streaming 4K video is now available on Netflix as we type?
But now gaming while being streamed via PS-Now ( Gaikai ) people are doing the exact same thing. It’s understandable to believe gaming couldn’t be done via a streaming service BUT the fact it can be done which blows that doubt out the water.
God Of War Ascensions streamed by PS-Now ( Gaikai ) while using just a TV? ( see video ) with no problems AND no need for any gaming hardware like GPUs, RAM, ect ( unlike what’s being shown by Azure and their building demo ) that needs some sort of gaming hardware.
So yes I really believe that the streaming service for gaming will catch on. People could use a tablet, connected to the TV of choice and play games without the worry of gaming hardware is better than needing hardware at all and having to upgrade hardware to play games.
People may agree and disagree, but time shall tell.
Wow… I guess it’s no surprise to me that you lack the conceptual grasp that VIDEO streaming is just almost entirely a latency-insensitive single directional buffered (broadcast) experience with the only network b-idirecitonal travel for remote commands (play pause stop).
While GAME streaming is extremely latency-sensitive with every controller command being an immediately detectable source of input lag. They aren’t even remotely comparable.
… I’m sure that went over your head so let me explain it this way….
You know how Netflix and OnDemand, and EVERY video streaming service BUFFERS on playback?
Game streaming DOES NOT / CAN NOT buffer. Take the buffer away from Netflix add a bidirectional source, and please come tell us how awesome it is…
LOL, game streaming blows unless you’re on fiber or DOCSIS3 in a city. We’re a good 10 years from the infrastructure upgrades (more than 10 likely) to bring lag up to current par with small countries with modern infrastructures. And those small countries where streaming would work well, Japan, S Korea, … They don’t seem to be interested in it.
So… yea, let’s say wait and see, but anyone who really knows what they are talking about knows PS Now is dead in the water.
PS Now beta needs 5mb download speed. Little hardware, and away you go. It is being used for gaming needs as we type. I have used Gaikai in the past and had no problems at all with the streaming side of things. So PS-Now is far from being dead in the water, but time will tell I guess.
“Cloud is just a marketing buzz word! It’s BS”
“Cloud is just dedicated servers”
“Cloud physics could never work, latency” (usually while simultaneously praising Gaikia)
“Ok Cloud physics could work, but only in a lab”
“Ok, I’ve seen the cloud physics demo… but that wasn’t on an Xbox”
“Well, yea, there is no reason it wouldn’t run on an Xbox, but um…”
“I guess there could be something to cloud compute, but we’ll never see it”
“Oh, that demo is actual code from an upcoming game…. Um… Um…
“Well… M$ SUX”
“Well, Sony could do it too!” (the eventual fallacy / defeat)
That’s about the approximate historical progression of Live Compute so far.
We’re still on the first two, maybe the third if I’m being really generous.