Right now the beta is very precise on what it’ll work with, ”change any of these factors” and it might not even operate for you, warns Perlman.
”While the production OnLive service will adapt to different configurations each time you connect, during Beta testing each user is setup only to test a specific computer configuration (or MicroConsole™ TV Adapter version), a single Internet provider and, most importantly, a particular location,” blogs boss Perlman, reports Big Download.
”If you change any of these factors, OnLive Beta may not even run, or if it does, the lag and/or graphics performance may render games unplayable. OnLive will try to detect these conditions and warn you, but when you are using OnLive in a different location, you are not providing us with usable test data.”
”The reason location is so critical is because of the speed of light. If you are more than 1000 miles from an OnLive data center, then the round trip communications delay (“ping” time) between your home and OnLive will be too long for fast-action video games.”
Currently there are three OnLive data centres in operation within the United States, one in the Bay Area, the DC Area and in Dallas, Texas.
”Your Beta account will only connect to the data center it was originally assigned to. So, if you are assigned to our West Coast data center and then try your Beta account from the Midwest or East Coast, you’ll find the lag impaired to the point where most games are unplayable,” he continued to explain.
A preview of OnLive has cropped up on PC Perspective which talked about the latency issues they had, but were still pleased overall with the impressive load times for games. Apparently they got their beta code from a “friend of a friend of a friend”.
Latency (or lag) is the biggest concern for Cloud platform services, much like it is for every online multiplayer game - we all know latency can make you b*tch.
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