Is Forza 5 the first "cloud based" game?

_Emi_

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Not really. Based on what has been published, it is clear that XBOX developers can use MS' cloud based computing resources to do whatever they like. AI computation, rigid body dynamics, fluid dynamics, light- and shadow pre-processing, whatever. It isn't just about rendering "stuff". Actually, it isn't about rendering "stuff" at all, as I described in my previous post.


i dont know how its not a waste of time replying to you, because im sure it is.
but... "scene setup?" really?... and you know what is done for that scene to be done? you just click a button and the scene is setup automatically right? (sarcasm)
but of course yeah, I thank you for giving that obvious and vague "term" to refer to the main example booty gave, because I mean... i dont know how a game would exist if there is no a scene setup first... (starting by that)
but i will accept I still missed *some* word(s) in my post, I meant the point of the cloud is to render ["and/or calculate(process/compute(like the f name says))"] stuff that wont be necessarily updated everyframe (so it wont add lag obviously, it doesn't mean they couldn't use it for realtime stuff if they wanted to), and with "stuff" (wow you really think you are smart)... i mean everything from lightning to physics, AI... well "Booty added that things like physics modeling, fluid dynamics, and cloth motion were all prime examples of effects that require a lot of up-front computation that could be handled in the cloud without adding any lag to the actual gameplay" and apparently whatever thing you want to add to the list: post effects, tessellation, shading etc etc, but of course some examples are already excluded because latency wouldn't allow it.

I can even give another example I found
"Things like time-of-day can be uploaded to the server, and the relevant rendered lighting for the local area sent back over a few minutes. This data will be saved to HDD and retrieved as the player walks around. Delays in updating such subtle changes won't be apparent, so the problem is highly latency tolerant. Dynamic lights like muzzle flashes cannot be handled this way so the developers would still need to include real-time lighting solutions, but advanced lighting is one area the cloud could definitely contribute"


so yeah... Microsoft is doomed, xbox one is doomed and cloud wouldn't work, and Dan Greenawalt didn't say anything about it... because why would Dan talk about it if its not useful for his forza games? oh yeah... because the smartest a5cent says there is no use for it in any forza game. go go the smartest people in forums.

bye
 

Reflexx

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What are you guys really arguing about?

You both agree that latency sensitive things, like foreground rendering at 60 fps won't be done in the cloud.

You both agree that things that aren't as latency sensitive may be done in the cloud.

What's the deal here?

I'm a 3D artist for a living. I think all this cloud stuff is awesome. There are a lot of things that we just don't see in games unless it's prerendered because the precomputing is just way too power hungry.

We can have situations where you can change the environment, and server-side there will be calculations to do volumetric light and shadow rendering so that proper and high quality shadow maps can be placed on environments that match the changes you've made to the environment. Awesome stuff.
 

TechsUK

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I noticed in the geek panel after the xbox one reveal one of them mentioned 'one hop away' (figurative i'm sure) when referring to the compute availability in the cloud. I can ping the BBC in London, 150 miles away, which is 10 hops for me. latency is 6ms. so if I sling off some 'grains' as have been described, they can get to London in about 3ms, leaving 30ms to render and return before my next frame (at 30 fps) is due to switch display planes. I'm sure my rendering work and copy back (just a few pixels in the middle/far distance) can be done in about 20ms before the next frame is up.
cloud isn't necessarily for now remember. I expect they'll do a few proof of concepts (fog/pre-calc lighting) and as net speeds increase and their servers get into cities (OnLive?) then we'll see more and more work happen as promised.
Forza 5 maybe the first to employ such tech, even though in infant form.
 

a5cent

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I can ping the BBC in London, 150 miles away, which is 10 hops for me. latency is 6ms. so if I sling off some 'grains' as have been described, they can get to London in about 3ms, leaving 30ms to render and return before my next frame (at 30 fps) is due to switch display planes.

Round trip packet latency of 6ms is obviously 'blow my socks off' awesome. Unfortunately, that isn't at all normal.

Average round trip packet latency, amongst well developed nations, is somewhere around 70ms (last I heard). Assuming that such cloud based features should also work for people in less developed countries, and for more then just the 50% of gamers that enjoy better than average internet latency... well, you can see where I'm going.

At this point, we haven't even considered bandwidth, nor the time it takes MS' cloud infrastructure to do the actual calculations, which will also be significant because otherwise it wouldn't have been worthwhile offloading those calculations in the first place.

Not that it won't work, but whatever they do, those cloud based features will be designed for round trip durations around or above 100ms, not around 10ms.
 

naosuke

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i dont know how its not a waste of time replying to you, because im sure it is.
but... "scene setup?" really?... and you know what is done for that scene to be done? you just click a button and the scene is setup automatically right? (sarcasm)
but of course yeah, I thank you for giving that obvious and vague "term" to refer to the main example booty gave, because I mean... i dont know how a game would exist if there is no a scene setup first... (starting by that)
but i will accept I still missed *some* word(s) in my post, I meant the point of the cloud is to render ["and/or calculate(process/compute(like the f name says))"] stuff that wont be necessarily updated everyframe (so it wont add lag obviously, it doesn't mean they couldn't use it for realtime stuff if they wanted to), and with "stuff" (wow you really think you are smart)... i mean everything from lightning to physics, AI... well "Booty added that things like physics modeling, fluid dynamics, and cloth motion were all prime examples of effects that require a lot of up-front computation that could be handled in the cloud without adding any lag to the actual gameplay" and apparently whatever thing you want to add to the list: post effects, tessellation, shading etc etc, but of course some examples are already excluded because latency wouldn't allow it.

I can even give another example I found
"Things like time-of-day can be uploaded to the server, and the relevant rendered lighting for the local area sent back over a few minutes. This data will be saved to HDD and retrieved as the player walks around. Delays in updating such subtle changes won't be apparent, so the problem is highly latency tolerant. Dynamic lights like muzzle flashes cannot be handled this way so the developers would still need to include real-time lighting solutions, but advanced lighting is one area the cloud could definitely contribute"


so yeah... Microsoft is doomed, xbox one is doomed and cloud wouldn't work, and Dan Greenawalt didn't say anything about it... because why would Dan talk about it if its not useful for his forza games? oh yeah... because the smartest a5cent says there is no use for it in any forza game. go go the smartest people in forums.

bye

Why the hostility? First of all, no one in this thread said that Xbox is doomed moron. :eck:
 

smoledman

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Sound gimmicky, this cloud-based stuff. Given the latency requirements for these types of games and the fact that nobody has 1GBps internet, this will fail. Ok, they use it to make digital fog.
 

WanderingTraveler

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I understand that the cloud is viable when speed isn't a necessity, like in turn-based RPGs, or in MMORPGs, but Forza?

No money for you if it's not done properly. Which I highly doubt.
 

a5cent

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Too many people thinking small and in a box.

You can't change technical limitations by wishing them away Winning Guy :wink:

Ultimately, what the MS rep was trying to do is make a sales pitch for the XBOX One. As such, I completely understand his desire to mention cloud based features that consumers could get excited about. Obviously, graphics are a great way to do that, since graphics have always sold games. However, it wasn't a great way of explaining the role the XBOX cloud is destined to play. Despite being graphics related, the things he mentioned are typically problems the CPU is tasked to solve. That might actually be a helpful way to think about the XBOX cloud... as an extension of your consoles CPU.

What the XBOX cloud doesn't apply to is anything that would typically occur on the consoles GPU, a.k.a. rendering (because rendering must occur in real-time at 60 FPS and instantaneously react to user input). While that still leaves many exciting possibilities (particularly in the area of AI), none of it will be the 'in your face' obvious types of things some people envisioned. I don't think that is small or in-the-box thinking. It's just being realistic.
 

berty6294

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Guys is this really worth fighting over? As if a couple of hobby geeks know any better than the number one racing game franchise and the number one video game console manufacturer?

I'm fairly positive they've got something good going here, and if I were to trust anyone with my clouds it will be Microsoft (or Bob Turk)!
 

a5cent

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Guys is this really worth fighting over? As if a couple of hobby geeks know any better than the number one racing game franchise and the number one video game console manufacturer?

I'm fairly positive they've got something good going here, and if I were to trust anyone with my clouds it will be Microsoft (or Bob Turk)!

Who's fighting? It's a discussion, no?
 

a5cent

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I mean, name calling has taken place. lol

Ah yes, well, there's been worse. :smile:

I trust MS and Turn 10 Studios to release a great Forza game.

I don't trust marketing departments. I don't trust consumers' intuition that Forza 5 will be using any of the technologies or techniques mentioned by Microsoft. I'll believe that only when the developers of Forza 5 actually say they are doing so.
 
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Reflexx

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You can't change technical limitations by wishing them away Winning Guy :wink:

Ultimately, what the MS rep was trying to do is make a sales pitch for the XBOX One. As such, I completely understand his desire to mention cloud based features that consumers could get excited about. Obviously, graphics are a great way to do that, since graphics have always sold games. However, it wasn't a great way of explaining the role the XBOX cloud is destined to play. Despite being graphics related, the things he mentioned are typically problems the CPU is tasked to solve. That might actually be a helpful way to think about the XBOX cloud... as an extension of your consoles CPU.

What the XBOX cloud doesn't apply to is anything that would typically occur on the consoles GPU, a.k.a. rendering (because rendering must occur in real-time at 60 FPS and instantaneously react to user input). While that still leaves many exciting possibilities (particularly in the area of AI), none of it will be the 'in your face' obvious types of things some people envisioned. I don't think that is small or in-the-box thinking. It's just being realistic.

For one, limitations are only limitations until they are overcome. The life cycle of the ONE is long enough where we may see barriers knocked down and overcome.

Also, in the short term we could still use the cloud for graphical improvements. Just not foreground "in your face" type stuff.

However, weather patterns can be calculated in the cloud. Or volumetric lighting effects.

There are things that are traditionally precalculated/prerendered in games. Because of this, there may be parts of the environment that players cannot interact with. It might mess up the next sequence where there are light maps already applied.

But if things like light maps, volumetric lighting, etc can be adjusted in the cloud, then we gain greater immersion.

For Forza, I imagine that they may be doing a lot of weather simulation calculations in the cloud, to give more awesome real time effects.
 

a5cent

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^ I would agree with all of that, possibly excluding the last paragraph about weather simulations. What manner of *non real time* weather simulation calculations would a car racing game solve on the CPU, that are so taxing that offloading them to the cloud would be worthwhile. I can't think of anything.

I don't want to rain on anybody's party. IMHO even without cloud based compute support, the Xone is already a rediculously powerful gaming device which will outclass anything on current gen consoles by miles. It will be great, no matter what. I'm just warning against unrealistic expectations...
 
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^ I would agree with all of that, possibly excluding the last paragraph about weather simulations. What manner of *non real time* weather simulation calculations would a car racing game solve on the CPU, that are so taxing that offloading them to the cloud would be worthwhile. I can't think of anything.

I don't want to rain on anybody's party. IMHO even without cloud based compute support, the Xone is already a rediculously powerful gaming device which will outclass anything on current gen consoles by miles. It will be great, no matter what. I'm just warning against unrealistic expectations...

Sorry, I just thought of a very logical/plausible example and had to share.

Wind patterns can be decided ahead of time: Instead of random gusts in random directions in real time, the game randomizes it and plans it ahead of time. Example: The wind is going to blow 5 mph in the northeast direction 30 seconds in. The wind is going to blow 8 mph in the east direction 45 seconds in. The wind is going to blow 4 mph in the northeast direction 50 seconds in. etc.

Along with the wind, you also want it to be raining, cloud compute: Offload the computation to the cloud to compute how each wind gust will affect the millions of raindrops falling. Without the gusts, the drops will always falls straight down at no angle. Oh wait, don't objects on the map affect how the wind travels (through trees, etc.)? Offload that to the cloud too. Cloud sends data back, and the game knows exactly how to render the visuals for the rain during each gust of wind.

Wind gusts affect the rain, the game looks awesome with realistic wind effects, the CPU is now free to calculate how the wind gusts affect the car in real-time when each wind gust occurs:
The car will be at different positions on the track in an unpredictable manner, but the CPU is not being used for these rain/wind calculations so it can now devote more computing power to calculating how the wind affects the car's traction and whatnot.

If this was not offloaded to the cloud, the CPU would have to calculate this during loading, but even this calculation is so advanced that it would take a inconvenient amount of time for the game to calculate it and load.

That's just one example, and you MIGHT (very small chance) be able pull it off using the CPU instead, but then what happens when you want to add more to the game? What happens when you want to expand? Without the cloud, every design decision the developers make has to be planned in detail because it takes up space in the CPU theoretically. There is a very strict finite limit to what they can do. Using the cloud, they are able to break free of that limit.
 

a5cent

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Thanks for your example Rob! It's a good one, but I had already thought of that and I don't think it applies. Note that I asked specifically for an example for Forza 5 (since that is the thread topic), where 99% of the time you're hurdling by at 180mph. Will anyone ever notice the gentle sway of the falling autumn leaf zigging instead of zagging? Even if it was noticeable, is that effect worth the very high development costs (rather complicated algorithms), particularly if you could just add some randomness to scripted weather instead, without almost anyone noticing a difference? The idea is nice, and I can imagine it being used in a game, just not in Forza 5.
 
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Thanks for your example Rob! It's a good one, but I had already thought of that and I don't think it applies. Note that I asked specifically for an example for Forza 5 (since that is the thread topic), where 99% of the time you're hurdling by at 180mph. Will anyone ever notice the gentle sway of the falling autumn leaf zigging instead of zagging? Even if it was noticeable, is that effect worth the very high development costs (rather complicated algorithms), particularly if you could just add some randomness to scripted weather instead, without almost anyone noticing a difference? The idea is nice, and I can imagine it being used in a game, just not in Forza 5.

Ok, definitely understand it might not be ideal for Forza, but the development costs are not as much as you are making them out to be, and something like this could be used for so many games. It would be easy to sell or license the code to other game makers to make up for any costs and even turn a profit.

As for an idea more relevant, how about the dynamic damage? There are a lot of areas for dynamic damage, and one area I could see being offloaded to the cloud is the change in aerodynamics.

The actual damage is too real-time for the cloud, but the split second after the damage is done and applied, the cloud could be used to compute the changes in aerodynamics. And the Forza engine relies heavily on aerodynamics so it would be a very compelling instance.

;)
 

sinime

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I wonder if some of the "cloud based gaming" is for aging cars... You'll now want to see the Car Fax before buying a new ride in Forza.
 
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I wonder if some of the "cloud based gaming" is for aging cars... You'll now want to see the Car Fax before buying a new ride in Forza.

It's funny you say that, because Forza 4 actually has a system identical to it.

You can see how many owners a car has had, how many miles, the date it was purchased, and about a hundred other specific details. It's insanely fascinating haha
 

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