🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 29 Oct 2015 21:19:37 +0100, Werner Punz <we...@gmx.at> wrote:

>Am 29.10.15 um 19:57 schrieb Rin Stowleigh:
>
>> This leads to part of my question though -- assume the PC will push
>> way more than 60hz in every case.  What would happen?  Seems like it
>> would have to be tearing or other anomalies unless Steam or the
>>
>>
>I cannot really comment only can guess, my guess is if the game pumps 
>out more than 60fps you wont get tearing but dropped frames,the encoding 
>engine will limit itself to 60fps, so frames will be dropped.
>I have not seen any streaming system so far, which pumps out more than 
>60fps at the moment.
>
> > streaming mechanism on the host somehow limits the framerate of the
> > game to 60 (which would probably be fine for most TVs in most games
> > but isn't going to satisfy a good portion of fps / fast motion game
> > players).
>
>I dont think fps or really fast games are suitable for streaming, there 
>is a small lag regarding the encoding/decoding, there is the network 
>latency which is higher on wifi than on cable and the worst part usually 
>is the latency introduced by the tv, even in game mode, you have to add 
>at least 20ms induced by the tv - minimum.
>So if you are that kind of player where 20-30ms additional lag are vital 
>and you can feel it then better stay away.

Yes, I wasn't even going to get into the issue of network latency.
And, in this case it's not just net latency in the sense that most
people think about it (ping to server on a multiplayer game), the net
latency ultimately becomes like input latency, because its between the
player and whatever he's controlling on the screen, and in that case
20ms is a hell of a lot.

If I'm searching for a server in a particular game, and I have a 20ms
ping to one server and a 60ms ping to another server, but the 60ms
server has a map I'd rather play, I can forgo that 40ms without really
caring that some other players might be getting a slightly better
ping.  I probably won't feel the 40ms in actual gameplay.  But if
there's even a 10ms delay between the time I move the mouse to the
left and my player on the screen moves, I probably wouldn't be
interested in playing.  I am admittedly a bit of a purist when it
comes to input lag.  

In the audio production world, they say "most people are okay" with a
10ms lag and cannot feel the difference between 5ms and 10ms, but I
can.  It depends on a lot of things like what's being played, the
tempo of the song etc. but 5ms feels indistinguishable from something
like striking a physical acoustic piano key and hearing the sound,
where 10ms feels to me more like someone squirted a dab of caulk under
the keys such that it doesn't make contact as soon as its struck. Some
feel it at such low latencies, some don't.  I suspect those that are
happy with gamestreaming are either going to have to be those
interested in slower paced games, or just be the type who does not
feel the difference in input lag I described.

About years age I tried a trial of "Gametap", a service that had lots
of retro (arcade and older console) and newer console games.  I don't
know if it's still around or if it still works the same way, but at
the time when you picked a game it downloaded it into a
emulator/virtualized environment as opposed to streaming.  I'm sure it
would have been fine for certain types of games, but playing arcade
games on it quickly revealed some sort of input lag I just couldn't
tolerate.  I think they must have written some sort of input routine
that tried to factor out the differences in controllers for the
original games and make them all work consistently, or maybe it was
some sort of Java horror, but playing the arcade games felt like you
were trying to play while up to your neck in quicksand, compared with
running the same game using MAME (I did some side by side comparisons
just to be sure I wasn't imagining things).  Somehow I have a feeling
gamestreaming would bring back bad memories of that service.