Was thinking about this today while reading an article on the benefits of cloud computing with gaming. Being able to play a game that is effectively rendered and processed elsewhere and the image streamed to your PC or TV and also while looking around at current GFX cards etc.

When I built my current PC roughly a couple of years ago now I had a dilema that I couldn't really afford the latest and greatest (8800GTX/Ultra) so i could get something a bit lower but then decided to just grab an ebuyer extra value GTX for £299 on credit card. I have not regretted this decision and am still thrilled to bits when I install a brand new game, crank the settings up full and get playing!

Now had i of gone for a cheaper one (circa £150) then I would have had to upgrade between then and now to be able to keep up at all with the new games (another £150 perhaps) and even then probably wouldn't be able to use full settings etc on some games.

So basically it is sometimes worth spending the extra dosh on the latest and greatest and I'm suprised at how future proof it has been.

Bit of a random pointless post but wanted to share my thoughts on this and see what you guys think.

Phil

Was thinking about this today while reading an article on the benefits of cloud computing with gaming.

As an avid gamer, i like the idea, but i really cant see it as possible in the UK for quite some time.

My broadband connection speed is up and down like a yoyo at the best of times, worse case ~2meg best ~6meg. A 6meg connection would struggle to compete with a console games graphics, even if compressed.

In years to come, when we have fancy fibre optic connections, and stupid speeds, it'll be quite possible, but who's going to subsidise the ISPs for all the data? Download limits have always been prohibitive to this sort of thing.

Was thinking about this today while reading an article on the benefits of cloud computing with gaming.

Not possible for decades, possibly ever.

Latency is the problem here. You have the latency of the controller input to cloud + processing in the cloud + compressing a very high res video stream at say 30 - 50 fps such that it's in the order of low mbps, not gbps, then the transmission of that stream and decoding at the client side.

Offloading processing of game logic, not the rendering is much more viable.

Cloud computing with gaming, sorry but I'm doing a fair bit of research in this areana and I'd love to see the latancy get low, and have each item of processing carried out fast enough every time to be certain of perfect play.

I don't see it happening any time soon IMHO.

Well I wasn't really getting at the whole cloud computing point. Just said thats what made me think of it but thanks anyway.

FWIW you can buy a £90 card and play most of the games and a year later play most of the games.

The difference in price of a GT to a GTX meant that I could have got 2 * GT to run in SLI for less than a GTX. That plus the extra PSU the GTX requires.

Also if you look at the highest end cards now they blow the GTX into the dust, as do all of the newer mid range cards. Basically if you buy mid to high range cards you get a card that's almost as good as the silly expensive ones and then you can buy another mid to high end card and have better performance than the old Highest end card plus have cash in your pocket.

Yeh true. I did that before too. I had two 7800GT's at one point but ditched them in favour of the 8800GTX as I had two monitors and it was a pain disabling SLI everytime etc.

Think my point was that it has been a good investment for me. A better one than the two 'lesser' cards turned out to be. I know things have changed now with the 8800 series cards in terms of their scalability and the SLI support though.

Still prefer the simplicity of one big beafy card over two. Never had much problem in terms of powering the card either. Didn't go out of my way to get a beafy PSU and the fan never ramps up during games.

Like I say just glad I did get the card now as it has seen me well and still performs incredibly well in new games. Who knows I may even get a second it they're cheap enough now... although I may need a new pump to move the water round quicker to cool everything then.

Phil

I bought an 8800GTX last year from a member on here after discovering a problem with my Radeon 2900HD and my motherboard. Everything is run at full on my 22" monitor (1680x1050 or whatever it is!) and it runs fine. Only had a bit of slow down at the end of the American campaign on CoD:WaW with all the smoke etc!

Hey graphics weren't even that bad on the first IBM PC... 8088 Corruption

I'm still relatively stuck in the dark ages with a GeForce4 Ti4200, which was considered among the best in it's time. Don't intend to upgrade until I can afford an entire system now though, what with PCI-E instead of AGP and all the other stuff. Will prolly be PCI-E v2 or something by the time I get round to upgrading