Will ArmA 2/3 ever meet OnLive?

This must of been discussed before in the past, but back than OnLive was still relatively new and had to prove itself. OnLive has grown a lot in the last year, and has proven itself tremendously against all the critism and doubt, yet it continues to grow and is actually now considered by most people an official, 'platform' to be compared with PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.

I've dropped loads of cash into OnLive because quite simply it works, and the experience the service offers is like no other. ArmA 2 is obviously known as a demanding game to run. However Steve Perlman has talked; and demonstrated that its cloud data centers are capable of running the most advanced software in realtime to lower-end platforms, such as an iPad instantly from over 3000 miles away; pretty impressive stuff.

I personally believe OnLive (with my own experiences) can easily run ArmA 2 at 60fps, maxed on all settings in 720p, and eventually 1080p without a single issue. Now I've seen people talk about how the game is based around a community, and mods/addons to play the game how they want. This can easily be done since OnLive is allowing user-created content to be sent to them to officially be added to the, 'Addons' tab while in the game menu sometime in the future; similar to how Steam offers Mods on its service.

Now I purchased ArmA 2 along with its expansions, but would gladly re-purchase all of them if they were made available through OnLive because of the awesome features the service offers, as well as not needing to worry about building a monster rig for ArmA 3 in the future.

If any of you guys are users of the service or have experience with it, what would you personally think about BIS partnering, and allow their games being made available via OnLive... now that the service has come a long way and it improving all the time?

Ripoff service.

Paying $40+ for games you don't even actually own.

Looking at your Youtube channel it looks like you're just trying to score some sponsorship cash from them.

I have to disagree with you on mod support. What makes modding on the PC great is the lack of oversight involved. You can get whatever you want from anywhere, and store it on your computer. The minute you move it onto their end you get some kind of approval process and general storage issues. Who gets to upload mods? Only major teams? Can anyone upload whatever they want, and if so many GB?

I also just don't think the service is practical for most people. It suffers the same issues any streaming service- downtime and bandwidth. I live pretty close to a major centre and yet I still loose internet access for short bursts fairly regularly. Most internet plans' bandwidth caps also don't take kindly to what's essentially streaming 720/1080p video (plus other data) for the length of time people play games. You would also be introducing MP levels of lag into SP, varying based on where their server is located.

I'm not saying it couldn't work, but I just don't see that working out anytime soon.

Ripoff service.

Paying $40+ for games you don't even actually own.

Looking at your Youtube channel it looks like you're just trying to score some sponsorship cash from them.

Well I purchased 8 games for under $100, which I can say is pretty good. Now yes I agree, the fact that you don't own any physical copy is a setback, but there is a benefit to it as well; its convienent. No need to worry about installing, or downloading, your saves and progress can be accessed from anywhere. I'm not trying to defend the service, but saying its complete crap is a little bit ignorant.

As for my youtube channel, that would be highly unlikely. I make videos of games I enjoy regardless what platform its being played on. The fact that I'm impressed with OnLive and make videos of games on the service doesn't mean I'm trying to gain a sponsorship with them. The same can be said about anyone making videos of games running on Xbox 360, or PS3.

Even if ArmA 2 were to come to OnLive with no possible way of tweaking the game, I'm sure much of the OnLive community would still appreciate it. It just allows BIS games to reach other audiences, theres absolutely no cons to moving their games onto the service. Nobody's putting a gun to your head forcing you to buy into the service. It'll still be available on PC, where its mean't to be experienced to the fullest. How can getting more sales on the side via OnLive hurt BIS?

This will never happen.

OnLive is only good for, let's be honest, not too bright people who are willing to waste quite a lot of money to play games made for 6 years old technology... at lowest settings... with crappy youtube grade visual quality... with control lags... without mods... and a 'must always be online' DRM.

And while you can run several games made for a heavily outdated console hardware on the same server - running PC games, made for current PC hardware will be impossible on more than one. Especially ArmA

This will never happen.

OnLive is only good for, let's be honest, not too bright people who are willing to waste quite a lot of money to play games made for 6 years old technology... at lowest settings... with crappy youtube grade visual quality... with control lags... without mods... and a 'must always be online' DRM.

And while you can run several games made for a heavily outdated console hardware on the same server - running PC games, made for current PC hardware will be impossible on more than one. Especially ArmA

I don't mean to come across as rude, but what you just said proves your lack of knowledge of the service. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, FEAR 3, Red Faction: Armageddon, Assassins Creed Revelations, Dead Island, DiRT 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, Batman: Arkham City, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Call of Juarez: The Cartel, Lara Croft and The Guardion of Light, Saints Row: The Third, are all games that are available and/or coming to the service which uses current conventional hardware. If OnLive is capable of handling all these games simultaneously, I'm sure it can handle ArmA just the same.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, FEAR 3, Red Faction: Armageddon, Assassins Creed Revelations, Dead Island, DiRT 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, Batman: Arkham City, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Call of Juarez: The Cartel, Lara Croft and The Guardion of Light, Saints Row: The Third, are all games that are available and/or coming to the service which uses current conventional hardware.

I'm afraid XBox360 is not a current conventional hardware. It's 6 years old now. And so are the limitations in all of those games. A 7 years old PC will have no problems running them at the same settings OnLive does as they are even lower than those of 6 years old XBox360.

Here we are talking about a much more demanding PC-exclusive game made for a much much newer hardware.

If OnLive is capable of handling all these games simultaneously, I'm sure it can handle ArmA just the same.

OnLive is not just a magical cloud flying in the sky projecting games onto your screen. It's just a bunch of servers using generic hardware with video capture cards.

ArmA does some kind of cloud already...since all of your A.I. in a game is computed by your PC and position is just updated on server, but al the A.I. computing happens on your own PC...that way MP scenarios can have more units than a SP scenario on your own PC.

Most of the computing in ArmA is on the CPU...the graphics itself are not that demanding. The biggest part is A.I. computing since A2 is not player centric...it's a battlefield simulator.

You kinda miss the point but I'll make it clear

Nobody was talking about graphics only (which are demanding)

OnLive is also not something that runs one game on multiple servers. It's a server that runs multiple games.

Obviously thanks to them being console games hardware needed to run them (especially at minimum settings) is extremely cheap so one server can run several instances of something as heavily outdated technically as Dirt 3 or DXHR without the highest-end modern hardware.

That's only one of the points. The other one is that the multiplayer will not be possible either (the need for even more processing power, fatter internet channels, the lack of mod support)

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag

High prices

laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag

This will never happen.

OnLive is only good for, let's be honest, not too bright people who are willing to waste quite a lot of money to play games made for 6 years old technology... at lowest settings... with crappy youtube grade visual quality... with control lags... without mods... and a 'must always be online' DRM.

And while you can run several games made for a heavily outdated console hardware on the same server - running PC games, made for current PC hardware will be impossible on more than one. Especially ArmA

You speak the truth and the internet thanks you for it.

---------- Post added at 07:03 ---------- Previous post was at 07:02 ----------

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag

Can you repeat that? Your comms broke up.

You kinda miss the point but I'll make it clear

Nobody was talking about graphics only (which are demanding)

OnLive is also not something that runs one game on multiple servers. It's a server that runs multiple games.

Obviously thanks to them being console games hardware needed to run them (especially at minimum settings) is extremely cheap so one server can run several instances of something as heavily outdated technically as Dirt 3 or DXHR without the highest-end modern hardware.

That's only one of the points. The other one is that the multiplayer will not be possible either (the need for even more processing power, fatter internet channels, the lack of mod support)

Umm... DiRT 3 is a DirectX 11 game as well as Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which I find funny your claiming is outdated graphically, since it hasn't been released yet... the service was able to run Crysis maxed at 1080p without any issues as well... your arguements don't really stand up against facts...

oh noes! not another performance comparison of Crysis to Arma2!

Umm... DiRT 3 is a DirectX 11 game as well as Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which I find funny your claiming is outdated graphically, since it hasn't been released yet... the service was able to run Crysis maxed at 1080p without any issues as well... your arguements don't really stand up against facts...

Its still going to be a pain in the ass running Arma 2 on there. There really isnt much to say (mods, multiplayer, single player were already mentioned). And Crysis is more graphically dependent (I believe). When Arma 2 was released barely any computers were able to run that on max or even on high and its CPU dependent.

Arma 2 would not work on OnLive.

Arma 2 fans would buy autographed 1"x1" pieces of carpet from the Bohemia offices

OnLive..... no thanks.

Let me give you some performance comparisons on my current PC to Crysis 2 and Arma 2 OA/CO.

My PC is the following:

E2200 2,2 GHZ Dual Core CPU

HD3450 series GPU, 1 GB memory

2 GB RAM DDR 3

Win 7.

Now, Crysis on 800x600 at low settings I have average FPS of 40. Yes, FORTY FPS.

Arma 2, 800x600 Interface resolution and 800x600 3D resolution, everything at low, my average FPS is 15. Yes, FIFTEEN FPS.

You see a pattern here? I do, and that's Arma 2 is too heavy for OnLive platform.

There's also the issue.. if you stop paying the fee you lose all the games you foolishly thought you bought and own.

If they go out of business, you have nothing....zippo, nadda...... Hell even Steam can at least issue some sort of patch if they are going down

or some smarty pants programmers can figure something out. You have the games on your system.... Onlive, they vanish into thin air.

Also after you pay the fees itll be more than buying the games themselves. Just use Steam you dont even have to be online to play.

Although personally I don't think I'd ever rent virtual games, I do think the idea has merit. As streaming technology increases (and it will, there's too much money to be made by it) it might even begin to make more sense than maintaining your own PC.

I'm not saying this will happen soon, or suddenly, but I think it could have a large market when it does. Not everyone wishes to pour money into a PC when they could pay less money for "renting" the power of another PC. And, if the experience is no different, then what's the difference? :)

One day I'd like to play OFP on my iPhone. I don't know how that could happen RE controls etc, but I'd happily buy one of those handy roll-up Bluethooth keyboards for the purpose.

Onlive is like buying a house, having to pay rent to live in it and then not having the right to sell it.

Suckers are going to love it.

.

Brilliant. Another console gamer signs up and suggests something the rest of us ruled out a decade ago.

Next he'll be complaining we haven't made him welcome by bowing down to his 1337 skilz.

Umm... DiRT 3 is a DirectX 11 game as well as Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which I find funny your claiming is outdated graphically, since it hasn't been released yet...

Who cares which DX version they put in tech specs? Our PC-only Stalker CoP also has DX11 in specs. Doesn't stop it from looking way worse than DX9 Crysis and ArmA2.

Also you don't need to have DXHR released to see how it looks. There are screenshots and videos for that. Same as with AA3.

Console hardware won't magically become modern so any multiplatform game has to be downscaled for it. PC versions just get better textures and better shaders (in a best case) but that's it.

the service was able to run Crysis maxed at 1080p without any issues as well... your arguements don't really stand up against facts...

Oh show me please where exactly does OnLive run Crysis at 1080p maxed out with good FPS? Especially considering that OnLive barely runs something like RF Guerilla that is just an empty desert basically at a minimum.

I'm not saying this will happen soon, or suddenly, but I think it could have a large market when it does. Not everyone wishes to pour money into a PC when they could pay less money for "renting" the power of another PC. And, if the experience is no different, then what's the difference? :)

The difference is that the Real World is built around Serious Business. And Serious Business won't rent you a $1000 PC for $10 bucks a month.

I did just some digging on Onlive.

Steve Perlman is the guy who created WebTV.

He's just going to build this up enough to sell it before people figure out it's a ripoff just like he did with WebTV.

Brilliant. Another console gamer signs up and suggests something the rest of us ruled out a decade ago

A lot of the pro Onlive posts on forums and Youtube are just stealth spam which this is most likely is also

since the guy admits to trying to get sponsors for his Youtube channel.

The technology itself isn't too bad, just it just doesn't make and freaking sense over the long term business wise.

The technology itself isn't too bad, just it just doesn't make and freaking sense over the long term business wise.

And if it doesn't have badgers, I'm simply not interested.

There's also the issue.. if you stop paying the fee you lose all the games you foolishly thought you bought and own.

There is no subscription fee, the only monthly fee for the service is for the playpack which is an optional fee for a pack of 50ish games. I'm afraid you're using outdated information, the monthly fee that was expected was scrapped around January 2011. (There is a blog post on Onlive's blog about this from that time however I really cba to find it right now)

If you need evidence run: http://play.onlive.com/ <- Free

So far the only two competent discussion points in this thread that actually have any coherent thought process put into it is that of the modding limitations (Which I agree would be a downside as ARMA is a game that is heavily mod centric) and the economical viability of running the game on Onlives data centers.

Onlive CAN obviously run the game in the cloud, to say otherwise would be like saying a PC cannot run it, however the economical viability of Onlive doing so is an interesting point made. That would obviously be something that Onlive and BI would need to discuss, no idea myself if it would be viable for Onlive to do so as they are very tight with information regarding their servers used.

Still this really shouldn't be much of a problem regarding the PC, this is more of a point of the game being brought to an area where CONSOLE players have a chance of playing this brilliant game. We all know that the current generation of consoles have absolutely no possibility whatsoever of playing ARMA, at the very least through Onlive they have a chance of doing so since all you would need is a basic laptop or PC to do so.

Edit: Nevermind took the time to find it for you rupert: http://blog.onlive.com/2010/10/04/onlive-just-play-for-free/