Predictive Modeling To Increase Responsivity of Streamed Games

jones_supa (887896) writes Streaming game services always bump up against a hard latency limit based on the total round-trip time it takes to send user input to a remote server and receive a frame of game data from that server. To alleviate the situation, Microsoft Research has been developing a system called DeLorean (whitepaper) using predictive modeling to improve the experienced responsiveness of a game. By analyzing previous inputs in a Markov chain, DeLorean tries to predict the most likely choices for the user's next input and then generates speculative frames that fit those inputs and sends them back to the user. The caveat is that sending those extra predictive frames and information does add a bandwidth overhead of anywhere from 1.5 to 4 times that of a normal streaming game client. During testing the benefits were apparent, though. Even when the actual round-trip time between input and server response was 256 ms, double-blind testers reported both the gameplay responsiveness and graphical quality of the DeLorean system were comparable to a locally played version of the game.

Re:I thought it was bad

[Anonymous Coward]

"I have no clue what I'm reading about but am angry about it none the less!"

- Random internet commenter

bad name

[Charliemopps]

Apparently the authors of this research have never actually driven a DeLorean. It was stainless steel, weight 3000lbs, and only has 130hp.

So basically it's a car the weight of a Buick with the engine of a Geo Metro.