Cloud technology will not surprise anyone. The clouds store passwords, vacation photos, and complex resource-intensive calculations are also performed there. A few years ago, cloud gaming also appeared, when heavy computing on the game is performed on remote servers, and the user receives a finished picture. Such a scheme makes it possible to play on almost any device that “pulls” the video stream with HD resolution.
Cloud gaming is good for everyone - because it allows you to get rid of a headache with constant iron upgrades and quickly gain access to the gameplay. You can play the latest games anywhere and anytime. But there are problems - the farther the cloud gaming service server is from the user, the worse the result - lags appear, the picture becomes blurry, in some cases even the cursor starts to lag behind the user's actions. This problem is typical for both GeForce NOW and all other cloud services. What could be the solution?
Need more servers? No problem
We are talking about the idea of creating a distributed gaming network, formed by the owners of productive PCs and, in fact, gamers. The latter are netizens who want to play the latest games without updating their hardware. A distributed network makes it possible to avoid problems with lags when a user, for example, from Australia tries to connect to a game server in Moscow. Usually nothing good comes out of this venture, since distances play a role even on the Internet.
But what if we put the game service servers for Australians in Australia or New Zealand? Then the problem is removed - you can play without lags and soapy pictures. The best option in this case is when a gamer from the same Australia leases the resources of his PC to other users. This gamer enters into a contract with the gaming cloud service, which expands its presence. Attracting private owners of powerful PCs for services is much easier and cheaper than building a data center from scratch in a remote region or even just placing equipment on a colocation.
The advantages of such a system
- The ability to quickly scale the network. There are many users with gaming hardware in any country, and each of them is a potential participant in the cloud gaming service.
- Gameplay without lags for residents of different countries and cities.
- It’s much cheaper than buying your own latest-generation gaming PC or console.
How it works?
Cloud gaming service attracts volunteers to the project, ready to provide resources of their own PCs for a fee. When a user requests a game, the system evaluates the proximity of the game servers and switches the cloud service user's PC to the nearest private server. In this case, the delay is minimal, the game plays almost perfectly.
Only owners of powerful computers can take part in such a project. In theory, the server can be the owners of PCs with characteristics not lower than:
- 6-core processor;
- 16 GB of RAM;
- Nvidia GTX 1070;
- wired Internet channel 50 Mbps.
It is clear that such iron costs a lot. Therefore, owners of gaming PCs, nodes for distributed gaming, should receive a good reward. Only in this case will the node become larger, and gamers will be able to connect to new services at their place of residence and will be able to play without lags.
As for gaming services, distributed gaming makes it possible to reduce operating costs and make your own service more attractive to users. Another plus is the ability to reduce the cost of maintaining a data center. Since the servers / nodes belong to the miners, the company does not need to invest very much in the development of the DC.
Is distributed gaming already available in the Russian Federation?
Yes, in Russia such projects are implemented by two companies - Drova and PlayKey. There is also the SONM project, but for the most part it is intended for complex calculations and rendering, we are not talking about games (although this possibility was announced earlier).
As for Drova, the company now has only 10 game servers that are leased by the owners. In general, this company is at the initial stage of testing its service, since many technologies have not yet been finalized, and the quality of communication is poor. On the other hand, the system that already exists works, it can be tested.
PlayKey began work in the field of distributed gaming a couple of years ago. Like Drova, the system is being tested. Its scope is somewhat wider than that of a competitor - currently miner nodes work in Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Perm. Remuneration for miners is still minimal - about $ 6 per week. Obviously, this is only compensation for the test period, and with “combat” scaling, the prices will change, but even so are those who want to provide their equipment for testing.
What problems can a distributed gaming service have?
Electricity. No matter how good the miners' servers are, one of the main problems will be the power of the server. It is not in vain that the DCs make a backup connection branch, put batteries, diesel generators, and even conclude contracts for the supply of diesel fuel to the data center. Game server owners have a much higher chance of hardware failure. However, usually the owners of powerful gaming hardware monitor the equipment, install uninterruptible power supplies (although if the power is turned off in the house / area, the network equipment is also cut off) and take other security measures. So failures should not be particularly many. In the end, even large DCs have problems .
Net. In addition to the reliability of the electrical connection, there is a risk with the Internet channel. There may be problems with the router at home, problems with the provider. The same outage will cause the game server to go offline, since the network equipment of the provider in the house in most cases will not work. The threat is real.
As an example, I’ll give my own problem that arose when testing a distributed gaming network. When I connected to Rostelecom, everything worked fine, but periodically the server was lost. Having dealt with the developers, we saw that during these periods the external IP address was changing due to which the connection was broken and the streaming was terminated. After buying a white IP problems are gone.
Iron. If we talk about professional servers, then this is of course another hardware, well, i.e. metals are the same, but verification technologies are different. For example, different thermal greases are used, different coolers, in the servers they are designed to work 24/7 for several years, while home coolers can be for 100 rubles and work unreliably and simply fail at some point. To all this must be added operating conditions, such as the environment. If a constant temperature is maintained in the data center, ~ 18, then what and where the miner will stand is not monitored, you can only find out by telemetry from the service.
What about the future?
The development of cloud gaming towards decentralization seems to be a logical trend. The laws of physics will not allow achieving the desired response speed if the remote server is located further than 1500-2000 km from the player. This means that the global cloud service will need a network of many relatively close nodes. Providing such a network with the help of data centers is problematic - expensive, long, technically difficult.
But to create a platform, some participants of which provide equipment, while others use it - the task is understandable. Moreover, sharing platforms and services are a modern trend. An example is AirBnB, Uber, Delivery Club, Twitch, YouTube. The main difficulty, in addition to the technical nuances described above, is to build a distributed service economy, a business model in which renting a computer for games is interesting for platform participants, and payment is not excessive for players.
Distributed projects, including cloud gaming, are the future. After all, they allow, firstly, the owners of powerful gaming PCs to earn money, and secondly, they provide an opportunity to save gamers who get access to the latest games for relatively little money, and thirdly, accelerate the deployment of the gaming network with cloud services. Costs are minimal, and pleasure is maximized.