New Update Puts You in the Driver’s Seat

Some of you noticed that we added some new settings to the OnLive Game client that can enhance the visual quality and responsiveness of your game experience. We’re excited to see that the new options have been well received by our customers. That makes sense, because most of these improvements came from suggestions that our online community made to us. My thanks to all of you who have spoken up!

Whether you’re one of the many newcomers to OnLive or a longtime cloud gamer, here’s a quick walkthrough of what’s new, and how to get the best results for your computer and connection.

Bandwidth: In most cases, OnLive automatically detects the correct bandwidth for your connection. However, we wanted to give users on the latest and greatest high-speed connections the ability to try out the higher data rates. You may now override the automatic detection and specify up to 12Mbps. Alternatively, if you’re on a low-end machine or connection and have had trouble staying connected to OnLive in the past, choose a lower setting such as 3 or 4 Mbps. Select “Automatic” to let the game service determine the bandwidth.

Window Modes: This sets the window mode that OnLive will start in: choose Low-latency Fullscreen, Fullscreen, or Windowed. If you’re into high-speed action and responsiveness is your priority, we recommend selecting the Low-latency Fullscreen option. Fullscreen Low-latency may also help to improve performance on low-end machines. This option is only available on Windows machines.

Netbook Mode: Toggle this On to optimize play for lower-performance machines or to try and conserve battery power.

Optimize for Wi-Fi: It is not always possible to detect Wi-Fi connections for users using wireless bridges. This option allows you to override this. Toggle this On to for optimal play over a wireless connection.

Play Audio in Background: Set audio to play even when OnLive is not the main window.

Vertical Sync: Disabling vertical sync can improve performance and reduce latency, but at a cost to visual fidelity. As with the screen mode, you might want to toggle this on if graphics are high priority, but toggle it Off for faster-action games.

Last Performance Test: If you’re not sure what your machine can support, you can also review the results of your latest performance test on this screen, including latency, bandwidth, packet loss, and an assessment of your computer’s ability to decode video.

Some of our customers have asked when this functionality may be available on our other clients. OnLive users have a wide range of setups—and preferences—depending on how and what they like to play. We rolled out these choices to see what’s most popular with PC or Mac users as these users benefit the most from the new features, and to respond to demands from fans. As we gather feedback on how these improvements are used, we’ll look to which make sense to bring to our many other client platforms. For those of you with an OnLive Game System, know that you’ve been getting the benefit of many of these optimizations since day one.

If you’re one of the many who have checked out these features, we’re really proud and grateful for the enthusiastic support. If not, we hope you take a moment to download the client and check them out for yourself.

Enjoy,

John Speck, Director of Engineering, OnLive

Note: The “More settings” option appears on the Sign In screen of the OnLive client on your PC or Mac. If your client is setup to connect automatically, hit cancel during the connection process.

Fire up that turbocharged beast for a run through the world’s most demanding FIA venues. Whether your poison is the Citroën 300 bhp DS3, or the Mini Cooper 1.6L bad boy, these demanding courses will cause your teeth to chatter and leave your hood flapping in the wind!

We’re excited to announce the WRC3: FIA World Rally Championship Community Tournament on the OnLive Game Service. We are going full blast this time around with a Qualifier + 5 round tournament bracket. We’ve upped the prizes, we’ve upped the level of competition, and we’ve selected a series of tracks that we think will challenge the experienced and provide a progression for those getting into rally racing for the first time.
The Qualifier Round is happening now! Submissions must be received by April 17th. The top 32 racers will be seeded in the tournament and begin the head to head competition, leading to the championship face off on May 22.

-Grand prize includes an OnLive Game System, a Universal OnLive Wireless Controller worth $150!
-Second place receives a Universal OnLive Wireless Controller and 3 months of PlayPack.
-2 runners-up receive 3 months of PlayPack!

For complete rules and to check out the bracket, updated weekly, visit http://games.onlive.com/WRC3contest
Go! Go! Go! Go!

It’s been just a few weeks since I joined as head of engineering, and so far I’d have to say I’m pretty wowed by what I am seeing. The talent of the engineering team is incredible, the technical environment extremely rich and the determination to succeed is awe-inspiring. I’ve been given a glimpse into one of the most intense real-time on-demand delivery platforms I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen quite a few over the past 20 years.

Any dyed-in-the-wool techie would marvel at the enormous barriers that have been overcome by the technical team in the development of the OnLive platform. Turning on-demand cloud gaming into a reality has required so many different areas of skill and focus that few other teams could ever hope to accomplish what has been achieved here. An incredible amount has been achieved already, and I am intrigued by the possibilities of where we can take the technology next. While cloud gaming continues to be debated and defined, we are proud to lead the way as the only on-demand platform successfully launched and delivering games – not sometime off in the future, but right here, right now.

I’m looking forward to working with Gary again. We go back a dozen years or so and he is one of the smartest people in the valley to work with and is highly regarded for his integrity and commitment by those of us who know him. He has a clear vision for where the business needs to go, some of which we’ll be talking about at GDC.

As I write this, the Game Developer Conference is getting underway, and for me this is proving to be a great time to start with OnLive.  If you’re attending GDC in San Francisco, OnLive will be giving a presentation delivered by Gary Lauder, Kevin Keating, Max Lampert and myself. We will be examining OnLive 1.0, looking at what the platform has achieved, what was learned from being first to market, and how we are applying those findings to further evolve the platform. We’ll be in the West Hall, room #3022, on Thursday 3/28 from 1 to 2pm.

Hope to see you there on Thursday to take a closer look.

-Don Gordon, SVP Engineering, OnLive

Looking back, what was achieved by Steve Perlman and the team prior to my taking over as Chairman is remarkable. Here was brand new technology, which many industry experts argued was impossible, and yet a small Silicon Valley start up made it a reality.  It takes terrific vision and inexhaustible drive from all concerned to have made this happen.

I had been involved in cloud-based delivery of interactive services for many years prior to investing in OnLive, which enabled me to correctly perceive what an amazing opportunity OnLive represents. Interestingly, OnLive successfully took on the most challenging of applications as its first service: fast-twitch games.  The platform has many other valuable uses, most of which are complementary to the game service due to different time-of-use that fills in the valleys between peak game usage.

When the restructuring of OnLive happened in August, many misunderstood it to mean that the service and company were shutting down.  Neither occurred, nor did we go bankrupt.  We should have communicated better.  As Mark Twain wrote, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”  Same with us.  Our service continued without interruption both in the USA and overseas, and we have about 90 employees.

At the beginning of the year, we moved one town over to Mountain View, and are opening a satellite office in San Francisco this spring.  We also have a few employees in Europe.

2013 is shaping up to be a great year at OnLive, and I want to share some of our good news.

First up, we want to extend a hearty welcome to Don Gordon, who joins us as our new SVP of Engineering.  I know Don from our days at ActiveVideo Networks.  He attracts tremendous talent that remains loyal to him.  He is an inventor with more than 55 US patents in interactive TV and video technologies, and his innovations have already redefined the Smart TV as we know it.  Don is the epitome of a “creative technologist,” with all the right skills in his toolbox to lead OnLive into the future.

Don and I also share a keen interest: to build on the success of the OnLive Game Service and OnLive Desktop and expand the uses of the underlying technology– for example, to the Enterprise.  The Game Service and the Desktop are two great examples of what can be done with OnLive’s core technology, but they are just the beginning.

We have already delivered some significant milestones for the OnLive Game Service, in particular, being incorporated into our first third party device, the VIZIO Co-Star, and into Google TVs, starting with the impressive LG G3 Series—with more to come.  We continue to bring new game publishers and games into the mix, and released Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced release from CD Projekt on Thursday, February 28 with a special promotion, which includes a free digital download copy of the game for PCs with purchase of a Full PlayPass.  This is an important paradigm shift towards enabling our users to get their games in as many formats as they’d like, even if they are not delivered by our platform.  We are busy exploring other new ways to serve our users’ and publishers’ interests capitalizing on our unique abilities.

I’d also like to brag a bit about our OnLive Desktop app—which uses the same technology we use to deliver games over broadband—to serve up productivity apps and ultra-fast web browsing to tablets.  We’re proud to say that OnLive Desktop was named #1 app of 2012 by Time Magazine.  OnLive Desktop demonstrates how OnLive’s core technology can be used to deliver more than just games.  We’ve been hard at work expanding this capability, and will have some significant developments to share later this year.  Though I can’t say too much yet, I will say that we couldn’t be more enthusiastic about having Don at the helm of engineering at this exciting time.

We just participated at Cable Congress in London and plan to be at all the big shows this year—including GDC in San Francisco (esp. a session on 3/28 at 1PM) and E3 in June where we hope that you will join us to see what we have in store.  We’re expecting great things in 2013, and with Don’s vision and expertise to fuel us, you can trust that it’s only the start.

-Gary Lauder, Chairman of OnLive