KSP and cloud gaming

[Pe-Ter]

Hello, I'm sorry if this thread is in a wrong place, but honestly, I had no idea where else to place it.

INTRODUCTION:

A while ago I used to enjoy some cloud gaming. What it means is that a company is giving you access to their computers/consoles for all the processing power you need for a game. What you get is a video stream from that game. This makes it possible to run any game (supported by that service) on any device that is capable of running the client application. So you can, for example, play Crysis on a mobile phone.

The only serious cloud gaming company I've found in recent years is the OnLive company (which is being rebuilt after some bad CEO decisions). They already have games installed and ready to play on their side, you just have to download their client application, create an account and play any game from their library. Most of those games have 30 minutes of trial period, after which you can purchase access to that game. All saves and data is stored on their servers, so you don't have to worry about your disk space (very important on smartphones).

QUESTION:

Is there a possibility to develop such a platform for KSP to at least make the game run on a PC of your choice (to which you have access, obviously) and then being able to connect to that computer through the Internet and play in a similar manner? If not, then do you know any companies that provide cloud gaming services capable of running KSP, or companies that just allow to upload your own game? I remember that my friend found a service on which you could run your software, something similar to VPN, but it was slightly different in functionality. I can't get in touch with that friend, so I really can't ask him.

REASON FOR ASKING

KSP seems to be very needy in terms of computing power. It requires quite a lot of CPU resources and RAM. RAM problems won't be solved by that right now, as it's due to bad memory managment and lack of proper x64 support, but it might be a nice foundation for future versions and it would help users with worse computer systems to get all the joy of KSP. For example, my CPU keeps failing after 6 years of exploiting it (no overclocking ever), I get bluescreens due to improper clock interrupts when that CPU is overloaded. So I am basically unable to run lots of mods, cloud gaming would give me, and most likely a lot of other people too, an opportunity to take everything that KSP gives me.

What do you think about this concept? Is it possible to move KSP to a cloud gaming setting?

[diomedea]

I believe the KSP EULA allows only for installation/use of the software on your own PC, so any service offering remote access to KSP would probably be considered against the terms of the license.

I never heard about an official version of KSP conceived to be run on a server, though a number of add-ons allow to take control of KSP running on one machine of yours throught some other networked device.

[Pe-Ter]

Do you think that it would be hard to create such a mod? It shouldn't violate EULA as the second computer would be just a controller and it could allow only one person at a time to play the game.

[Captain Sierra]

I believe the KSP EULA allows only for installation/use of the software on your own PC, so any service offering remote access to KSP would probably be considered against the terms of the license.

I never heard about an official version of KSP conceived to be run on a server, though a number of add-ons allow to take control of KSP running on one machine of yours throught some other networked device.

I think what the OP is going for is this scenario:

I have a very beefy brand new gaming desktop with a 3.5GHz 8 core processor and a Radeon R9 270 GPU which runs HEAVILY modded KSP Win64 flawlessly. Can I then play the game on the desktop through my laptop (through LAN or connecting directly to my machine over the internet or something else like that), which is strong but not nearly as strong. Basically, could I have a remote computer do all the processing work of the physics and memory and then only burden the computer I'm playing on with the graphical rendering (or could that be outsourced the the 'server' rig too)?

Its an interesting concept but to make a mod to do that would require a lot of 'breaking' of the stock game to even make it possible, but awesome if it ever were to work.

[Norpo]

Hm, this is actually a good idea. Only problem would be for those with slow/low bandwith internet (see: me), if it was a cloud/remote service. I don't know how lag would affect precision things like docking with upwards of 500+ ms delays, but I can guess it would be very annoying. I can see a local server working okay, though.

Making it happen, mods or otherwise, would probably be VERY hard.

[hab136]

Doesn't Steam In-Home Streaming do this already?

The license might prevent OnLive from just buying a copy of KSP and installing it, but Squad and OnLine could work out a separate license.

[Xaiier]

I feel like with a fast enough connection, any standard remote access application would be able to work with KSP. You may need some aids for those important moments like landing, but otherwise the game would work at delay levels even far beyond what most streaming services work with.

[Pe-Ter]

Hm, this is actually a good idea. Only problem would be for those with slow/low bandwith internet (see: me), if it was a cloud/remote service. I don't know how lag would affect precision things like docking with upwards of 500+ ms delays, but I can guess it would be very annoying. I can see a local server working okay, though.

Making it happen, mods or otherwise, would probably be VERY hard.

I absolutely agree that it would not allow people with low bandwidth connection to play flawlessly. The thing is, this way of playing wouldn't be obligatory. You could still play this game in a normal way. While using OnLive I experienced very low lag on my 6Mb(it) connection. Now I am using a 30Mb connection and the lag was even lower (below 50ms). To be honest, it's not always the bandwidth that causes lag, it's mostly your location in the world and how close you are to the ISP.

Captain Sierra;]I think what the OP is going for is this scenario:

I have a very beefy brand new gaming desktop with a 3.5GHz 8 core processor and a Radeon R9 270 GPU which runs HEAVILY modded KSP Win64 flawlessly. Can I then play the game on the desktop through my laptop (through LAN or connecting directly to my machine over the internet or something else like that), which is strong but not nearly as strong. Basically, could I have a remote computer do all the processing work of the physics and memory and then only burden the computer I'm playing on with the graphical rendering (or could that be outsourced the the 'server' rig too)?

That's right, though I think that the whole job should be done by the "host" PC. It would make this scenario much easier to develop. Otherwise, two PCs would have to synchronize redndering and processing power through the Internet. I think it would easily fail. The "host" computer should just stream a video from the game to the "client". It should be enough.

Its an interesting concept but to make a mod to do that would require a lot of 'breaking' of the stock game to even make it possible

Wouldn't it be possible to accept connections and stream a screen capture using C#? This way a mod (not a simple one by far) could (?) make it happen. I wonder whether modders from here would find this solution possible.

hab136;]Doesn't Steam In-Home Streaming do this already?

If there is still a possibility to buy the game from the KSP website, without using steam, then it wouldn't be available to many people.

EDIT: And Steam In-Home Streaming allows only LAN connections, you would have to cheat with Hamachi or stuff like that to play remotly outside of your home.

EDIT2: Sorry, my quotes exploded.

Edited December 20, 2014 by Pe-Ter

[steve_v]

I have done this with VirtualGL + TurboVNC over WIFI. Dunno about a WAN connection, but it should work if you have the bandwidth.

Still prefer to play it on a real machine though.

[Pe-Ter]

Whoa, steve_v, that's interresting. Did you try it with KSP exactly?

[steve_v]

Not for some time, & it may have been the beta. It should work with anything OpenGL... in theory. Should work (securely) over a sufficiently fast WAN connection too, if you tunnel it with ssh

I have no idea what qualifies as "sufficiently fast" though.

0.25 runs but I can't speak for performance, as I have only tried it over a very slow link, using TurboVNC 'slow mode'.

Might have to try it again sometime, once I have retrieved my netbook from work. Also a keyboard. - Note: 98% sulphuric acid and laptops do not mix

Edited December 20, 2014 by steve_v
Looks like it wasn't 0.19, earlier.

[Pe-Ter]

That sounds nice, I will have to test it as soon as possible. Though do you think that a special, dedicated mod would achieve better performance than your way or not? I'm kinda interrested in it.

[steve_v]

How would you do it with a mod? Way I see it you've still got to grab / compress / send the output of the renderer over the network somehow if you want the power of the servers GPU. NVIDIA Shield does it in the driver, VirtualGL redirects to a pbuffer.

I suppose you could do it client - server from in the game, but then you'd need a rendererer on the client & tablets etc have gutless GPUs. this also sounds like a lot of work.

[Pe-Ter]

Okay, so that would bring us to the same problem of synchronizing rendering and computing power over the Internet. That's not an option as far as I'm concerned, it would fail often.