Can somebody explain to me how this cloud computing will help AI opponents in games? XBONE seems to have this tech and I find it fascinating. At first, I thought it was just jargon to mask some sort of DRM or whatever, but I'm intrigued at how the cloud can actually make gaming better.
I doubt it will be used much for AI because of the latency involved with data communications online, but there are many uses for it in games. Just off the top of my head, the cloud could be used for:
* "Live look-ins" in sports titles. Imagine you're playing Madden and in the huddle picking your next play during a game in Franchise mode. Up pops a window showing an important play from another game going on at the same time between two computer controlled opponents. All the physics, collisions, and AI for that replay were computed in the cloud while you were playing the last down or two, then the replay file was sent to your Xbox One to be displayed between plays.
* I love the Road to the Show mode in MLB The Show, but there are some games where I spend an inordinate amount of time looking at the "Simulating until your player's next important moment" screen then actually playing. A lot of that simulation could be offloaded to the cloud, which could work through every possible outcome of your current action until your next one so that it loads immediately once your finished with the current one.
* The Forge mode in Halo 4 includes generated lighting for maps. The generation of those lightmaps could be offloaded to the cloud.
* Calculating physics for real-time cutscenes, thus freeing more power in the console for rendering.
How did game OS's go from a few MB to several GB of ram usage in one generation?
The wii's entire OS ran on 64mb of ram and now the wiiU uses 1gb.
The 360 went from 32mb reserved for the OS and now is using 3gb.
It does not use 3GB. Full Windows 8 only needs 2 GB for a 64-bit processor. A pared down version of it is not going to require more. From the article in the OP:
I suspect ~1GB of system memory ends up being carved off for Windows.
I'm just wondering... what happens if you registered a code but break/lose your disc? Is having the disc inside the console required? Or is it like Steamworks where you can trash your disc as long as you have the code?
As soon as you input the code, you don't need the disc anymore. The game is attached to your account permanently. Since the game is automatically installed to your hard drive, you no longer need to put the disc in to play. Should you ever get a new Xbox One, after logging into your account on the new XO, you can download that game from the Live servers without ever needing the disc.
Nothing was mentionned about 4k...if this console lasts 8 years,do we know if an upgrade can be done to support it...didnt the 360 start at 720P and they patched it to support 1080p and HDMI and all...
The Xbox One supports 4K.
Audio and video: 1080p and 4K both supported; 7.1 surround sound.
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