Whether it would work or not is, to me, irrelevant. It’s just evil, IMHO, and deprives the gamer of their freedom. It feels like 1984.
How the hell does it deprive a gamer of their freedom? It’s not like they’re being forced to use the service. If it is a benefit to them, they’ll use it, if it’s not, they wont. Hell, even if they get the service it’s not like they can’t ever STOP using the service and just get a gaming computer.
Although it is possible if many people like it games end up being made exclusively for OnLive. Then again, if it becomes popular, I suspect the server may crash. Someone would probably organize a mass playing of Crysis or something like that.
I don’t think that “unlimited detail” will be able to do complex animations on voxel data in realtime. For me it sounds like an impossible thing to do. Hopefully I am wrong.
I personally think people are putting too much stock into OnLive. I feel that this service is going to be a niche market, and won’t gain the popularity they are claiming. Think about it. “Hardcore” gamers are all about awesome graphics, custom PC’s, and pushing the limits of hardware/software technology. They won’t throw all that away to subscribe to a service that may or may not give them the same experience.
On the other hand, “casual” gamers probably won’t be able to justify paying for a monthly subscription for games … hence the “casual” bit. Hell, I wouldn’t even be able to justify it, and I’m a casual-hardcore gamer! 
And even if OnLive does succeed, much to my chagrin, I believe that the gaming technology will still be pushed to be faster and more efficient. If OnLive can push their servers to handle 20 gamers with better software instead of 10 gamers with old software, the cost should be passed down.
Success of OnLive can only help computer gaming because the OnLive systems are PC based and the entire PC community is not going to migrate to OnLive. The home based PC will never die IMO, there will always be tech enthusiasts and a market for them. I for one will never game off a cloud, I will always have a gaming PC in my home. In fact, you may see people migrate from, or choose the OnLive solution over, game consoles. PC gaming could increase as a result of OnLive, consequently more money and research would be invested in PC gaming. (OnLive = PC gaming)
To get more on topic, the OnLive computers still have to be built and maintained so the hardware and technology has to exist and continue to improve. Rendering efficiency and new methods will certainly be key factors and things like Unlimited Detail can only help. Not to mention, new methods and technology eventually find their way into consoles. As long as gaming in general exists, you will always see projects similar to Unlimited Detail.
Honestly, there is no reason to be talking about OnLive in this thread.
Anyone heard anything new about “unlimited detail” yet?
No.
You just revived an 8 month-old thread just to ask a stupid irrelevant question. Do you really think it was worth the flames?
I don’t see how the question was irrelevant.
I wonder if this isn’t just some elaborate bullshit.
It seems this tech is just too good to be true.
We shall see.
It would be smart to combine this tech with polygons. Use this tech for environments and shit that doesn’t move and polys for the rest.
I like looking back at the stuff about OnLive though. Since then I’ve tried it and really enjoyed it, and you no longer have to pay a subscription fee.
Extra ordinary claims require extra ordinary proof. This guy has been rambling about his technology for the last 3-4 years and we still don’t even have as much as an HD video, let alone a demo.
If Intel is interested, great. I don’t believe it until I play it.
I actually dont like the way it looks, everything looks really spongy…
That’s because he’s not an artist, he points this out many many times. Listen for christs sakes
The site is dodgy, contains no useful information whatsoever. How would this work on higher resolutions? What about animation? What about interaction with the game and between game elements? There are so many vital questions left unaswered. The future of gaming is to make everything dynamic, this ‘unlimited detail’ method certainly is not. The detail is not infinite either for the geometry still has to be modelled by an artist and thus doesn’t contain infinite geometric data.
You could use procedural model(-parts) like fractals to get unlimited detail. But I also don’t think that this whole concept is going to work out. They call it the fourth method of rendering or something, but I don’t think that it is comparable to existing techniques because of it’s limitations. The interesting part is, that it is intented to be used in games, which I can not imagine. If it works indeed, it will be an awesome technology, otherwise it’s nothing more than a gimmick.
link aint working goes to site then says no such page basically.