AMD Reveals Cloud Supercomputer, Plans to Stream 'Next-Gen' Video Games via Server-side Rendering

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During a presentation at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, computer hardware manufacturer AMD and middleware developer OTOY unveiled plans for a new supercomputer they believe will revolutionize entertainment.

By calculating all relevant data sever-side and then streaming the results to online devices, AMD claims the platform can bring video games and other "graphically-intensive applications" to "virtually any type of mobile device with a web browser without making the device rapidly deplete battery life or struggle to process the content."

"Imagine playing the most visually intensive first person shooter game at the highest image quality settings on your cell phone without ever having to download and install the software, or use up valuable storage space or battery life with compute-intensive tasks," teased AMD digital media and entertainment director Charlie Boswell.

In the announcement, video game publisher Electronic Arts expressed its optimism, saying that it looks "forward to the new customers we can reach and the new interactive expressions that emerge from revolutionary technology like the AMD Fusion Render Cloud," and was joined on-stage by Lucasfilm, Dell and HP.

A demonstration of the technology saw the EA-published, Pandemic-developed Mercenaries 2: World In Flames streamed to a HP Pavilion dv2 notebook.

Boswell detailed another possible use, suggesting that users could watch a movie on their cell phone, then "seamlessly" continue the movie on their HDTV in full resolution when they get home. The supercomputer is also said to provide "remote real-time rendering of film and visual effects graphics."

Dubbed the "AMD Fusion Render Cloud," the supercomputer will be powered by AMD Phenom II processors, AMD 790 chipsets and ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics processors. OTOY noted plans for the system to be ready by the second half of 2009, but it was unclear if OTOY was referencing its software or the supercomputer itself.

"Gaming companies can use the AMD Fusion Render Cloud for developing and deploying next-generation game content, to serve up virtual world games with unlimited photo-realistic detail, and take advantage of new delivery channels as open and diverse as the web itself," boasted AMD.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    January 9, 2009 9:02 AM

    This is pretty fucking intense. It would basically get rid of the stigma that you need to update your computer every 2 years to play the newest games. Death to consoles!

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      January 9, 2009 9:05 AM

      [deleted]

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      January 9, 2009 9:06 AM

      [deleted]

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        January 9, 2009 9:07 AM

        No true. They talk about streaming to HDTVs too, as in switching from a mobile device halfway through.

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          January 9, 2009 9:09 AM

          Exactly, I think they used the mobile example the most because it would be the most difficult system to stream a game like Crysis to (since it has the lowest specs of GPU or CPU) but work fine.

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          January 9, 2009 9:38 AM

          Streaming some sort of pre-computed/recorded/generated video stream is easy, though. You just need lots of bandwidth, and you need to buffer enough before starting to play it, then you've got a smooth viewing experience.

          Doing high-def real-time graphics, like in computer games, over network is what's hard, and imho not really feasible.

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            January 9, 2009 11:08 AM

            Games like Mercenaries 2 that they already showed? How wasn't it feasible?

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              January 9, 2009 11:35 AM

              But did they stream over the Internet, or over a Gigabit+ LAN?

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          January 9, 2009 10:42 AM

          [deleted]

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            January 9, 2009 10:52 AM

            No, they were talking about HD movies and games. They showed a demonstration of Mercenaries 2 working on a laptop with a regular bandwith connection.

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      January 11, 2009 12:26 PM

      You better believe it will be highly compressed video, at lower resolutions than what we'd like, running at 30fps or less, with laggy input. Gee, where do I sign up?

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