Xbox One Cloud: Responsive Actions Are Still Going To Be Calculated Offline, Latency Could Limit It

Cloth simulation will still be calculated locally, says Cloakworks' Joe van den Heuvel.

The Xbox One cloud has been subject to much controversy with Microsoft hyping it up in the past and simply not talking about it at their press conference during last week’s E3. Microsoft have promised that using the cloud they can offload intense operations and free up the CPU to work on other processes.

GamingBolt recently got in touch with Joe van den Heuvel from Cloakworks. The company specializes in easy creation of high-performance cloth simulation and their technology has been used in games like the recently released Thief. The technology is based on CPU, so will the Xbox One cloud help improve their cloth simulation technology in the long run?

“Certainly!  The limiting factor with cloud computing for gaming has always been latency; with too much lag between the user’s actions and the results on screen, the result is a frustrating experience for the user.  So for situations where there is no or limited user interaction during the physics simulation offloading the processing to the cloud and cranking the quality is a viable option,” Joe  explained to GamingBolt.

“But in platforms like the Xbox One where part of the processing is local and part is in the cloud, the most responsive actions will be the ones calculated locally.  So the motions of the player’s character, and how the cloth reacts to them, will likely remain something that is calculated locally for a while,” he continued.

It’s indeed true that the average internet speeds are still below than what is required by cloud for enjoyable user experience, so Joe makes a pretty valid point.

What are your thoughts on the same? Let us know in the comments section below. Stay tuned for more coverage on Cloakworks.

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