Dr Zoidberg

http://www.productsandservices.bt.co..._nonconsenters

What's the verdict from those who've tried it?
Worth sticking with or still a bit of a gimmick?

--
Alex

hurricanepilot

Dr Zoidberg wrote:

> http://www.productsandservices.bt.co..._nonconsenters
>
> What's the verdict from those who've tried it?
> Worth sticking with or still a bit of a gimmick?

I have an internet connection that I'd have thought would be perfect for
it - A very stable 10meg down, 1.5meg up, low latency (mid 20s) and
no jitter - and all I'll say is that the service works for any game
where input latency isn't going to be an issue. IMO though, it doesn't
look nice at all, with compression artifacts being very obvious to me.

Any non-action game is probably perfectly playable. Something like
Tropico as a for instance would probably work fairly well.

Dirt 3 was just a mess IMO, it ran, but there was a lot of artifacting
and more than enough input lag to annoy.

Just Cause 2 was better in terms of compression, but the platform that
it's running on just didn't seem good enough to run the game well. I was
expecting a reasonably high-end PC experience, but it looked no better
than the PS3 version.

However, my PC and my PS3 are both connected to a 50" tv that I don't
sit nearly far enough away from. I imagine playing on a much smaller
screen may not have shown up the graphical inadequacies quite as
readily. I can't see the lag disappearing though - I run with
interleaving off on a decent ADSL connection, so I'm likely running
with about as good a latency as anyone could expect without making the
jump to FTTC or FTTP.

Also, my PC seems easily on a par with whatever hardware they're backing
the service with, and it's not remotely current.

It doesn't take much to try it though, so the best advice is to download
the client and try a few games out. Just make sure to do it at a time
when you'd be most likely to actually use it.

Dr Zoidberg

"hurricanepilot" <h@g.c> wrote in message news:jfra8q$kml$1@dont-email.me...
> It doesn't take much to try it though, so the best advice is to download
> the client and try a few games out. Just make sure to do it at a time
> when you'd be most likely to actually use it.

It turned out to be a genuinely free trial - no credit card details required
and at the end it just stops working rather than starts billing so I've
given it a go.

First impressions while at work are that it's a bit like playing through
youtube, but I'll give it a go at home later.
--
Alex