Onlive gaming and Desktop on the Acer A500

[diiorio]

Cloud computing is making headways, and services like Onlive are a nice feature. It's nice to play PC games on any PC, and now Android tablets and phones on the go.

I was a skeptic. I was the first to go "It isn't going to work". The first to say "it must lag like crazy with inputs". OK. I was wrong.

So I wanted to try it on the tablet. After all the Acer A500 is a fully tested and recommended tablet by Onlive.com. The USB connector a plus for plugging in an Xbox 360 controller, or mouse and keyboard combo. I ran the app and was suprised how good it was.

Basically a portable console/PC on the go. Stable over wifi. Stable when I use my Droid charge as a mobile hotspot in 4g LTE (my phone is tweaked so battery life is longer).

Now I do hope Onlive gets more games faster. It is still a great deal tho. I can play games on my tv/pc, and continue on my tablet when away.

The next Onlive service is Onlive Desktop. A Windows 7 desktop and MS office 2010 cloud computer. Login with your exsisting account, and you have access to MS office software, windows media center, photo editors. More storage (2gig+) will cost a little per month, the free version doesn't allow internet explorer use. Still a good concept if you need to do power point, MS word, and excel on the go.

Onlive has struck deals with Vizio and some other tv makers to include it in there Internet ready TV's. Now it seems they will do the same with teh A700 line of acers and include the wireless controller with Acer tabs.

 

[Greg_E]

They are getting grief from Microsoft over licensing for Windows and components, have to wait and see how that turns out. You are essentially running Windows 7 as a remote desktop so if MS brings it down there are things like Team Viewer that an individual can run on their home PC and an app for their tablet to get the same win7 on tablet experience.

 

[diiorio]

Not sure about the windows gried thign since MS anounced the deal with theme at E3. They are also merging a deal with the upcomign console. Turns out Gaikai, Onlive, and MS ae merging the cloud servers.

 

[Greg_E]

As of last week there is apparently an issue:
Microsoft: OnLive Desktop violates Windows 7 terms | News | TechRadar
Lots of stuff on Mac sites that are Mac centric around the issue, but I think it applies to Android clients too.

 

[diiorio]

I would rather access my pc on the tablet and use my software as well but it simply isn't as efficient and realtime at this moment.

Openoffice needs to start workig again and get an android version out already. They delyaed it so long and now Sun is sayign they will ahve a ICS compatible setup soon, well does that mean no gingerbread or honeycomb?

 

[diiorio]

IS team viewer free? is it efficient and good for windows 7. I run windows 8 on another and may try it on that as well.

 

[diiorio]

using it now to post. it is easy to set up but there is delay of about a second so its not as efficient as cloud. but at least i can work on my systems at home. my gripe is keyboard and mouse use doesnt work so you are stuck with on screen and a slow dragging pointer

 

[diiorio]

Update. Went to using pocket cloud pro so I can use full mouse and keyboard.

 

[Greg_E]

I haven't done much with teamviewer but it seemed to work reasonably for what I was doing, one thing I did notice is that it uses a lot of resources on the host computer. How is pocket cloud with the host computer usage? Will it get out past most any firewall and proxy?

 

[diiorio]

Been using pocketcloud pro. The support of mouse and keyboard, added interfaces, and security makes it nice. Basically it uses windows remote or oyo ucan use the alternative method.


It's jsut not as real time as real cloud networking, but still efficient. Not goign to run games however. Ill jsut use onlive gaming for that.

 

[Greg_E]

I'm thinking it would be good enough to get into my network to fix minor issues from home. After that the next thing I need to find is RSAT for Android for when I make the move to winserver 2008.

 

[diiorio]

Windows 8 uses much more effcient remote login options, and allows personal cloud options. Only a matter of time before android apps roll out to support windows 8 and server standards. ICS offers new abilties as well.

I need to upgrade my MS Office soft. Im still running Office 2007. Once the final release of windows 8 is out Ill upgrade office as well.