Previously mentioned Gaikai has just released a video demonstration showing how it works, and how well. The blog post accompanying the video has some interesting details:
(1) No installing anything. (I’m running regular Windows Vista, with the latest Firefox and Flash is installed.)
(2) This is a low-spec server, it’s a very custom configuration, fully virtualized. Why? To keep the costs to an absolute minimum. We had 7 Call of Duty games running on our E3 demo server recently.
(3) Data travel distance is around 800 miles (round trip) on this demo as that’s where the server is. I get a 21 millisecond ping on that route. My final delay will be 10 milliseconds as I just added a server in Irvine California yesterday, but it’s not added to our grid yet. (So this demo is twice the delay I personally would get, the good news is I don’t notice it anyway.)
(4) This server is not hosted by a Tier 1 provider, just a regular Data Center in Freemont California. Also, I’m not cheating and using fiber connections for our demos. This is a home cable connection in a home.
(7) Our bandwidth is mostly sub 1 megabit across all games. (Works with Wifi, works on netbooks with no 3D card etc.)
Check out the video after the break. It looks like they might really have something here. The demo shows Spore (PC version), Mario Kart 64 (in an Emulator), and several others all running within FireFox.
DPerry.com: Gaikai – Video Demo.
Gaikai Technology Demo (JULY 1, 2009) from David Perry on Vimeo.
