Cloud gaming is a new way to deliver high-quality gaming experience to gamers anywhere and anytime. In cloud gaming, sophisticated game software runs on powerful servers in data centers, rendered game scenes are streamed to gamers over the Internet in real time, and the gamers use light-weight software executed on heterogeneous devices to interact with the games. Due to the proliferation of high-speed networks and cloud computing, cloud gaming has attracted tremendous attentions in both the academia and industry since late 2000’s. In this paper, we survey the latest cloud gaming research from different aspects, spanning over cloud gaming platforms, optimization techniques, and commercial cloud gaming services. The readers will gain the overview of cloud gaming research and get familiar with the recent developments in this area.

https://ir.nctu.edu.tw:443/bitstream/11536/145505/1/007df636d72b23b15d610d0c56e730b5.pdf

A Survey on Cloud Gaming: Future of Computer Games

The cloud was originally designed to provide general-purpose computing using commodity hardware and its focus was on increasing resource consolidation as a means to lower cost. Hence, it was not particularly adapted to the requirements of multimedia applications that are highly latency sensitive and require specialized hardware, such as graphical processing units. Existing cloud infrastructure is dimensioned to serve general-purpose workloads and to meet end-user requirements by providing high throughput. In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of using this general-purpose infrastructure for serving latency-sensitive multimedia applications. In particular, we examine on-demand gaming, also known as cloud gaming, which has the potential to change the video game industry. We demonstrate through a large-scale measurement study that the existing cloud infrastructure is unable to meet the strict latency requirements necessary for acceptable on-demand game play. Furthermore, we investigate the effectiveness of incorporating edge servers, which are servers located near end-users (e.g., CDN servers), to improve end-user coverage. Specifically, we examine an edge-server-only infrastructure and a hybrid infrastructure that consists of using edge servers in addition to the cloud. We find that a hybrid infrastructure significantly improves the number of end-users served. However, the number of satisfied end-users in a hybrid deployment largely depends on the various deployment parameters. Therefore, we evaluate various strategies that determine two such parameters, namely, the location of on-demand gaming servers and the games that are placed on these servers. We find that, through both a careful selection of on-demand gaming servers and the games to place on these servers, we significantly increase the number of end-users served over the basic random selection and placement strategies.

A hybrid edge-cloud architecture for reducing on-demand gaming latency

Decentralized systems are a subset of distributed systems where multiple authorities control different components and no authority is fully trusted by all. This implies that any component in a decentralized system is potentially adversarial. We revise fifteen years of research on decentralization and privacy, and provide an overview of key systems, as well as key insights for designers of future systems. We show that decentralized designs can enhance privacy, integrity, and availability but also require careful trade-offs in terms of system complexity, properties provided, and degree of decentralization. These trade-offs need to be understood and navigated by designers. We argue that a combination of insights from cryptography, distributed systems, and mechanism design, aligned with the development of adequate incentives, are necessary to build scalable and successful privacy-preserving decentralized systems.

https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01673295/document

Systematizing Decentralization and Privacy: Lessons from 15 Years of Research and Deployments

With the proliferation of smart mobile devices and broadband wireless networks, the mobile gaming market is rapidly expanding among younger generations due to its ubiquitous entertainment features. Cloud-based mobile computing is a promising technology to address the inherent restrictions of mobile devices, such as limited battery lifetime and computational capacity. In this work, we categorize the current approaches to cloud-based mobile gaming and explicitly define Mobile Cloud Gaming (MCG). Based on its unique features, we propose a framework for next generation MCG systems. Open research issues for MCG are also discussed.

Next Generation Mobile Cloud Gaming

In this report, we review the current state of the art of web-based visualization applications. Recently, an increasing number of web-based visualization applications have emerged. This is due to the fact that new technologies offered by modern browsers greatly increased the capabilities for visualizations on the web. We first review these technical aspects that are enabling this development. This includes not only improvements for local rendering like WebGL and HTML5, but also infrastructures like grid or cloud computing platforms. Another important factor is the transfer of data between the server and the client. Therefore, we also discuss advances in this field, for example methods to reduce bandwidth requirements like compression and other optimizations such as progressive rendering and streaming. After establishing these technical foundations, we review existing web-based visualization applications and prototypes from various application domains. Furthermore, we propose a classification of these web-based applications based on the technologies and algorithms they employ. Finally, we also discuss promising application areas that would benefit from web-based visualization and assess their feasibility based on the existing approaches.

State-of-the-Art Report in Web-based Visualization

Cloud gaming has recently been proposed as an alternative to traditional video game distribution. With this approach, the entire game is stored, run and rendered on a remote server. Player input is forwarded to the server via the Internet and the game's output is returned as a video stream. This adds network delay, which can negatively impact the gameplay. The delay is acceptable as long as the user is located geographically close to the cloud servers. However, for Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), this delay is added on top of the existing delay between MMOG client and server. As MMOGs are highly delay-sensitive, this can significantly degrade their playability. To deal with this issue, we propose to use peer-to-peer techniques to distribute the MMOG server functionality and place it at the cloud server centers. This allows us to reduce the additional delay introduced by running the MMOG clients in the cloud.

/pdf/peer-to-peer-support-for-low-latency-massively-multiplayer-we76lyita6.pdf

Peer-to-peer support for low-latency Massively Multiplayer Online Games in the cloud

Many peer-to-peer (P2P) systems require accurate information about their peer's available bandwidth, e.g., for load balancing. Determining this information is difficult, as a suitable approach must address two challenges. First, it must be able to deal with fluctuating bandwidth. Second, it must incur low overhead to prevent interference with the operation of the P2P system. In this paper we present an approach to estimate the available bandwidth of peers in a P2P system, based on a combination of traffic observation and the strategic injection of traffic into the system. We evaluate our approach and show that it is accurate and responsive in settings with variable bandwidth while resulting in limited interference with the system.

Efficient bandwidth estimation for peer-to-peer systems

Massively Multiuser Virtual Environments (MMVEs) require a seamless and consistent execution. To provide this, the MMVE must include a sophisticated consistency management. This management must adapt its behavior to different activities carried out in the MMVE as well as different system loads. As an example, a movement activity must be handled differently to picking up an object. During times of high system load, a lower level of consistency might be acceptable if this enables the MMVE to continue operating with low network delay. Developing such a consistency management is a complex and time consuming effort. To support MMVE developers with this task, we propose the creation of a dedicated consistency management infrastructure. This infrastructure can be configured by developers for their specific MMVE and makes it easier to maintain a consistent MMVE state.

/pdf/consistency-management-for-peer-to-peer-based-massively-4p7wgxfxny.pdf

Consistency Management for Peer-to-Peer-based Massively Multiuser Virtual Environments

A fundamental task in peer-to-peer-based Massively Multiuser Virtual Environments is providing all peers with a consistent view of the environment. To do so, state changes must be propagated to peers. To limit the resulting network traffic,
existing approaches often restrict the distribution of a state change to peers for which it is relevant. The identification of such peers is known as Interest Management. Typically Interest Management is done based on so-called Areas of Interest. An
Area of Interest is a spatial area around a user's avatar. If a change occurs inside this area, it is relevant and must be reported to the corresponding peer. We propose
to extend this approach with so-called Areas of Effect. An Area of Effect specifies the spatial area of the virtual environment that is directly influenced by a given state change. A state change is propagated to all peers whose Areas of Interest intersect with the change's Area of Effect. This allows us to model complex state changes with arbitrary and possibly dynamic influence areas. They may even affect multiple
areas at once. In this paper we describe our approach and give an overview on the current state of it's implementation.

/pdf/towards-an-interest-management-scheme-for-peer-based-virtual-2nxxbrekj7.pdf

Towards an Interest Management Scheme for Peer-based Virtual Environments

In this demo proposal we present Planet Π4, a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) developed to evaluate and compare peer-to-peer-based MMOG systems with scalability in mind. The game requires low network latency and creates frequent game state updates. It has a modular architecture that can be adapted and extended with new functionality. Using this modular design we have developed different peer-to-peer infrastructures. Workshop participants will be able to play the game and compare the versions with each other.

/pdf/peer-to-peer-infrastructures-for-games-3w70k57bmj.pdf

Richard Suselbeck

Papers

Peer-to-peer support for low-latency Massively Multiplayer Online Games in the cloud

Efficient bandwidth estimation for peer-to-peer systems

Consistency Management for Peer-to-Peer-based Massively Multiuser Virtual Environments

Towards an Interest Management Scheme for Peer-based Virtual Environments

Peer-to-peer infrastructures for games