Food for thought: The future of computing is off-site rendering

[suchamoneypit]

Recently I got into the NVIDIA NOW program beta, and its amazing. I can play games at amazing graphics (completely maxed out) on my pretty underpowered non-gaming laptop, from my house, and I can't even notice the delay in response when playing a game such as ARK: Survival evolved, a game that put my 390X to shame (and now im running it on my laptop at ~33% higher framerate and ultra graphics, not medium).

 

One key limiting factor here is internet connection. Many areas can't use this tech because of poor internet, however, and lets keep in mind companies like SpaceX are actively working towards creating a global and fast internet (and knowing SpaceX's turnaround time, we'll see it operational in a handful of years). Soon everyone will have access to the internet and fast internet one way or another, or at least the vast majority. Maybe not in 5 years, maybe not even 10, but 20-30, definitely.

 

If today, I can already enjoy an amazing experience, the tech will be abundant in 15 years. When you power your home, you aren't running a generator to power it yourself. Instead. you pay a low fee to some guy who owns a massive industrial power plant who is doing it with scale of economies in mind. This is better for everyone and gets everyone cheap accessible electricity. In the future, computing will be the same. There will be big data centers loaded with CPUs, and GPUs, which were acquired in massive quantities and for a low wholesale price. In the case of NVIDIA NOW, NVIDIA literally designs and manufactures the GPUs themselves, their costs to set it up are as low as it really can be.

 

Why would you have a fast phone or computer when you could have a remote server do all the work for you, at low cost, and in the future, with no perceivable difference in use for the end user. Why would you buy a $800 GPU every year to get cutting edge performance when you could pay a low monthly fee instead and get the same experience on any device? Think about phones, with proper internet infrastructure, all it needs to do is store local files, and being able to handle a CPU load require to run the internet connection to run this, and you could then get a full gaming PC's performance in the palm of you hand, using the internet.

 

Even in 10 years, a budget CPU could easily handle the workload required to render everything off-site (constantly downloading at 50mbps is actually CPU intensive). I simply don't see how in 20-30 years time everyone will still be building crazy gaming PCs. Don't get me wrong though, there will be a place for the high-end hardware for a while, enthusiasts always stay, companies will want to keep data private, and people who can't get good internet will have to resort to on-site rendering. However, in the long term vision of tech, it makes no sense for it not to move in this direction.

 

Thoughts?

[Mira Yurizaki]

7 minutes ago, suchamoneypit said:

Why would you have a fast phone or computer when you could have a remote server do all the work for you, at low cost, and in the future, with no perceivable difference in use for the end user.

Because at the end of the day, there's no cloud, just someone else's computer.

[Guest]

Its certainly better than spending $1000 just for a 1070 at this rate.

[Guest The Viking]

Because "privacy". The consumer is becoming more and more paranoic about multiple people using his data without his consent. When you look at something as stupid as the NPU on the Kirin 970, the whole idea is that you don't depend on the cloud and get privacy ON the phone, by not letting some random google service treat and organize your pictures.

 

Kirin 970 video

 

You can also see this with the recent trend of users moving back to Windows 7 for more stability and privacy, or recent court rulings against Facebook and such.

 

Don't misunderstand me, I see the potential in the cloud and use some of the services without needing to install anything on my PC, but I don't see myself storing all my personnal files and depending entirely on it, especially knowing that, sometimes, the connection goes down. Eventually for gamers it just means we'll have an ok-ish rig while paying for a service such as nvidia now to play our games at max.

 

In France there's also a company testing this, called Shadow (https://shadow.tech/usen/), which basically offers what you are talking about:a server handles everything on one side and you get the rest. And by everything, the idea is EVERYTHING. It's basically a remotely controlled PC.

 

But I'll just go back on my first point and say "Privacy". I don't see the average user giving up his phone or PC due to fears of being constantly watched.

 

Besides, will old games be available?  

 

edit: about shadow.... be carrefull, lots of unhappy people as it seems to have issues running games such as rainbow six siege for using a vpn or something...

[dizmo]

I don't see it happening, mostly because there are a lot of companies that would stand to lose a lot of money, and when that's possibility, such things are stifled; whether or not they're better for everyone.

[Damascus]

I'll probably be building my own pcs for privacy and personal storage, if nothing else.

[Zodiark1593]

Central Home Servers would be a more viable future than yet another OnLive 

[Enderman]

People still use local storage instead of cloud storage.

Sometimes it just feels better to have control of everything yourself and offline if necessary.

Also the lowest possible transfer latency would still be limited by optical and the speed of light, so even if you have the best internet connection possible it will always be lower latency to run programs on your own computer.

 

I'm sure most people will be fine with cloud computing or gaming but there will always be some enthusiasts that prefer having their own hardware.

Performance will get cheaper over time too, just like cell phones now are more powerful than million dollar supercomputers from not long ago.

[Cookybiscuit]

In other words, the botnet is about to get a whole lot bigger.

[Syntaxvgm]

1 hour ago, The Viking said:

Because "privacy". The consumer is becoming more and more paranoic about multiple people using his data without his consent.

nope too late. We're past that. Nothing we can do

[Donut417]

15 minutes ago, Enderman said:

People still use local storage instead of cloud storage.

Sometimes it just feels better to have control of everything yourself and offline if necessary.

Also the lowest possible transfer latency would still be limited by optical and the speed of light, so even if you have the best internet connection possible it will always be lower latency to run programs on your own computer.

 

I'm sure most people will be fine with cloud computing or gaming but there will always be some enthusiasts that prefer having their own hardware.

Performance will get cheaper over time too, just like cell phones now are more powerful than million dollar supercomputers from not long ago.

I agree. Im one of those who would like his own hardware. What Id like to see is a machine that could be used by every one in the house. Sorta like a home cloud/server solution. Where you just connect to it via a thin client or something to that degree. Where you basically have one powerful machine that you can upgrade based on work load and the amount of users that will be using it. So this way every thing is centralized but you also have total control. 

[Drak3]

And we spent so long moving away from that.

[suchamoneypit]

2 hours ago, dizmo said:

I don't see it happening, mostly because there are a lot of companies that would stand to lose a lot of money, and when that's possibility, such things are stifled; whether or not they're better for everyone.

Oil companies are losing and will lose a ton of money from renewable energy becoming commonplace.

 

Does that stop renewable energy from becoming the majority energy supplier?

[Vacras]

I think our infrastructure is far away from supporting this off site approach.

just imagine the increase of bandwidth needed to sustain all these devices (PCs, phones, tablets, TVs, etc.) with high resolution (4K+) streams. 

Especially considering that here in Germany I still pay 10€/month to get 1.5Gb data on my mobile phone I’m not seeing this as happening. At least in the next 20 years 

[Guest The Viking]

7 hours ago, Vacras said:

Especially considering that here in Germany I still pay 10€/month to get 1.5Gb data on my mobile phone I’m not seeing this as happening. At least in the next 20 years 

keep complaining, I pay 15e/month for 1.5gb of data here in belgium  

 

in spain you can get 1gb for 5e/month, unlimited (20gb at 4g then after you keep going at slower speed for free) for 25e/month. Here in belgium now orange offers for 40e/month 20gb at 4g, nearly the double from spain  

[porina]

7 hours ago, Vacras said:

I think our infrastructure is far away from supporting this off site approach.

This. For cloud to replace more and more stuff relies on fast, affordable and reliable connectivity. Typically we can pick two at best.

[Donut417]

7 hours ago, Vacras said:

I think our infrastructure is far away from supporting this off site approach

Which is why I think Local clouds (as in your house) would be a better choice. I could never use an off site approach as I have data caps. I think having a centralized machine in some ones house is more practical. As you can upgrade it as you need. By local cloud I mean a beefy machine that can allow multiple users access. Maybe using like a thin client or something. So instead of every one having a physical powerful computer, there would just be one some where in your home. 

[Guest The Viking]

3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Which is why I think Local clouds (as in your house) would be a better choice. I could never use an off site approach as I have data caps. I think having a centralized machine in some ones house is more practical. As you can upgrade it as you need. By local cloud I mean a beefy machine that can allow multiple users access. Maybe using like a thin client or something. So instead of every one having a physical powerful computer, there would just be one some where in your home. 

would be more interesting in buildings...

 

and actually...........

 

A french startup is doing something along those lines. They are using Threadripper's to sell computing power and offer you... home heating!

 

https://www.developpez.com/actu/160421/Une-startup-francaise-envisage-d-utiliser-des-machines-equipees-de-CPU-AMD-Ryzen-Pro-comme-systeme-de-chauffage-a-usage-professionnel-ou-domestique/

 

So maybe this is something we could see? Doesn't seem too crazy.

[Zodiark1593]

9 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Which is why I think Local clouds (as in your house) would be a better choice. I could never use an off site approach as I have data caps. I think having a centralized machine in some ones house is more practical. As you can upgrade it as you need. By local cloud I mean a beefy machine that can allow multiple users access. Maybe using like a thin client or something. So instead of every one having a physical powerful computer, there would just be one some where in your home. 

That is what I envision. Much like central heating and air, you have a rack server somewhere in the house that is wired to display outputs (Thunderbolt?) throughout the home. As an added benefit, if a consumer wants cable or satellite tv installed, wiring goes to the central server to serve the house instead of having to punch new holes in the walls.

 

I don't see such systems being very practical for most users however until we're at the point where progress grinds to a near-halt, with the only other option of performance increases being to expand power budget. Granted, racks could be changed out, upgraded and added as time passes, though it would be an expensive proposition for most non-DIY users in addition to the power consumption.

[Donut417]

2 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

That is what I envision. Much like central heating and air, you have a rack server somewhere in the house that is wired to display outputs (Thunderbolt?) throughout the home. As an added benefit, if a consumer wants cable or satellite tv installed, wiring goes to the central server to serve the house instead of having to punch new holes in the walls.

 

I don't see such systems being very practical for most users however until we're at the point where progress grinds to a near-halt, with the only other option of performance increases being to expand power budget. Granted, racks could be changed out, upgraded and added as time passes, though it would be an expensive proposition for most non-DIY users in addition to the power consumption.

I remember Razer had a Project called Christine I believe. For a modular computer. While the tech is not there yet, Im referring to something more in to the future. Maybe some kind of modular approach could be used. But I do agree, people not in to DIY computer builds would be left in the dust. 

[Vacras]

2 hours ago, The Viking said:

keep complaining, I pay 15e/month for 1.5gb of data here in belgium  

 

in spain you can get 1gb for 5e/month, unlimited (20gb at 4g then after you keep going at slower speed for free) for 25e/month. Here in belgium now orange offers for 40e/month 20gb at 4g, nearly the double from spain  

well technically the mobile contracts here in Germany are unlimited as well, but you’ll be surfing with 25 kbit/s after you’ve reached your data limit basically returning you to stone age duh ...

[Guest The Viking]

22 minutes ago, Vacras said:

well technically the mobile contracts here in Germany are unlimited as well, but you’ll be surfing with 25 kbit/s after you’ve reached your data limit basically returning you to stone age duh ...

mmm the unlimited one is down to 500kbit/s, the others aren't unlimited. once I used my 1.5gb, I have to pay if i want to keep surfing.

[Vacras]

1 minute ago, The Viking said:

mmm the unlimited one is down to 500kbit/s, the others aren't unlimited. once I used my 1.5gb, I have to pay if i want to keep surfing.

Wow never thought it could get much worse than here. It’s enough to text, but anything apart from that is not doable.

[Guest The Viking]

3 minutes ago, Vacras said:

Wow never thought it could get much worse than here. It’s enough to text, but anything apart from that is not doable.

With Orange, here in Belgium, the lowest is:

 

15e/month: unlimited SMS (who cares?), 2.5 hours of calls and 1.5gb at 4G. Once you've used those, you have to pay. No slowing surf or anything.

 

There's a few companies with different offers, such as one offering 4gb at 4G for 15e/month, but no calls or SMS, and another having something along those lines but I don't think any of them have network here in Brussels, or at least in my neighbourhood. 

 

Besides, there's a loyalty program with Orange, since I've been with 2 years with them they gave me a 20% discount for 6 months, so I only pay 12/month for now. They also give you a cinema ticket every 3 months or so (you need to buy one and get the second one free, so it's ok-ish for couples and such but still forces you to BUY something).

 

It used to be only 1gb/month and about a year ago they increased it by 500mb if you gave up unlimited (well, 4gb max) Facebook/Twitter. So I hope they soon increase it to 2 or 3gb/month, otherwise I may test the other operator and see if they have network around.

[Arika]

This post reads like a sales pitch or an ad...

 

 

you have to remember that not everyone has the internet speeds like you guys do in the US. I'm stuck with 7mbps down and like 0.5mbps up on a good day and likely wont see any improvement in many years.