It doesn't defeat the purpose of streaming. You don't have to emulate everything in the game, just everything in your vicinity that can possibly affect what you see and hear.
That is how client-server games already work. The server has the full world state, and each client has a subset necessary to render the world for that player. Ideally the absolute minimum subset, so as to reduce the potential for cheating (wallhacks, etc.).
The purpose of streaming is to remove the need for the simulation and rendering at all. The client is a dumb terminal that just renders frames and records input.
The moment you start making the client smart again — making it aware of a subset of the world state, making it do its own rendering based on the input — you've just reinvented current client-server gaming.
The cost you are talking about is only for physics and logic in multiplayer games, it doesn't apply to single player games. And even then it is negligible compared to the biggest cost in gaming: rendering. Prediction requires rendering being done on the client, which requires a hefty video card and defeating the purpose of streaming.
EGreg|9 years ago
stupidcar|9 years ago
The purpose of streaming is to remove the need for the simulation and rendering at all. The client is a dumb terminal that just renders frames and records input.
The moment you start making the client smart again — making it aware of a subset of the world state, making it do its own rendering based on the input — you've just reinvented current client-server gaming.
felipesoc|9 years ago