Abstract

Network bandwidth increases make the concept of cloud-based gaming services a promising alternative to traditional gaming platforms. Cloud-based gaming services do this by processing and rendering the game in a cloud server, receiving control input from the client and streaming the rendered game back to the client akin to video streaming. Network latency presents a challenge cloud-based gaming services must overcome to provide a comparable experience to traditional gaming. Measuring the effects of latency on key factors, such as quality of experience and player performance, can help understand the capabilities of the current generation of cloud-based gaming services. We conduct a cloud-based gaming service user study, surveying user's subjective quality of experience and measuring their in-game performance and conduct experiments that measure cloud-based gaming services' network characteristics. Analysis of results shows a significant decrease in both quality of experience and player performance as latency increases, but latency has little effect on the frame rate or average throughput of cloud-based gaming services.

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