Abstract

Thin client gaming services (services that utilize a cloud gaming model) allow consumers with low-end computers to play modern high-end video games. To do this, thin client gaming services handle the bulk of the game in the cloud, receive input from the user, and stream the visuals of the game to the user's computer. The performance on thin client games is largely based on the quality of the user's Internet connection, in which a common bottle neck is the network latency. We performed a study to analyze the relationship between network latency, performance, and quality of experience (QoE) of thin client games. We created a thin client gaming setup and introduced artificial network latency between the server and client. Participants of our study performed worse and had a lower QoE as network latency increased, with a sharp decline in performance and QoE at an intermediate latency.

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