Abstract

Cloud gaming streams games as video from a server to a client device making it susceptible to network congestion. Adaptive bitrate streaming estimates network capacity and sets encoding parameters to avoid exceeding the bandwidth of the connection. BBR is a congestion control algorithm as an alternative to current loss-based congestion control. We designed and implemented a bitrate adaptation heuristic based on BBR into GamingAnywhere, an open source cloud gaming platform. We conducted a user study and did objective analysis comparing our modified version to the original. Through our results, we found that our adaptive system was less challenging for players and improved retention rates and that there was no statistically significant difference in visual quality from objective testing.

Download

• Complete report: pdf