Update: Feburary 2001
PlanetFortress: What has happened to PowerPlay, is that on the back buner still?
Doug: The spec for PowerPlay v 1.0 has been finalized, and we encourage any
ISP interested in deploying it to contact myself of Mathew Lodge at Cisco.
It's been a bit of a struggle identifying the first ISP, someone with the
right set up and reach and so on. And it's taken longer than we originally
envisioned to launch.
But we're getting close with another ISP, and hope to announce the PowerPlay
1.0 launch very soon.
Don't know what the hell "PowerPlay is?" The rest of this article is our original information on PowerPlay,
plus our interview with Gabe Newell holding his comments on PowerPlay, I hope it serves you well.
Also, the official site is: http://www.powerplayinfo.com
Original Article: 2000
What would you say if I told you that there appears to be some hope for us modem users after all? I don't know about all the modem users, but speaking for myself, and probably the majority of us, it is difficult, to say the least, competing against those who connect to online game servers using Cable, DSL, T1's, or any other sort of high speed connection that makes a modem look as up to date as a tin can and a string. Soon, that will no longer be the case.
Rather than just copy and paste the info as given to us by Valve, you will find quotes from it in our favorite color, TF (PlanetFortress) orange! Like this! So to recap, anything in orange is from the horses mouth, and all the rest is just me taking up your valuable time. A captive audience, finally! Also in here will be some questions we were able to ask Gabe Newell, Managing Director at Valve about PowerPlay.
What is PowerPlay?
PowerPlay is a set of standards and protocols for improving games and entertainment on the Internet.
"... with games like Valve's Half-Life generating over 120,000,000 player minutes a month on the Internet, it is clear that for a large group of consumers, the Internet is becoming an increasingly important source of leisure time activities." That might be an understatement! Everyone I know lives for their leisure time. I know I spend a lot more time on the computer than watching TV. That is probably true for many of us. "Internet-based entertainment" is growing "(around 100% per year)."
Who is involved in PowerPlay?
Initially PowerPlay has been defined by Cisco, the leading supplier of Internet infrastructure, a leading US ISP, and Valve, creators of Half-Life. Over time, PowerPlay will become an open industry standard.
With the ever increasing complexity of online games, and all sorts of other internet entertainment, the need to advance the internet to a new level becomes increasingly necessary. "Recognizing the need for a coordinated effort to address the issues of consumer entertainment on the Internet, representatives of Cisco, the predominant Internet infrastructure company, an as yet unnamed leading Internet service provider focusing on quality of service issues, and Valve, makers of Half-Life, PC Gamer's 1998 Game of the Year, met to discuss ways to move the Internet forward." A formidable group to deal with a formidable problem!
Why did these companies get together?
When the Internet was originally conceived, it wasn't designed to deliver high quality consumer entertainment. As a result, developers have focused on mitigating the worst rather than optimizing for the best. In order to bring about the necessary changes in the Internet to allow for great consumer experiences, it became clear to the three companies that a coordinated solution between content developers, service providers, and infrastructure manufacturers was necessary.
How does it work?
The initial focus of PowerPlay is on Quality of Service (QOS). There are a wide variety of protocol and deployment issues related to improving QOS. Valve brought experience and technology related to client applications design, our ISP partner addressed deployment issues, and Cisco addressed router and access concentrator issues.
What's the result?
Users who have a PowerPlay enabled system will have a dramatically better entertainment experience. Problems with lag, packet loss, jerky play and so on will dramatically be reduced. Basically PowerPlay brings the quality of LAN play to the Internet.
They came up with PowerPlay, "...a set of protocols and deployment standards for Internet consumer entertainment." The first stage is to be tested in the first Quarter of 2000. "PowerPlay will be the basis for a vastly improved quality of service for consumer entertainment on the Internet." With the support of Cisco, the unnamed ISP will make availible a PowerPlay enhanced service for users to connect to. The first months service will be free, and will include a PowerPlay enhanced version of Team Fortress Classic.
How will PowerPlay be rolled out?
The first stage will be a proof of concept deployment to demonstrate the benefits of a coordinated effort to improve Internet entertainment. Our ISP partner will launch a PowerPlay dial-up service for the US in Q1 2000. In order to give the greatest number of people the opportunity to try out PowerPlay for themselves, there will be a free 30 day trial available to anyone with no obligation. Valve will also release a special stand-alone version of Team Fortress Classic that has been modified to support PowerPlay. This will also be free.
The next steps will be to extend the PowerPlay technology and open PowerPlay to a wider number of participating companies. This will result in PowerPlay 2.0, the first set of public specifications for high quality gameplay over the Internet. A number of software developers have already committed to participate in the PowerPlay 2.0 effort, including Bioware, Outrage, and Epic Games. Some of the issues that will be addressed in PowerPlay 2.0 are the integration of voice and multicast IP, the definition of a PowerPlay modem standard, an adoption of a bandwidth reservation protocol, and further deployment qualifications similar in nature to the THX standards used to qualify movie quality.
PowerPlay will initially be deployed in the US as dial-up service for PCs. It is expected that there will be announcements of PowerPlay delivery for markets outside of the US, for higher-speed connections (DSL and cable modems), and for non-PC clients.
While this is being announced to us by Valve, you can see it has wide reaching implications to all internet based entertainment..."Once this wide-scale demonstration is in place, development activities will commence on a PowerPlay 2.0 specification that will be extend PowerPlay in two important ways. First, PowerPlay 2.0 will address additional key issues such as the integration of high-quality voice, the use of multicast IP for further network optimization, new lower latency modem standards, and bandwidth reservation. Secondly, PowerPlay 2.0 will be an open industry standard that will involve the participation of a wide group of developers, service providers, and hardware manufacturers, resulting in dozens of important games and applications utilizing PowerPlay." Ok, so I am cutting and pasting a lot! I want to get this out to you asap!
Here are some of the developers who have signed on to participate in PowerPlay 2.0 standards...
Bioware, Developers of Baldur's Gate 1&2, Neverwinter Nights, and MDK2
Epic, Developer of Unreal and Unreal Tournament
Looking Glass, Developer of System Shock 1&2, Thief 1&2, and Flight Unlimited
Outrage, Developer of Descent 3
Red Storm Entertainment, Developer of Rainbow 6, and Rogue Spear
Relic, Developer of Homeworld
Ritual, Developers of Sin and F.A.K.K.2
Shiny, Developer of Messiah, and R/C Stun Copter
Valve, Developer of Half-Life and Team Fortress
Volition, Developer of Freespace 1&2
Ensemble Studios, Age of Empires
This is impressive. If all those developers have signed on, you have to believe they are on to something. In the not to distant future, you may be finding yourself spanking that former LPB's derriere! This will certainly help level the playing field when pitting modem users against those with high speed connections.
Is this just for games?
Games are probably the most demanding application, but other applications such as voice or streaming video will benefit from the issues addressed by PowerPlay. For example, bandwidth reservation, which will be addressed in PowerPlay 2.0, is applicable to a wide variety of Internet communications and entertainment applications.
Why is the Internet important for entertainment?
Probably the best argument is that leading creators of today's entertainment already realize the key role the Internet will play in the future.
"Steven Spielberg has forecast that the Internet will eventually become the primary source for entertainment. Appearing on NBC's Today show on Thursday, Spielberg told cohost Katie Couric: "I think that the Internet is going to effect the most profound change on the entertainment industries combined. And we're all gonna be tuning into the most popular Internet show in the world, which will be coming from some place in Des Moines." When Couric remarked, "Great, I'm gonna lose my job," Spielberg interjected, "We're all gonna lose our jobs. We're all gonna be on the Internet trying to find an audience." See www.imdb.com, December 3, 1999 News Section.
Following is the quick interview we were granted with Gabe Newell. We were under a bit of a time constraint, so we did the best we could with our questions.
8 > )
PF: Is this just another name for a gaming service, like MPlayer, on a
larger scale, or is it something fundamentally different?
Gabe: PowerPlay is about getting the game developers together with the Internet
infrastructure developers to work out how we can make the Internet better
for gaming, and then work with the service providers to deploy it.
Cisco is a $380 billion dollar market cap company that develops 80% of the
routers used on the Internet, and that plus the group of developers involved
allow PowerPlay to be a lot more interesting than what MPlayer set out to
do.
8 > )
PF: How will the PowerPlay protocol be implemented with regards to the
operating system?
Gabe: PowerPlay is basically an umbrella for working on the end-to-end quality
issues and functionality we need out of the Internet to make it a better
platform for gaming. Some of the developers involved are already looking at
some of the client-OS pieces such as the IP stack to see if there are things
like UDP header compression, better control of buffer flushing, application
control of dial-up concentrator settings, and so on that will help. If that
plays out, then there would be updated system components that would get
distributed similar to how DirectX gets distributed by app developers or
on-line.
8 > )
PF: You mention "new lower latency modem standards", does this refer to
some new standard that would be put into the actual hardware of future
modems, and if so, how will we see any benefits to game play during the
trial period if none of us have updated modems?
Gabe: There are a bunch of different pieces to the system - the game itself, the
IP stack, the modem driver, the modem itself, the line quality, the dial-up
concentrator, the router, the server ... all of which can yield improvements
in both performance and functionality. Ideally a gamer would have PowerPlay
components end to end, but they will still benefit as individual segments of
the system get fixed. For example someone who had Quake 2 would benefit
from PowerPlay even without a patch to update Quake 2. Of course they would
see greater benefits (and obviously wouldn't take advantage of any of the
functionality as opposed to performance benefits) if the application was
updated to include PowerPlay support.
8 > )
PF: Will normal users and PowerPlay users be able to play TFC (or other
games) on the same server?
Gabe: For our games, yes. We don't really speak for the other developers, and
they can certainly make their own decisions. However, with that caveat, it
probably doesn't make sense for most developers to segment their on-line
user base into people with PowerPlay and people without.
8 > )
PF: What do you estimate that an average ping will be for a 56k modem
user connected to the PowerPlay ISP service? (If the average ping of a
56k modem user is 250 on their favorite server, what would you expect it
to be on a PowerPlay server, all other things being equal?)
Gabe: Ping is just one of many issues that relate to the throughput. Part of the
reason we are creating a QOS benchmark is to make these other factors
visible to gamers. We all know someone who has spent the money to get a DSL
or cable modem that has a great ping, but still has disappointing game
performance because of other problems with how the network is provisioned.
Our goal with PowerPlay 1.0 is to make the play of a 56K modem user
comparable to what you would have on a LAN.
8 > )
PF: Will your ISP specifically have to support PowerPlay for you to use
it once PowerPlay is fully out and available?
Gabe: The ISP is probably the most important part of PowerPlay deployment.
8 > )
PF: You mention "integration of high-quality voice." Does this mean that
there will be a special PowerPlay sound codec or will it mean that voice
transfers will work better with the protocol?
Gabe: Hmm. There are both voice specific issues, and other parts of PowerPlay 2.0
that would in and of themselves help out voice traffic as well. They tend
to be somewhat interrelated. For example bandwidth reservation helps
eliminate packet loss due to congestion, which has a big impact on voice
separate from what else we do. UDP header compression frees up more
bandwidth for more voice channels. You get the idea.
8 > )
PF: What exactly is "bandwidth reservation"?
Gabe: Bandwidth reservation (in the sense that we are referring to it or as used
by protocols like RSVP) is a method of allowing applications to reserve
packet traffic between two points on the Internet. It's a way of creating a
pathway through the Internet that ensures that all of the routers are
expecting a certain level of data flowing for your game.
8 > )
PF: Since it is obvious that PowerPlay is quite a big effort, will it
involve a lot of hardware changes on Ciscos part to the internet
infrastructure?
Gabe: Yes. The ISP who is participating in the initial deployment will be
spending on the order of $10's of millions of dollars to do this.
8 > )
PF: Will the cost be close to or the same as a regular isp would be?
Would PowerPlay be an extra expense above and beyond standard ISP
charges, or would it be completely integrated into the ISPs?
Gabe: That's up to the ISP to decide. I assume that there will be ISPs who will
do both.
8 > )
PF: Will the PowerPlay protocol reduce the amount of bandwidth needed by
a gaming server, or will it actually increase the amount of bandwidth
the server will be able to handle?
Gabe: In the specific case of TFC and PowerPlay, there is a fairly dramatic
reduction in the amount of bandwidth needed to serve a given number of
players. This extra bandwidth could be used to increase the size of the
worlds, used for voice, or whatever.
We started talking to Cisco due to the work Yahn was doing on the TF 2
networking code, where we needed to figure out how we could get enough voice
channels for modem users. The lessons he was learning get applied in
PowerPlay 1.0 and get us a lot closer to where we will need to be for TF 2.
8 > )
PF: What is the release date of TF2? ....8 > ).... Can't blame us for
trying!
Gabe: Sure we can.
8 > )
PF: Is this the big break needed to allow for more than the upper limits
of 32 players now allowed on servers?
Gabe: It should certainly help. How each game developer decides to take advantage
of PowerPlay is up to them.
8 > )
PF: This must of course allow you to put more bang for the buck into
TF2. Did it add significantly to the development time, (of TF2) or might
it have actually reduced it?
Gabe: As I mentioned before, it was working on the TF 2 networking code that got
us talking to Cisco. They have helped us understand a lot of backbone and
service provision issues that would have taken us a while to figure out for
ourselves, but then we've also had to spend time doing things like getting
the other developers up to speed and doing press briefings.
We certainly hope it pays off in the long run.
8 > )
PF: You say PowerPlay is designed to "bring the quality of LAN play to
the Internet," what exactly is meant by that? Won't the same basic
inequalities of connection speed and distance from the server wreck any
hopes of LAN play quality for everyone involved?
Gabe: We've had people playing with a 1000 ping playing on a server with LAN
connected clients and it works, so I think that this should work pretty well
for people.
8 > )
Thus ends the interview. Once again, we would like to thank Gabe Newell, and Valve for the information, and all the advancements they are helping to bring about. Not only are they responsible for the 1998 game of the year, but could very well be partly responsible for revolutionizing the online gaming experience!
If you would like to sign up to participate in PowerPlay, there is a sign up page you can go to at http://www.powerplayinfo.com/. I'm not sure what this will entitle you to, as that was not made clear. I would imagine they will be sending out more info to those who sign up as it becomes necessary.
That's all we have at the moment. We shall keep you up to date on anything else we get on this. I am already dreaming about some extraordinary, competitive and robust game play as soon as we are all on more or less, equal footing. Soon we may be complaining about someone having a ping that is ten or twenty ms lower than our own. We should be so lucky!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
This is the current information we have on the new PowerPlay protocols and an interview with Gabe Newell. We want to thank Gabe for taking the time to answer a few questions the staff came up with, and for the opportunity to help distribute this information to our readers!
Current Schtick
