Microsoft is trying to mitigate the input lag experienced during cloud gaming with new software technology they’re calling DeLorean.
In case you weren’t alive in the 1980s, this is a reference to Back to the Future, in which a DeLorean is converted into a time machine. See, Microsoft is boasting about the time-travel-esque elements of the tech.
For the lovers of technical language, Microsoft called it “a speculative execution system for mobile cloud gaming that is able to mask up to 250ms of network latency.” For those who prefer to talk like normal human beings, the system attempts to predict your behavior and prepare your game to perform an action before you actually push the button.
A lot of people are criticizing this as a system that would hypothetically let you put down your controller and let your games play themselves. However, those people have very little reading comprehension skills.
What the tech actually does is send multiple versions of your possible actions to your console, so that when you hit the button, the action is already loaded, thus there will be less lag.
However, the problem with this is that instead of sending a single signal to your console, DeLorean must send several variations of it, which actually increases the amount of processing power and bandwidth required to handle the action. To me, this sounds like a workaround that requires exponentially more system resources than it would ever save.
In other words, it’s an overly complex way to solve a simple problem, much like a Rube Goldberg machine. And, while Rube Goldberg machines are great for comic panels and OK Go videos, they’re a bit unnecessary in actuality.
