Previously, the service only worked over a wired network connection, but OnLive has just launched a public Wi-Fi beta that lets you play games wirelessly. Well, some of the time, anyway.
Wireless networks are not nearly as stable or speedy as wired networks, so a lot more can go wrong. OnLive has tried to take this into account by tweaking and optimizing its technology with those limitations in mind, and when we tried the beta we were very impressed with what the team has accomplished.
That said, it's not perfect. There's more control lag over Wi-Fi — most gamers won't notice but first-person-shooter freaks will definitely cringe. We also had to stay very close to our wireless router to keep playing. Even moving into an adjacent room caused us to receive a message that said, "Your Internet connection has dropped to minimum quality" and force-pause our game.
OnLive is aware of these challenges, and that's why the team that designed and tested the Wi-Fi tech have implemented a feature that pauses your game for up to five minutes when you've lost connection. In most cases, five minutes will be long enough for you to relocate or otherwise address the problem.
As we said previously, we're impressed with the tech, and we expect it to improve with time. It is just a beta test, after all. The beta is available as an opt-in to all OnLive users who have connections 3 Mbps or faster, so give it a shot if you have a Mac or a PC.
Not familiar with OnLive? Check out our video demonstrating the service at E3 2010 below.
OnLive E3 Video