is it possible to play a game remotely located on a server using the...

[barbiegirl]

...servers computing resources? online games usually load on to the players ram and use the players processor and may only transmit(once fully running)only few bits of imformation , such as player score\move. but is it possible for the game to run on a entirely different computer(server) and users just get the video feed using the internet and commands from keyboard and mouse are fed back to the server. If so what would be the minimum internet speed required to run such a service

[Drofsned]

Yes, it's possible...But you wouldn't want to.The game would have awfully basic graphics or be so terribly slow that nobody would want to play it. The minimum speed would depend on how many players the game has, what type of data has to be uploaded/downloaded, what type of compression is used, what type of delay is acceptable, etc.The bottom line is that it makes way more since logically and economically to distribute the processing to the client.

[gobentech]

My basic problem with this is two-fold. 1. The server could not handle the processing for too many users unless it's a very very basic game. But whatever the server did, there would always be a lag between what's happening in the game, and what's actually showing up on your screen. The fact that the server would have to send, essentially, streaming video of what it's rendering would jack up the processing power in itself. So bottom-line, with today's technology it is not possible unless an extremely large amount of money is put into a system.