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Investor Money Goes To Magic Lag Reducing Tech

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i-would-like-that-for-conversing-with-relatives-too dept.

Gamasutra reports on Texas technology company Bigfoot networks, which just received a $4 Million investment to develop a lag-reducing hardware PC card. From the piece: "According to the firm, it will bring to market the world's first Gaming Network Accelerator card, which will allow online gamers to play their favorite games with less lag. The company explained: 'Lag is the number one problem in online video games today, and Bigfoot Networks is the only company in the world whose sole mission is to fight lag', but gave no specific technical explanation about how it intends to do this." Greg Costikyan spells it out on the Games*Design*Art*Culture blog: "So yes, there might be a business here. But if so, it will be a business built largely on bullshit."

2 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Sure, why not by smooth+wombat · · Score: 4, Insightful
    After all, there's a sucker born every minute.*

    This isn't any different than the phantom console, magnets which supposedly help your arthritis or whatever book that Kevin Trudeau is bilking people into buying claiming this is information that the government doesn't want you to know about.

    This shouldn't surprise anyone. Not the least of which that there are VC idiots who will gladly pony up the money for a non-existant, never-to-be-made product simply because it has oodles of neat sounding words in its description.

    *PT Barnum never actually said those words but people routinely attribute the phrase to him.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  2. The "gold cables" of gaming? by Philus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I guess it was just a matter of time before something like this appeared.. The hi-fi industry has cables and magic boxes all over the place, now we get magic hardware.. I'm VERY curious to how they plan to eliminate lag introduced by routers that they have no control over. Not to completely blow them off, but I'm not holding my breath. Seeing is believing.

    I have a semi-decent 5.1 surround setup, and have avoided expensive cables because I simply don't believe in it. Audio cables might benefit from better shielding and low capacitance wiring, but digital signals.. come on man. A bit across the wire that's "worn in the edges" is still a bit, unlike a sound wave.