Dual-Mode Program Execution

• US 20120004039A1
• Filed: 09/13/2011
• Published: 01/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/15/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Perry, David, Gault, Andrew Buchanan, Pereira, Rui Filipe Andrade
• Granted Patent: US 8,926,435 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/42
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/335 using Internet
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/355 Performing operations on behalf of clients with restricted processing capabilities, e.g. servers transform changing game scene into an encoded video stream for transmitting to a mobile phone or a thin client
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/358 Adapting the game course according to the network or server load, e.g. for reducing latency due to different connection speeds between clients
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/49 Saving the game status; Pausing or ending the game
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/77 involving data related to game devices or game servers, e.g. configuration data, software version or amount of memory
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/402 Communication between platforms, i.e. physical link to protocol
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/534 for network load management, e.g. bandwidth optimization, latency reduction
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/538 for performing operations on behalf of the game client, e.g. rendering
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/552 for downloading to client devices, e.g. using OS version, hardware or software profile of the client device
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/554 by saving game or status data

Abstract

A computing system is configured to execute a computer program on a server and to provide a video stream of the program output to a geographically remote client over a communication network. The computing system is further configured to provide executable content of the computer program to the client over the communication network in parallel with the video stream. When a sufficient amount of the executable content has been provided to the client execution of the computer program is transitioned from the server to the client. The transition optionally includes communicating a state of the computer program from the server to the client. The executable content can be provided to the client in an order that is determined based on the state of the computer program. Those parts of the executable content deemed most likely to be necessary to support game play on the client are given priority.

Claims

1. A game server comprising:

an input configured to receive game commands from a plurality of geographically remote clients;

a game engine configured to maintain a global state of a video game based on the received game commands, and to provide different subsets of the global state of the video game to different members of the plurality of clients, each of the subsets being assigned to a particular member of the plurality of clients respectively;

transition logic configured to reassign one of the subsets of the global state from a first member of the plurality of clients to a second member of the plurality of clients;

state storage configured to store the global state; and

an output configured to provide the subsets of the global states to the plurality of clients over the internet.

2. The game server of claim 1, wherein each of the subsets is associated with a particular game session and reassigning one of the subsets includes reassigning a game session from the first member of the plurality of clients to the second member of the plurality of clients.

3. The game server of claim 1, wherein the transition logic is configured such that the reassigned subset is provided to both the first and second members of the plurality of clients in parallel for a period of time.

4. The game server of claim 1, wherein the transition logic is further configured to assign the same game session to both the first and second members of the plurality of clients.

5. The game server of claim 1, wherein the transition logic is further configured to assign game commands received from both the first and second members of the plurality of clients to the same game session.

6. The game server of claim 1, wherein the transition logic is further configured to receive a request from the first member of the plurality of clients to send the subset of the global state assigned to the first member of the plurality of clients to the second member of the plurality of clients.

7. The game server of claim 6, wherein the request includes an IP address of the second member of the plurality of clients.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising continuing to provide parts of the executable game code to the client after terminating the provision of the video stream from the video server to the client.

8. A method of providing a computer game, the method comprising:

executing game logic on a video server, execution of the game logic resulting in rendering of a video stream based on a game state;

providing the video stream from the video server to a client over a communication network; and

providing executable game content to the client in parallel with the video stream, the executable game content being configured to generate video based on the game state.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising providing a copy of a game state on which the video stream is based from the video server or a game server to the client.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising executing the executable game content on the client.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the executable game content is executed on the client when only a subset of the executable game content has been downloaded to the client.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising transitioning from presenting the video stream generated at the video server on the client to presenting the video generated by the executable game code on the client.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising providing a request to a game server to communicate the game state on which the video steam is based to the client rather than or in addition to providing the game state to the video server.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising providing an IP address of the client to the game server.

16. A system comprising:

means for executing game logic on a video server, execution of the game logic resulting in rendering of a video stream based on a game state;

means for providing the video stream from the video server to a client over a communication network; and

means for providing executable game content to the client in parallel with the video stream, the executable game content being configured to generate video based on the game state.