OnLive announces wi-fi support

Ambitious cloud-computing based video games service OnLive will roll out an official wi-fi beta version of its service in September.

The company has also lowered the minimum system requirement for OnLive. Users now need a 3Mbps internet connection, dual-core CPU and, for Macs, OS 10.5.8 or higher. Coupled with the new wi-fi specs and users of netbooks and some laptops can now sample the service.

We know that a number of OnLive members have been using Wi-Fi ‘unofficially’ since we launched, and many have reported good results,” CEO and founder Steve Perlman said on the OnLive blog.

But what will be different with this ‘official’ wi-fi release is new technology optimised for various real-world wi-fi scenarios including handling interference, congestion and drop out issues.

Why a beta version? Because even though we’ve thoroughly tested wi-fi in a wide range of real-world scenarios, there still exist a large number of possible scenarios which require further tuning of the technology to address optimally.”