E-Render: Enabling UHD-Quality Cloud Gaming Through Edge Rendering

Abstract

Cloud gaming services enable users to enjoy various high-quality computer games without installing them in their devices which may have poor resources. However, it consumes high bandwidth in backbone networks as game videos have to be constantly streamed to client devices, which can be a hindering factor for providing Ultra High Definition (UHD)-quality cloud gaming services whose demands are ever increasing. In this paper, we present a novel cloud gaming architecture, E-Render, in which the graphics engine is separated from the cloud game server and is deployed in the edge for rendering. To realize it, however, we need to effectively reduce the amount and latency of graphics commands transfer from the game engine in the cloud to the graphics engine in the edge server. E-render solves the problem by using novel techniques including multi-granular command deduplication and asynchronous buffer binding. We implement a prototype cloud gaming platform based on the E-Render architecture, and evaluate its performance using four real world games. The evaluation results confirm that E-Render can provide UHD-quality cloud gaming services.

Keywords

• Cloud gaming
• edge service
• graphics commands streaming
• command deduplication