OnLive improves game-streaming performance with new optimization options

Cloud gaming is still kicking, and OnLive is trying to make its product more appealing to hardcore gamers by adding deeper settings management and functionality.

This week the company added a slew of options for players who want to better optimize their experience. OnLive now enables gamers to set their bandwidth manually. Players can set their connection up to 12 Mbps. A 12 Mbps transfer rate will reduce the noise that plagues the streaming-game service most of the time.

Of course, if you are on a slower connection, you can improve performance by setting the bandwidth to 3 Mbps or 4 Mbps. This will reduce the amount of information OnLive tries to send your connection in any one packet.

OnLive also added a variety of new window options. Most notable is a new low-latency mode that improves performance but sacrifices visual fidelity. Gamers can also play fullscreen or in a window with this new setting.

Other new settings include the capability for OnLive to optimize for Wi-Fi connections and less-powerful netbooks. That latter should reduce the how much the OnLive client taxes an underpowered system and its battery.

The gaming company is also adding a toggle for vertical sync. V-sync ensures that a game will display a whole frame across the entire display area all at once. Gamers can get more responsiveness by turning on the v-sync, but it will also cause screen tearing, which distracts many players.

Finally, OnLive customers can run a test to see what their system can support. It should give players a good idea of which options to turn on and off.