An object-based framework for cloud gaming using player´s visual attention

Cloud gaming (CG) has grown to become a serious industry in recent years. In CG the game logic is executed on the cloud and the rendered game frames are streamed to the player´s device. However, the relative high bandwidth requirement of CG is still one of its main challenges. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive object-based framework using the player´s visual attention which significantly reduces the required bandwidth in comparison to conventional methods, especially in mobile devices that have limited resources. In the proposed framework, each object is encoded independently, providing complete control over its quality. Using attention also helps reduce bitrate while maintaining QoE. The objects are streamed using MPEG 4´s BiFS which also gives more control over the objects that are already at the client side. Our experiments show that by using object-based coding together with player attention, at the same bitrate (including overheads such as the overhead of BiFS), the ultimate rendered frames will have considerable higher quality. In this approach, the objects in the line of sight of the player are at their best quality, therefore providing a better quality of experience with minimum bitrate.