A method and system for a platform wide party system that may be deployed in a multiplayer gaming environment. Players may associate themselves with one or more parties, wherein players within a party may choose to automatically exchange messages associated with changes in state of the players in a gaming environment. The party system exposes an API providing a plurality of function calls that may be integrated seamlessly with game play. A first player may indicate desired notification events to be received from a second player associated with the same party as the first player. Upon detection of a desired notification event on the video game console of the second player, an event notification may be communicated to a video game console of the first player causing an action to be performed on the first player's video game console. Actions may include event notifications via text and/or sound, which may be displayed to the first player while engaged in any game session and without requiring the first player to exit the current game session.

An automated video game testing framework and method includes communicatively coupling an application programming interface (API) to an agent in a video game, where the video game includes a plurality of in-game objects that are native to the video game. The agent is managed as an in-game object of the video game. A test script is executed to control the agent, via the API, to induce gameplay and interrogate a behavior of a test object. The test object is identified from the plurality of in-game objects based on a query that specifies an object attribute of the test object.

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. An add-on manager is provided to facilitate the use of add-ons to extend the functionality of the computer program. The add-on manager is responsive to commands received from the client and is configured to associate individual add-ons and add-on data with specific user accounts. The add-ons can be located on the server or some other location remote from the client.

A controller for function switching and dynamic identification switching and a dynamic identification method are disclosed. The controller includes a switch circuit, a master circuit and a switching circuit, wherein the switch circuit is electrically connected to the master circuit, and the switching circuit is electrically connected to the master circuit. The switching circuit includes a function realization component and a light controlled component, the function realization component is electrically connected to the master circuit for function realization, and the light controlled component is electrically connected to the master circuit for light conversion. When the function is switched, the corresponding dynamic identification is synchronously completed. It not only completes reliable function switching, but also timely and accurately identifies the dynamic change of functions, which is convenient for users.

Methods and apparatus provide for downloading application software from a server, including: downloading the application software from the server, where a first application software file contains only a portion of the application software, and a second application software file contains more than the portion of the application software; executing the application software and generating application images based thereon, where execution of the first application software file contains enough of the application software to execute a limited amount of the application software; and displaying the application images on a display screen based on the execution of the application software, where the acquisition unit begins downloading the second application software file in a background process after downloading the first application software file and at least partially during the execution of the first application software file.

Disclosed are methods, systems and computer program products for optimizing computer system resource utilization during in-game resource farming. In some non-limiting embodiments or aspects, the present disclosure describes a method for optimizing computer system resource utilization during in-game resource farming, the method including detecting a gameplay state associated with an executing instance of a gaming application and based on the detected gameplay state selecting a gaming application mode from among a plurality of available gaming application modes. In some non-limiting embodiments or aspects, the method may also include implementing the selected gaming application mode for subsequent execution of the gaming application on the computing system.

An information processing apparatus that executes a plurality of processes in parallel and transmits, to an operation device connected thereto, a control instruction indicating the content of a control process to be executed by the operation device, the information processing apparatus transmitting a control instruction according to a setting request received from a selected process which has been selected from among the plurality of processes according to a given condition and restricting the transmission of a control instruction according to a setting request received from a process other than the selected process.

An output processing unit 112 generates image data of a game being played by a user. A ring buffer 118 records the image data generated by the output processing unit 112. A file generation unit 124 generates a map file which is used to reproduce the image data recorded on the ring buffer 118 in the order in which the image data has been recorded on the ring buffer 118, and then records the map file on a file recording unit 126.

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. An add-on manager is provided to facilitate the use of add-ons to extend the functionality of the computer program. The add-on manager is responsive to commands received from the client and is configured to associate individual add-ons and add-on data with specific user accounts. The add-ons can be located on the server or some other location remote from the client.

A method for ahead of time (AoT) compiling during a play of a legacy game is provided. The method includes scanning a memory device for an executable code of the legacy game, decoding the executable code, and translating the executable code into a first source code. The method further includes compiling the first source code to output a first compiled code, determining whether a user input during the play of the legacy game is received, and determining whether a fiber for servicing the user input is created. The fiber provides directionality of execution between the first compiled code and a second compiled code. The method includes executing the fiber in response to determining that the fiber for servicing the user input is created. The fiber is executed to generate one or more image frames of the legacy game.