One or more hardware components identify a bottleneck stage within a processor pipeline that processes frames of a video stream. The bottleneck stage has a first clock. An upstream stage receives a feedback signal from the bottleneck stage. The upstream stage has a second clock and the feedback signal includes information as to time required by the bottleneck stage to operate on data and information as to time the data spent queued. The upstream stage adjusts the speed at which the upstream stage operates and queues data to approximate the speed at which the bottleneck stage is operating and queuing data.

A method and apparatus for controlling game applications are provided. In the method, when an operating system receives a game starting command, the operating system determines a manner to start a corresponding game application according to whether the game application has resided in a memory, and when a cold boot manner is used, the operating system triggers the game application to report an amount of memory required currently by the game application, and determines whether a requirement of running the game application is met according to the amount of memory required and an amount of memory currently used, or the operating system ensures to meet the requirement of running the game application through background application freezing and clearing. When the game application finishes running, the operating system uses a pre-trained machine learning model to predict running hotness of the game application on the terminal device according to a current operating parameter of the game application, sorts game applications on the terminal device according to the running hotness, and performs a corresponding residing process when determining that the game application needs to reside in the memory according to a sorting result. The method can efficiently shorten the time cost to start the game application.

Methods and systems are provided for processing operations of a game to be played via a mobile device is provided. The method includes establishing a connection with the mobile device to play the game. The method includes receiving controller input from the mobile device; the controller input being from the mobile device to perform an action in the game. The method includes determining a correction value required to perform the action. The method includes applying the correction value to the controller input to increase an accuracy of the controller input when performing the action. In this way, when correction values are applied to the controller input from the mobile device of a user playing a game, the accuracy of the control input is increased so that the user can achieve the intended action in the game.

The disclosed computer-implemented method may include identifying a video game configured to be available to stream from a server within a cloud gaming environment; pre-loading an instance of the video game on the server before receiving a request by a user to stream the video game to a client system; receiving the request by the user to stream the video game; and allocating the pre-loaded instance of the video game to the user for streaming to the client system in response to receiving the request by the user to stream the video game, thereby reducing a latency between the user submitting the request and the video game being ready for the user to stream. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.

Aspects of the present disclosure involve a system comprising a computer-readable storage medium storing at least one program and a method for providing an in-game status bar. A gaming application is launched from a messaging application. A state in the messaging application from which the gaming application was launched is determined. A communication interface that is associated with the messaging application is generated for display, concurrently with a display of the gaming application. Functionality of the communication interface is modified based on the state in the messaging application from which the gaming application was launched.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium configured to operate a game program. The program may cause an information processing device to execute a step of storing information relating to a game part, a step of displaying a screen including a first interface capable of detecting a first user operation, a determination step of (if the first user operation is detected) determining a mode of the game part to be one of a first mode or a second mode, a change step of changing a part of the screen according to the mode of the game part determined in the determination step, and an execution step of executing the game part in the mode determined in the determination step.

A method, a computer program product, and a computer system match players in a turn based game based on player activity. The method includes determining first characteristics of a first player activity of a first player. The characteristics are indicative of first active times that the first player historically took turns while playing the turn based game. The method includes identifying a second player having second characteristics of a second player activity. The second characteristics are indicative of second active times that the second player historically took turns while playing the turn based game. The second active times are compatible with the first active times. The method includes generating an indication for a game server hosting the turn based game to match the second player with the first player.

An apparatus and method are described for retaining system state of an online application such as a video game. For example, a method according to one embodiment comprises: executing a application on a server in response to user input from a client; transmitting video generated by the application over a network connection from the server to the client; detecting that the network connection has become unusable or impaired; responsively pausing the execution of the application from a current point of execution; and resuming the execution of the application from the current point of execution upon detecting that the network connection has become usable or unimpaired.

User log-in to a user account of an online game may be incentivized by providing awards to the users for logging in. Reengagement time periods for individual ones of the user accounts may be determined. The reengagement time periods may be determined to expire at times when a user may be logged out and/or may be expected to be logged out. By way of non-limiting example, the reengagement time periods may expire during wait periods for ongoing in-game tasks. The awards may be provided based on the expiration of the reengagement time periods and the user accounts conveying satisfaction of award redemption criteria.

Methods and systems for processing instructions by an online video game hosting system are provided. One example method includes receiving a control signal for a video game. The control signal is received by a server of the online video game hosting system, and the control signal is transmitted from a client device to the server over a network. Then, executing the online video game by the server while receiving the control signal. The executing causes generation of a sequence of video frames and encoding the sequence of video frames to generate a first compressed sequence of video frames and generate a second compressed sequence of video frames. Transmitting the first compressed sequence of video frames to the client device over the network for decoding by the client device to produce a first decoded sequence of video frames for displaying on a display of the client device. Receiving feedback information from the client device, the feedback information used to determine whether one or more of the first compressed sequence of video frames has been successfully decoded at the client device and modifying the encoding of the sequence of video frames in response to the feedback information. The second compressed sequence of video frames are directed to a storage associated with the server and wherein the quality of the second compressed sequence of video frames is higher than a quality of the first compressed sequence of video frames.