Cost-Efficient and Quality-of-Experience-Aware Player Request Scheduling and Rendering Server Allocation for Edge-Computing-Assisted Multiplayer Cloud Gaming

Prompted by the remarkable progress in both cloud computing and GPU virtualization, cloud gaming has been attracting more and more attention in the gaming industry. With the cloud gaming model, players do not need to download or install the game on local devices, and constantly upgrade their devices. Despite these advantages, cloud gaming faces several challenges for its success, including long response delay, poor game fairness, and high operational cost. To this end, this article proposes an edge computing-assisted multiplayer cloud gaming system named ECACG to improve multiplayer cloud gaming experiences and operating costs by offloading the game rendering task to the nearby edge server. Based on the ECACG, two decision processes are completed. One is player request scheduling and the other is rendering server allocation. The decision problem is formulated into a constrained multiobjective optimization model. A novel hybrid algorithm based on deep reinforcement learning and heuristic strategy is developed to solve the optimization problem. The effectiveness of the proposed ECACG is evaluated by simulation experiments based on the real-world parameters. The simulation results show that compared with the existing schemes, the proposed ECACG can achieve lower rental costs and better fairness, while providing the good-enough response delay for players.

I. Introduction

Prompted by the noteworthy progress in cloud computing, recent years have witnessed the explosive growth of cloud gaming services. According to the latest research report [1] published by the consultancy Newzoo in 2020, the global cloud gaming market accounts for U.S. 585 million in 2020 and is expected to reach U.S. 4.80 billion by 2023. This arresting profit has attracted many companies to develop their own cloud gaming platforms, e.g., Google Stadia [2], Microsoft XCloud [3], and Nvidia GeForce Now [4]. In cloud gaming, games are deployed on cloud servers, and gamers can access it via thin clients with Internet connections. With the cloud gaming platform, gamers can easily play 3-D video games on any device, such as desktop PCs, tablets, and smartphones, whenever and wherever possible.