Patent ID: 9675890
Date: 2017-06-13
CPC Classifications: A63F,G06F,H04L

Claim:
1. A method for providing a remote gaming service, comprising the actions of: a) downloading over a network to a game station, without explicit user designation, at least an initially immediately playable portion of at least one game, said game being chosen at least partially in dependence on at least some of: usage information of said game station, usage heuristics of said game station, current and prior amounts of storage used of said game station, and available bandwidth; when a user selects a particular game from said downloaded games, b) beginning execution of said game virtualized at said game station using the initially immediately playable portion of said game; using a file system hook to augment a client file system of said game station with a file system overlay used to control access of an operating system of said game station to the client file system through the file system hook; intercepting a file system call for at least one of additional components used in continued execution of said game virtualized at said game station from said operating system using said file system hook; determining if the at least one of said additional components resides in local storage at said game station; if it is determined the at least one of said additional components is absent from said local storage, c) streaming over a network to said game station the at least one of said additional components, said streaming beginning contemporaneously with and continuing at least partially concurrently with said executing, and providing the at least one of said additional components to said operating system through said file system overlay by said file system hook for use in continued execution of said game virtualized at said game station.