Patent ID: 8560643

Claim:
A system for playing a game, comprising: a client device having an image display and being configured to receive user input control signals; a server device running a support software and a game; said client device being configured to communicate said user input control signals, to said support software; said support software being configured to provide control inputs to said game in at least partial dependence on said user input control signals, to generate images and thereby generate a compressed stream of frames, wherein the compressed stream of frames includes only data necessary to render images at the client so that images do not need to be fully produced at the server device; said client device being configured to receive, decompress and display said compressed stream of frames; wherein said client device is separate from said server; and wherein said client device does not have sufficient processing power to both run a client-device-only version of said game and display graphics corresponding to said version of said game at an acceptable frame rate.