Method and apparatus for seamless migration of players across game engines

Abstract

Methods and apparatus are provided for migrating a player from a first game engine instance to a second game engine instance in a cloud gaming environment. The method includes streaming audio-video streams from each of the first and second game engine instances during a migration window and mixing the two streams into a single output stream at the cloud or remote client. The mixing of the two streams employs a weighted average approach with the weights varying over time to favor the source engine instance at the beginning of the migration window and the target engine at the end of the migration window. Techniques such as blurring can be employed to reduce artifacts in the output stream.