Methods for hosting online video games are provided. The method includes generating a plurality of video frames and initiating a sending of each one of the plurality of video frames to a client. Each of the video frames that is sent is compressed. Then, stopping the compression and sending of video frames when one of the plurality of video frames is taking longer than a frame time to compress and send. A frame time is defined as one over a frame rate, and wherein stopping the compression of video frames includes ignoring the video frames by an encoder. The method includes continuing to compress and send audio data to the client when one or more of the plurality of video frames are not sent to the client. The client is configured to display a received video frame for more than one frame time when a video frame is not received.