Bandwidth inquiry

[Cervani]

I'll be picking up ED tomorrow night, but I have an inquiry as I'm wondering if anyone has tested this or not.

I'm lucky enough to have a job where I am able to play video games without an issue. The only downside is I have to use a hotspot for it. I've never had an issue playing ANY of my current games on my hotspot (FFXIV, Mechwarrior, Archeage) due to speed, so I know that is fine for now. What I'm worried about however, is bandwidth.

As it stands, I have 5GB a month. FFXIV and Archeage take about 100mb of data for an eight hour night max, so I'm always safely under my data cap. I'm curious if anyone has tested a bandwidth monitor with ED? Will it have the same data stream as a current gen MMO or will it load data on a system by system basis like STO does?

If anyone has tried this out I would be greatly appreciative of any info.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Personally I wouldn't use a hotspot dongle wotsit.

Speed may be fine, but latency can be a problem - of course if you are on a sufficiently good (and nearby landed) carrier then it may not be an issue.

Data useage in ED can be quite extreme, I think you'll see significantly more than 100Mb a night in busy times, but everything depends on what everyone else is doing of course.

I'd post up some pics of my own bandwidth monitor - but I've been working here, it's late, and it would take too long to redact. It's several dozen megabytes for a couple of hours of play.

 

[-o-]

Once the retail version is released (hopefully this year sometime), a solo offline mode will be available where you will not need an internet connection to play (beyond I assume, installs/updates).

 

[Cervani]

Personally I wouldn't use a hotspot dongle wotsit.

Speed may be fine, but latency can be a problem - of course if you are on a sufficiently good (and nearby landed) carrier then it may not be an issue.

Data useage in ED can be quite extreme, I think you'll see significantly more than 100Mb a night in busy times, but everything depends on what everyone else is doing of course.

I'd post up some pics of my own bandwidth monitor - but I've been working here, it's late, and it would take too long to redact. It's several dozen megabytes for a couple of hours of play.

Thank you for the response .

Insofar as latency, I've never had a ping higher than 150 on my hotspot. Usual ping is around 110-120, so I'm either very close to a tower or my connection is clean as hell.

I can make a decision once you post your bandwidth monitor. If need be, I can boost my data amount up to 7GB instead of 5GB which should cover it easily. Mechwarrior also uses a a bit more data than my MMOs so it's not something I'm totally unfamiliar with.

Once the retail version is released (hopefully this year sometime), a solo offline mode will be available where you will not need an internet connection to play (beyond I assume, installs/updates).

While I would prefer to play online always, I can understand that the solo mode may be an option. Especially if what I remember hearing (what you earn solo transfers to online?) is true or not. I'd still prefer interactions with people tho.

 

[danjo]

I'll be picking up ED tomorrow night, but I have an inquiry as I'm wondering if anyone has tested this or not.

I'm lucky enough to have a job where I am able to play video games without an issue. The only downside is I have to use a hotspot for it. I've never had an issue playing ANY of my current games on my hotspot (FFXIV, Mechwarrior, Archeage) due to speed, so I know that is fine for now. What I'm worried about however, is bandwidth.

As it stands, I have 5GB a month. FFXIV and Archeage take about 100mb of data for an eight hour night max, so I'm always safely under my data cap. I'm curious if anyone has tested a bandwidth monitor with ED? Will it have the same data stream as a current gen MMO or will it load data on a system by system basis like STO does?

If anyone has tried this out I would be greatly appreciative of any info.

dont bother. just wait for release and then get, and at worst - play offline

 

[-o-]

Ran a bandwidth test for 40 mins on the primary ED transfer UDP connection whist cruising just outside Azeban City in Open mode.

Cumulative results:

After 20 mins, 30 MB xfer (10 MB rcvd + 20 MB sent).
After 30 mins, 41 MB xfer (10 MB rcvd + 31 MB sent).
After 40 mins, 45 MB xfer (11 MB rcvd + 34 Mb sent)

Client then crashed as I was trying to shove a bunch of daisies down the station turrets.

So i guess at this Beta stage, an hours play may use up about 60 MB, so if you play for about an hour a day,that would mean about 2GB a month (based on this quick test).

Bandwidth does reduce significantly in other areas of the game, like when SC, but on the other hand, it may also increase at other times like highly populated areas.

When I did this test, I think I only saw one other player. This questions whether the 60 MB data transfer was justified for the 40 minute period, but thats for another 100 threads to discuss. Im sure some of that 60 MB was test data, but that is irrelevent to your OP query, as that test data still (unavoidably) gets transferred at this point of the game's development.

The last time I checked, FD did not state any bandwidth usage estimates on their minimum specs page - just the usual 'internet connection'.

 

[Cervani]

Ran a bandwidth test for 40 mins on the primary ED transfer UDP connection whist cruising just outside Azeban City in Open mode.

Cumulative results:

After 20 mins, 30 MB xfer (10 MB rcvd + 20 MB sent).
After 30 mins, 41 MB xfer (10 MB rcvd + 31 MB sent).
After 40 mins, 45 MB xfer (11 MB rcvd + 34 Mb sent)

Client then crashed as I was trying to shove a bunch of daisies down the station turrets.

So i guess at this Beta stage, an hours play may use up about 60 MB, so if you play for about an hour a day,that would mean about 2GB a month (based on this quick test).

Bandwidth does reduce significantly in other areas of the game, like when SC, but on the other hand, it may also increase at other times like highly populated areas.

When I did this test, I think I only saw one other player. This questions whether the 60 MB data transfer was justified for the 40 minute period, but thats for another 100 threads to discuss. Im sure some of that 60 MB was test data, but that is irrelevent to your OP query, as that test data still (unavoidably) gets transferred at this point of the game's development.

The last time I checked, FD did not state any bandwidth usage estimates on their minimum specs page - just the usual 'internet connection'.

Yeah, it seems that the data usage is definitely a bit higher than I expected. I'm sure with things being procedurally generated a well may also push up the usage since they aren't static items but made as you visit. It really depended on how much was client based and how much was server based tbh.

And I would definitely be playing for more than an hour at night. Using your data results, and what I see myself playing as a minimum it would be about 240mb per night for me (4 hours). That would equal to about 5.8GB a month, if just playing ED. And just from the data sent, I can see a bit of that is definitely testing related. Even if you just take 20MB off that 60 per hour, that brings it down to 3.8GB per month at four hours a night. A HUGE change. We'll just have to see.

And as a clarification, progress (money etc) earned in offline mode DOES transfer to multi mode yes?

 

[-o-]

Not sure if you are aware, but ED does not use the usual server/client network model. It uses a p2p system integrated within that, so a user's bandwidth is also used to assist in the game's overall networked assets - not just yours. It helps explain the high rate of transfers.

 

[Cervani]

Not sure if you are aware, but ED does not use the usual server/client network model. It uses a p2p system integrated within that, so a user's bandwidth is also used to assist in the game's overall networked assets - not just yours. It helps explain the high rate of transfers.

Well, hopefully once the game goes retail it'll cut down the rate at least a little bit. I may have to just cut back to three hours a night at work (I can play all day erry day at home), of just play solo mode after a few hours to cut back on data usage.