[OPLINTECH] Dropbox and File Sharing

[Karl Jendretzky]

But what data is really transmitted in FPS kind of games? All you really have is a bunch of xyz coordinates while the static maps are all stored locally. Even if you include voice chat into the bundle, the default Vent codec only uses about 3KB per player stream, and only when they're talking.

For those unfamiliar with Minecraft, it's a indie game where you wander around a randomly generated world of 1 meter cubes destroying or building anything you like. I think it's best described as a game that gives you the same feeling that Legos did as a kid. The world is made up of chunks of data representing a 16x16x128 area of cubes. Wikipedia tells me that in a multiplayer game 441 chunks are loaded around the player at any given time. On initial load, I would be pulling in xyz/content data for a little over 14.5 million cubes, not counting the happy little pigs and zombies that wander the landscape. All of this still only added up to about 2MB.

Regardless, I'll play some Bad Company 2 and Team Fortress 2 tonight and see what their numbers come back as.

As for the initial conversation starter of Dropbox, personally I wouldn't group that service in with sites like Rapidshare/Megaupload. I've never seen a warez group use Dropbox as a host, and I've never gone to Rapidshare/Megaupload for anything except warez.

Karl Jendretzky
Technology Manager
Ohio Public Library Information Network
jendreka at oplin.org
(614) 728-1515 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nathan Eady" <oplintech at galionlibrary.net>
To: oplintech at lists.oplin.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 5, 2011 12:16:09 PM
Subject: Re: [OPLINTECH] Dropbox and File Sharing

Karl Jendretzky <jendreka at oplin.org> writes:

> My curiosity got the best of me. 
>
> -5 Tests
> -Each 60 seconds long

Sixty seconds is a fairly short test.  I did admit that Dropbox usage
would tend to produce spikes.  However...

> Minecraft: .285 Mbps; 2MB downloaded (runs at about 100Kbps after
> initial area loaded. Probably a bad example of an online game due to
> abnormally large amount world data)

I would expect the games with a lot of rapidly (and eratically) moving
objects (think: large dogfights) to hit the bandwidth hardest.

Nonetheless, the 100Kbps figure is lower than I would have imagined for
ongoing bandwidth in a multiplayer game.

The YouTube figures are rather higher than I would have imagined.  I'm
accustomed to thinking of YouTube videos as being very low-res with the
everliving tar compressed out of them lossily, but apparently the video
quality on there (and thus the file size) has been increasing of late.

I suppose too that I probably have a higher tolerance for latency (and
thus for brief spikes in network clogging) than average.  (I developed
most of my core internet-using habits when I had dialup...)

-- 
Nathan Eady
Galion Public Library
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