Bandwidth

[rikwad]

I will be tethering for a couple of months, so I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for saving bandwidth.

For example:
 Do high res textures use more bandwidth? Seems kinda dumb but I read that in some games they do.

 Will turning off footsteps and deleting the gun model help much?

Any ideas welcome. Thanks

[QwazyWabbit]

If you already have the textures then they don't consume any bandwidth. The video display doesn't consume any network bandwidth at all.
The bandwidth you use gaming depends on the game and the mod, Quake2 for instance consumes about 20kbps per client. Hardly anything by today's standards.
The only time you will consume significant bandwidth is while downloading maps (the biggest files in Q2), textures and sounds.

[|iR|Focalor]

I will be tethering for a couple of months, so I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for saving bandwidth.

For example:
 Do high res textures use more bandwidth? Seems kinda dumb but I read that in some games they do.

 Will turning off footsteps and deleting the gun model help much?

Any ideas welcome. Thanks

Graphic and audio settings might alter the smoothness of the game on your end due to hardware specs, but there is little you can do as far as bandwidth goes. You need a fast, unhindered and steady data stream. If tethering isn't steady, you're gonna notice some degree of stutter and lag. If you're hooking to a cell phone, background apps could be updating your location or using some of the bandwidth. Turn off whatever you can, but you're still gonna see some lag I bet.

[rikwad]

20 kbps.. guess I will not need to consider the game so much as the stuff in the background, as Focalor said.

Thanks for the info guys.

[|iR|Focalor]

It's not a "lot" of data moving, but it requires a steady and clean connection to stay stable and predictable as far as gameplay. Fluctuations in bandwith (someone else using and downloading on the same connection), or momentary breaks in transmission (common with satellite internet and wireless connections) will make your ping/delay change and will change where you have to aim to predict shots. The players are already moving. If your ping isnt solid, now it's like you're aiming at a moving target... on a moving platform.

[rikwad]

It's not a "lot" of data moving, but it requires a steady and clean connection to stay stable and predictable as far as gameplay. Fluctuations in bandwith (someone else using and downloading on the same connection), or momentary breaks in transmission (common with satellite internet and wireless connections) will make your ping/delay change and will change where you have to aim to predict shots. The players are already moving. If your ping isnt solid, now it's like you're aiming at a moving target... on a moving platform.

Bummer.... I guess it will be like playing on Playground.ru. all the time. I will have to suck it up for a while I guess.

Cheers,

[QwazyWabbit]

With wireless the primary cause of jitter is co-channel interference on the WiFi link. Your kids video streams compete for the right to transmit and receive. The contention can cause dropped frames and lag of real-time streams like the Q2 protocol. The same thing applies to the radio channel connecting your tether device to the WAN, LTE, 5G etc., all suffer from the same problem. Geography also matters. Larger cells suffer from more traffic and contention. Your gaming life will suck for a while but it won't be because of texture detail.

[rikwad]

With wireless the primary cause of jitter is co-channel interference on the WiFi link. Your kids video streams compete for the right to transmit and receive. The contention can cause dropped frames and lag of real-time streams like the Q2 protocol. The same thing applies to the radio channel connecting your tether device to the WAN, LTE, 5G etc., all suffer from the same problem. Geography also matters. Larger cells suffer from more traffic and contention. Your gaming life will suck for a while but it won't be because of texture detail.

Yeah, I thought that seemed kinda whacked about textures and bandwidth.  I think losing the gun model, footsteps, and even gibs (q2pro) saves a bit but at 20 kbps t'aint gonna matter. My connection's been okay, faster than my wired one in fact, but there are moments or hiccups every so often. The problem is after 15 gb of data, they kick it down to 2 Mbps till the next cycle. Anyhow, t'will just be me on this tether, kids are gone now (for now) - guess I am dating myself here...heehee. And if it doesn't suck so bad I may just stay wireless after summer is over. Again, thanks for the replies.

Cheers,

[QwazyWabbit]

With wireless the primary cause of jitter is co-channel interference on the WiFi link. Your kids video streams compete for the right to transmit and receive. The contention can cause dropped frames and lag of real-time streams like the Q2 protocol. The same thing applies to the radio channel connecting your tether device to the WAN, LTE, 5G etc., all suffer from the same problem. Geography also matters. Larger cells suffer from more traffic and contention. Your gaming life will suck for a while but it won't be because of texture detail.

Yeah, I thought that seemed kinda whacked about textures and bandwidth.  I think losing the gun model, footsteps, and even gibs (q2pro) saves a bit but at 20 kbps t'aint gonna matter. My connection's been okay, faster than my wired one in fact, but there are moments or hiccups every so often. The problem is after 15 gb of data, they kick it down to 2 Mbps till the next cycle. Anyhow, t'will just be me on this tether, kids are gone now (for now) - guess I am dating myself here...heehee. And if it doesn't suck so bad I may just stay wireless after summer is over. Again, thanks for the replies.

Cheers,

That 20kbps is only the server-client protocol needed for tracking the player movement and actions. Those are the frames that the server sends to tell the client what's happening inside the map and for the client to send your player movement, line of sight and shots. Graphic objects, maps and sounds are not sent except at client connect or intermissions. Those downloads can be from the server or from the http redirect servers. They consume more bandwidth and go much faster than 20kbps (That's 20 kilobits per second, not bytes) Quake 2 protocol was very economical because it was invented when modems were the dominant life-form on the planet.

The client is presenting you with a view of the map based on your client information and a bunch of numbers from the server. The server communicates the positions and movements of the other players but there is no concern about content like sounds and graphics, those are all computed internally in your client. The view you see and hear all comes from the client code and the maps and models on your disk, nothing like that flows between client and server while the game is played.

20kbps is an average rate, assuming you already have all the entities, maps, skins and sounds on your client. If you are already an established player then downloads will be rare and your gaming bandwidth consumption will be minimal. At an average of 20kbps it will take you 7,500,000 seconds to transfer 15GB of data (1.5x10^11 bits of data / 20,000 bits per second). That's 2083 hours of playing. If you're hitting the 15GB limit it's not from playing Quake 2.

[rikwad]

With wireless the primary cause of jitter is co-channel interference on the WiFi link. Your kids video streams compete for the right to transmit and receive. The contention can cause dropped frames and lag of real-time streams like the Q2 protocol. The same thing applies to the radio channel connecting your tether device to the WAN, LTE, 5G etc., all suffer from the same problem. Geography also matters. Larger cells suffer from more traffic and contention. Your gaming life will suck for a while but it won't be because of texture detail.

Yeah, I thought that seemed kinda whacked about textures and bandwidth.  I think losing the gun model, footsteps, and even gibs (q2pro) saves a bit but at 20 kbps t'aint gonna matter. My connection's been okay, faster than my wired one in fact, but there are moments or hiccups every so often. The problem is after 15 gb of data, they kick it down to 2 Mbps till the next cycle. Anyhow, t'will just be me on this tether, kids are gone now (for now) - guess I am dating myself here...heehee. And if it doesn't suck so bad I may just stay wireless after summer is over. Again, thanks for the replies.

Cheers,

That 20kbps is only the server-client protocol needed for tracking the player movement and actions. Those are the frames that the server sends to tell the client what's happening inside the map and for the client to send your player movement, line of sight and shots. Graphic objects, maps and sounds are not sent except at client connect or intermissions. Those downloads can be from the server or from the http redirect servers. They consume more bandwidth and go much faster than 20kbps (That's 20 kilobits per second, not bytes) Quake 2 protocol was very economical because it was invented when modems were the dominant life-form on the planet.

The client is presenting you with a view of the map based on your client information and a bunch of numbers from the server. The server communicates the positions and movements of the other players but there is no concern about content like sounds and graphics, those are all computed internally in your client. The view you see and hear all comes from the client code and the maps and models on your disk, nothing like that flows between client and server while the game is played.

20kbps is an average rate, assuming you already have all the entities, maps, skins and sounds on your client. If you are already an established player then downloads will be rare and your gaming bandwidth consumption will be minimal. At an average of 20kbps it will take you 7,500,000 seconds to transfer 15GB of data (1.5x10^11 bits of data / 20,000 bits per second). That's 2083 hours of playing. If you're hitting the 15GB limit it's not from playing Quake 2.

Oh yeah, I have played on the Mara-coop server for over an hour and there was not a whole lot of data used up. I have no idea how much was being used by Windows and what not at the same time as well so I figured the game doesn't use much. It will be web surfing and some work stuff that's going to eat it up and eventually leave me with that 2 mbps throttle-down. Youtube is a whole 'nother story...

Oh, and the footsteps and gibs are from the Q2pro client manual. It mentions saving bandwidth by losing those two things and the gun model. Maybe because you hear the steps from whence they come? Idk really.

Rabbit, do you happen to know if linux is a lesser bandwidth eater than windows? Particularly the ubuntu types. I like Kubuntu as a desktop but the usb transfer is always way faster in windows so that probably negates any streaming benefit, if any, for linux.

Cheers,

[rikwad]

 After setting up Ubuntu I have found, to my surprise, that the experience is just as good, maybe even a bit smoother than Windows tethering. Probably going to depend on your machine, phone and even USB cable as to how it works out, but there it is in case anyone ever tries it; USB tethering through Ubuntu works very well. KDE or Gnome makes no difference, but Gnome needs for the mobile network to be turned on each time you turn on your machine whilst KDE is automatic. As for bandwidth consumption...my guess is Windows is doing more in the background.

Cheers,

[0rbisson]

I have been playing q2 on a tethered connection for a year not that i play much these days due to very high ping. All i can say is make sure you have good reception otherwise you will be rubber banding all over the place. If you have good reception it should run ok and still be playable. My ping went from 210 to 300ms but i think that has more to do with the routing of my provider. Make sure you turn off any anti malware or firewall apps you may be running as they can cause havoc with connections aswell

[rikwad]

I have been playing q2 on a tethered connection for a year not that i play much these days due to very high ping. All i can say is make sure you have good reception otherwise you will be rubber banding all over the place. If you have good reception it should run ok and still be playable. My ping went from 210 to 300ms but i think that has more to do with the routing of my provider. Make sure you turn off any anti malware or firewall apps you may be running as they can cause havoc with connections aswell

Thanks for the tips! My ping is still the same-ish and I'm right close to the cell tower itself so I think this may work out ok for a while.

Cheers,