[fencingkitty]

Apologize if this was elsewhere, I did a scan of past threads and a search using 'bandwidth use' and didn't see anything similar to my question.

My question if anyone can help with is does anyone actually know, or know how to find out what the actual bandwidth use of the game is?

Scenario is a satelite internet connection in the middle of nowhere effectively that is restricted to 325 megs of download a day. If it goes over this the owner gets fined (Huges or Directway is the company I think)


I know FFXI is designed to play via dial up connections, but does anyone know if it actually takes a large amount of data when you zone and such? (when it says 'downloading data...' after you zone for example)

Thanks!

[IfritnoItazura]

FFXI pretty much continuously stream data downstream, all the time.

For WinXP:
1. Bring up Task Manager, select "Networking" tab.
2. View: Select Columns
3. Make sure "Bytes Received" is checked.
4. Start playing for a while, note the start time; minimize but don't close the Task Manager.
5. Stop playing, note the stop time; calculate the elapsed time.
6. Take "Bytes Received", divide the be time elapsed, and there--now you have the approximate bandwidth required.

Edit: Opps. OP only cares about downstream.
Edit #2: How "busy" the zone is with player, player activity, and monsters will determine the actual bandwidth usage. i.e. Don't park your character for hours in Whitegate outside of the Mog House or play Dyanmis if you're worried about getting fined.

[Manatra]

Originally Posted by fencingkitty

Apologize if this was elsewhere, I did a scan of past threads and a search using 'bandwidth use' and didn't see anything similar to my question.
My question if anyone can help with is does anyone actually know, or know how to find out what the actual bandwidth use of the game is?
Scenario is a satelite internet connection in the middle of nowhere effectively that is restricted to 325 megs of download a day. If it goes over this the owner gets fined (Huges or Directway is the company I think)
I know FFXI is designed to play via dial up connections, but does anyone know if it actually takes a large amount of data when you zone and such? (when it says 'downloading data...' after you zone for example)
Thanks!

You will not go over 350 MB a day with FFXI. When it says "Downloading Data" it basically means it's connecting to the zone's server and then loading the level data from your harddrive.

Have you played FFXI yet using your satellite connection? I just want to know because based on the fact satellite is typically higher latency than 56k it could be bad :\

[fencingkitty]

Originally Posted by Manatra

You will not go over 350 MB a day with FFXI. When it says "Downloading Data" it basically means it's connecting to the zone's server and then loading the level data from your harddrive.

Have you played FFXI yet using your satellite connection? I just want to know because based on the fact satellite is typically higher latency than 56k it could be bad :\

I have and yes, it's pretty laggy. All I pretty much do is chat and farm. I duoed w/a friend the other night which wasn't too bad provided we stayed away from the other parties in the zone. Chat delay was minimal and cast times weren't off too bad. I could still magic burst reliably if I was watching for it and started my cast at the right time, even if the animation didn't go off immediately.

I wouldn't want to burden a full party with my lag, but for myself and a few friends it's acceptable to still be able to communicate occasionally.

[Feba]

You might be better off trying to find a wifi connection to mooch off of, if your neighbors have cable.

[Mhurron]

Originally Posted by Feba

You might be better off trying to find a wifi connection to mooch off of, if your neighbors have cable.

Satellite is used in places where DSL and Cable are not provided. Check your facts before making suggestions.

To the OP, satellite is good for things that do not have to worry about high latency. For FFXI you might want to consider getting a separate, cheap dialup connection and using the satellite for downloads and web browsing. I have a dialup connection and I don't have to limit what I do compared to when I had a 8mb cable connection.

[Feba]

Uh, I know perfectly well what Satellite is. There's plenty of places where cable or DSL are POSSIBLE, but more expensive than satellite, or people who just have satellite anyway.

I know I lived in a small town for awhile where you could get internet over cable, if you were willing to pay out the nose, so it's possible someone would have satellite where someone else might have cable.

[Mhurron]

Originally Posted by Feba

Uh, I know perfectly well what Satellite is. There's plenty of places where cable or DSL are POSSIBLE, but more expensive than satellite, or people who just have satellite anyway.
I know I lived in a small town for awhile where you could get internet over cable, if you were willing to pay out the nose, so it's possible someone would have satellite where someone else might have cable.

Satellite has a $500+ setup fee, not counting hardware rental and monthly fees and a 1 year plus contract. No one has satellite where cable or DSL is offered. On top of that, with residential wifi devices being such low power and short range, if you can piggyback on someone else's wifi connection who has a low latency broadband connection, you're close enough to get your own.

[Kuro]

Originally Posted by Mhurron

Satellite has a $500+ setup fee, not counting hardware rental and monthly fees and a 1 year plus contract. No one has satellite where cable or DSL is offered. On top of that, with residential wifi devices being such low power and short range, if you can piggyback on someone else's wifi connection who has a low latency broadband connection, you're close enough to get your own.

When the hell did you work out that cost?

I get internet from the same provider as my sky tv, who also offer sky internet, and oh wait yes yes... its FREE SETUP! Not to mention free hardware and monthley contracts.

[IfritnoItazura]

Interesting. Satellite Internet access used to be very expensive.

I can see in urban area where satellite TV/ISP compete with cable TV/ISP as well as DSL they'd sweeten the deal quite a bit for customers, but it's hard to believe they wouldn't milk the rural customers with all kinds of setup fees and costly long-term contracts.

Edit:
The first thing I find: $400 setup fee, 2 year contract, and $60/month. Ouch.

[Mhurron]

Originally Posted by Kuro

When the hell did you work out that cost?
I get internet from the same provider as my sky tv, who also offer sky internet, and oh wait yes yes... its FREE SETUP! Not to mention free hardware and monthley contracts.

Allow me to give you a little hint:

Kuro: Location: England
fencingkitty: Location: USA
Mhuron: Location: USA

Every western nation, except Canada, has better internet access then the USA does.

My satalite TV provider does not offer Internet access. I would have to go with another provider, with another dish, and other hardware, all with it's own installation and rental fee. shortest term is 15 month contract where I can do $500 installation with $60 a month, or $90 a month (which has the installation rolled in).

[Icemage]

While the actual gameplay bandwidth usage is relatively low, I would NOT recommend trying to play any MMO over such a connection, be it FFXI or anything else. The update process consumes huge amounts of bandwidth, and they happen semi regularly (not to mention the initial setup update is pretty huge too).


Icemage

[IfritnoItazura]

Satellite transmission has high latency, I think. It's terrible for MMO or any real-time application.

The last FFXI update was ~56MB, which is well under "325 meg" downstream quota--unless that's 325 "Megabits" rather than "Megabytes". (Also have to consider how much bandwidth other application on the network consume, of course.)

[Feba]

Satellite transmission has high latency, I think.

Of course it does. Going from your computer, to outer freaking space and back to a server takes quite a bit longer than going from your computer to a server not nearly as far away.

Last I checked, geostationary orbit was about 22,000 miles over earth, that's 44,000 miles of extra latency between yourself and the server.

I believe that Satellite internet has a(n additional) latency of between 200 and 600ms, which if you've ever played an FPS, you know is painful. The same applies to ninjas, white mages, SCs, MBs, Provokes, etc.

[fencingkitty]

Thank you for the suggestions on bandwidth monitoring and such so far.

It truly is a temporary problem, as it's for my fiance's connection where he's living over the summer. Additionally, as far as the patches go, we've decided to time it so they'll download on slower days or worse case scenario hook it up to the cable to get those when he visits me.

The biggest concern thus far has been whether or not we'd wind up going over limit in casual play. (latency aside) We still have to do more in depth checking of the bandwidth but a casual glance was that the amount of data transfered was actually quite low (rarely if ever breaking 1kb a second to every few seconds)

If anyone's nosy we can post the actual(ish) numbers when we've checked more.


Thanks on the notes about latency as well; it's livable for communicating and small groups so we can at least do some gaming over the next few months. ^^