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Minvaren
Premium
join:2001-07-26
Houston, TX
clubs:
| To check on the bandwidth...
You can click here and check. Currently half of the content servers are offline as they prep them for release, so the number as of right now will be lower than is available for "prime-time" release.
As far as using it? I cold-installed Half-Life, patched it to 1.1.0.6 (I think that's the current release) and then installed Counter-Strike 1.5.
Steam client download : 10 seconds.
Steam install (including downloads) : 3.5 minutes
Counter-Strike/Half-Life initial update : 15 minutes
(keep in mind that every major "point upgrade" to CS and HL require 2 70+MB downloads if you use the full installers, and 2 10+MB downloads if you use the upgraders)
Subsequent CS/HL patches were roughly 30-60 seconds each.
This is on 1.5M DSL, and the download was at more like 768k. I have no issue with the pipes available so far for the patching, it's the connect time (as all files get scanned for current versions) that is a bit slower than it was. As "Steam" won't be used for the Client-Server communication while playing, only the initial signon/patching/connect, it should work pretty well. | |
Maggs
Premium
join:2002-11-29
Woodside, NY
 ·RCN CABLE
| They could load balance the connections with a server in Europe, where not many have high speed access at home. Half Life would probably need a couple OC3s to work reasonably well with online content delivery.
They could place one OC3 with server farm in Ireland, with a population of 3 million people, not many are online. Then they could also try Austrailia, and Hawaii, and maybe British Colombia in Canada, that way the connections are spread geographically so that users nearest a point use those connections.\
In the US, they could have a server every 1,500 miles of land, one in NYC, one in the Midwest, and one in CA.
Also, they could license BitTorrent Technologies that could spread out the connection across a multiple of users. That way bandwidth would be less of a problem.
Maybe this config could work:
One Server/ Connection in British Columbia
One Server/ Connection in California
One Server/ Connection in Ohio
One Server/ Connection in Florida
One Server/ Connection in Virginia
One Server/ Connection in NYC or Upstate NY
One Server/ Connection in Ireland
One Server/ Connection in Austrailia
That way people closest to a point could connect to the nearest area thereby reducing time of bandwidth usage. The more points that are accessible near you the better the bandwidth quality and reliability.
Just my take on things. I ain't an IT expert either, so don't shoot me.
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