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Valve Increases Bandwidth Limit Again
Plans episodic game releases this winter
About a month ago, Valve increased their bandwidth capacity, preparing for the release of the game Day of Defeat via their Steam broadband distribution system. Although Valve doesn't use more than half of its bandwidth limit at any given point on a regular day, they've upped their bandwidth ceiling yet again, this time to 25,010Mbps. This winter the company will be trying something new, releasing individual game episodes (for $20 per episode) via the steam client.
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r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984

Premium Member

Bandwidth Limit??

Why do they have a bandwidth limit on games that people buy???
SauceMaster
join:2004-08-01
Kokomo, IN

SauceMaster

Member

Re: Bandwidth Limit??

said by r81984:

Why do they have a bandwidth limit on games that people buy???
They don't , they mean they have added more bandwidth to download content from Valve.

Cheese
Premium Member
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL

Cheese

Premium Member

Re: Bandwidth Limit??

said by SauceMaster:

said by r81984:

Why do they have a bandwidth limit on games that people buy???
They don't , they mean they have added more bandwidth to download content from Valve.
That's exactly correct, they do this so when they release new games and they get say, 5 million people downloading the data that it doesn't affect other things.

BIGMIKE
Q
Premium Member
join:2002-06-07
Gainesville, FL

BIGMIKE to r81984

Premium Member

to r81984
Everyone has a Bandwidth Limit

Last Result:
Download Speed: 4796 kbps (599.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 480 kbps (60 KB/sec transfer rate)
Tycho2
Premium Member
join:2000-07-23
Grandville, MI

Tycho2

Premium Member

Good to hear

Definitely a good sign for developers. I was one of the few supporters of the Steam idea when it came out. Good to see some news about it being seen in a positive light.

tapeloop
Not bad at all, really.
Premium Member
join:2004-06-27
Airstrip One

tapeloop

Premium Member

Re: Good to hear

said by Tycho2:

Definitely a good sign for developers. I was one of the few supporters of the Steam idea when it came out. Good to see some news about it being seen in a positive light.
I have to say I'm a convert. When I first started using Steam, it was buggy as hell, crashed all the time and very slow. Now it's been nothing but smooth. Haven't had any problems since HL2 came out. I don't get that boot from server "go download the latest patch now!" message whenever I try to play online like I do in BF1942/DC...very nice.

sbhusted
join:2000-05-14
Bethlehem, PA

sbhusted to Tycho2

Member

to Tycho2
I wasn't thrilled with the idea of not receiving a box and CD at first, but I must say Steam has worked great for me and I have no problem purchasing games this way.

It's not the same system, but I purchased rFactor which is also a download only - no packaging. As long as their are mechanisms in place for perpetual use (ie, computer crashes and you need to reinstall 3 years later), I'm all for this model.
Techie714
join:2005-08-02
Anaheim, CA

Techie714

Member

RE: Valve Rocks!

It may take Valve YEARS to release a product but at least all there releases are stable & are solid AAA hits. I wonder if this means that the SIN episodes are coming out soon.....I hope so.
praetoralpha
join:2005-08-06
Pittsburgh, PA

praetoralpha

Member

hmmm...

why dont they use a p2p system? and you upload when you arent doing multiplayer?

srt-4
@204.124.x.x

srt-4

Anon

Re: hmmm...

Because they can afford the bandwidth and p2p is very slow and not reliable, plus you have virii and malware in the mix.

p2p is not the answer kids.
toddinpal
join:2002-09-18
Palatine, IL

toddinpal

Member

Re: hmmm...

said by srt-4 :

Because they can afford the bandwidth and p2p is very slow and not reliable, plus you have virii and malware in the mix.

p2p is not the answer kids.
Why isn't p2p the answer? There are plenty of solutions to ensuring that he bits offered are the proper and correct bits, or at least that the bits downloaded are. Linspire (nee Lindows) and many open source projects distribute via p2p. Add a BT client into Steam and let it use available excess bandwidth from the users.

As far as "slow and unreliable" goes, I get my Linux distributions via p2p in far less time than trying to download from most of the better commercial download sites. Verify the PGP key and you're essentially guaranteed the correct bits.

Face it, this is an area that the legitimate users of p2p want to see promoted and exploited. If p2p networks don't morph into supporting something like Valve updates, then congress is going to see them as nothing more than dens of piracy.

ss4vegito7
join:2004-07-24
Cranbury, NJ

ss4vegito7

Member

Re: hmmm...

p2p is the worst idea. Why would u want valve to start using your connection for something they should be paying for! Eating up your bandwidth and all other resources. U pay $50 a pop for their game and don't get the packaging I would hope that the money that should go to distribution and packaging goes to their internet provider!
toddinpal
join:2002-09-18
Palatine, IL

toddinpal

Member

Re: hmmm...

said by ss4vegito7:

p2p is the worst idea. Why would u want valve to start using your connection for something they should be paying for! Eating up your bandwidth and all other resources. U pay $50 a pop for their game and don't get the packaging I would hope that the money that should go to distribution and packaging goes to their internet provider!
For the same reason I donate my spare CPU cycles to Folding@Home and United Devices. Although my household is heavy Internet user compared to most, we don't nearly consume the 6M/600K service we have. Especially during the off hours. Maybe they give me something in return, I don't really care as the bandwidth is being under utilized. Someone might as well get a benefit from it.

I'm also talking in generic terms, not about any specific game, software, or update to download. P2P could be part of the utility computing infrastructure people dream about. So much like how electric power utilities in California pay customers for their excess generated solar energy, perhaps someone could/world pay us to our un-utilized bandwidth. Besides, getting the data from nearby other users places a lot less load on the overall network than having a centralized set of servers access only from the edges.

-tl

AthlGrond
Premium Member
join:2002-04-25
Aurora, CO

AthlGrond to toddinpal

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to toddinpal
The P2P update distribution system that World of Warcraft uses has got to be the worst system for distributing updates. Ever.

Not only slow, but also inconvenient.

I assume that they (Blizzard) are just incompetent at this sort of thing and all of the other P2P distribution systems must be (much) better. (Otherwise the P2P users would all be killing themselves.)
Mordhem
Love it, Hate it.
join:2003-07-10
Baltimore, MD

Mordhem

Member

Re: hmmm...

I never have not had any problems using the blizzard updater, so its not like that for every one.

Nsane_iceman
Premium Member
join:2001-02-26
North Richland Hills, TX

Nsane_iceman to praetoralpha

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to praetoralpha
It would be a crazy Bit Torrent idea, of having Valve as the tracker and when people are in a game make them as choke. Don't really think ISPs are up for anything like that. Good old TOS always says something to the effect that no one can connect to your computer/hard drive/ect.

Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium Member
join:2001-11-29
Verona, PA

Combat Chuck to praetoralpha

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to praetoralpha
Because a lot of people would have a fit over valve "stealing" their bandwidth. At this point it seems they've solved the bandwidth issue for the most part with pre-loading.

Cheese
Premium Member
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL

Cheese to praetoralpha

Premium Member

to praetoralpha
said by praetoralpha:

why dont they use a p2p system? and you upload when you arent doing multiplayer?
First off, not everyone is buying the same product at the same time. And, the product's that are being purchased off of steam are already cached on the system majority of the time when they are released as they slowly release bit's of the said software up until the release date, as they did with HL2.

hihihihi
@bellsouth.net

hihihihi to praetoralpha

Anon

to praetoralpha
p2p.. for updates for a game you pay for? seriously.. rofl.
p2p is slow, who would want to sit there all day downloading updates.

alg
Passionately apathetic
Premium Member
join:2001-04-10
Houston, TX

alg

Premium Member

Re: hmmm...

said by hihihihi :

p2p is slow
Have you ever used P2P? About the only time P2P is slow is if your downloading some obscure file with only like 1 source/seed/whatever. Otherwise it will easily blow away traditional file servers.

GeneStarwind
join:2001-12-13
Fairfax, VA

GeneStarwind

Member

Server Downloads

What still bothers me are the game servers themselves that have you download several hundred KB or MB of files, and have the "fast download" feature disabled. I cannot for the life of me figure out why, in the 6-7 years that Half-life/mods have been online, it still lacks an option to bypass downloading of all that crap onto one's computer, which the server itself rarely, if ever, uses. At least if you force every client that joins the server to waste time and bandwidth on such things, why limit the downloads to the meager default 2-3 K/s? To finish off with something pertaining more to the main topic, I've grown more or less accustomed to Steam. Being able to acquire mods and updates with such ease is certainly an asset, but it still has some dire memory management issues. Playing a game for too long brings even my gigabyte of PC4300 to its knees.

recoil
Premium Member
join:2005-02-22
Exton, PA

recoil

Premium Member

Re: Server Downloads

Same here, after playing counter strike 1.6! not source, after about 2-4 hours it will be using up 300-400 mb of memory and will take forever to close. I usually end up ending the process. Horrible !

azinator
CS is the DEVIL
Premium Member
join:2000-08-12
Texarkana, TX

azinator to GeneStarwind

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to GeneStarwind
that's not valve's fault...that's the server operators fault...when you get n00b operators that don't know how to config a server properly, you get to bitch about it
53059959 (banned)
Temp banned from BBR more then anyone
join:2002-10-02
PwnZone

53059959 (banned) to GeneStarwind

Member

to GeneStarwind
exactly. server operators can bypass that with
downloadurl="http://whatever.com/cstrike"
and it downloads as fast as it can.
plus it doesent lag up the server from downloaders

Chuck U Farley

Anon

I thought Steam used BitTorrent?

Didn't Valve hire Bram Cohen. Why do they need so much bandwidth just to seed?

LaZ3R
Premium Member
join:2003-01-17

LaZ3R

Premium Member

Re: I thought Steam used BitTorrent?

Who cares! They don't charge us extra money for it... If anything, you should be happy some companies like Valve actually update their games/servers so frequently to provide best possibly gameplay.

It makes me wonder... How much mbps do MMORPG servers take up, example: How much bandwidth does blizzard have in total on all of its World of Warcraft servers?

DeeZeee
@tierzero.net

DeeZeee to Chuck U Farley

Anon

to Chuck U Farley
Bram Cohen was hired by blizzard for their torrent updater. Valve doesnt seed, nor did it hire Bram.

Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium Member
join:2001-11-29
Verona, PA

Combat Chuck

Premium Member

Re: I thought Steam used BitTorrent?

said by DeeZeee :

Bram Cohen was hired by blizzard for their torrent updater. Valve doesnt seed, nor did it hire Bram.
Sorry but AFAIK he hasn't ever worked directly for Blizzard and he has in fact worked for valve.

see »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Cohen
quote:
In late 2003, Cohen was hired by Valve Software to work on Steam, their digital distribution system introduced for Half-Life 2. However, by early 2005 he was no longer at Valve, and his primary source of income once again became donations from BitTorrent users.

TrueAudio
192khz
Premium Member
join:2002-02-24
Verona, WI

TrueAudio

Premium Member

This article is wrong..

If you look at the graph, it just spiked out and what your seeing as "Max" (25,010), is the max spike in the graph itself.. Probably a glitch. Those MRTG type/style graphs can be dodgy. I clearly see the level at 21,660

This article is wrong..

»steampowered.com/status/ ··· tus.html

lucky644
Premium Member
join:2002-02-04

lucky644

Premium Member

Re: This article is wrong..

said by TrueAudio:

If you look at the graph, it just spiked out and what your seeing as "Max" (25,010), is the max spike in the graph itself.. Probably a glitch. Those MRTG type/style graphs can be dodgy. I clearly see the level at 21,660

This article is wrong..

»steampowered.com/status/ ··· tus.html
No it isn't, they now allow for 25,000 but that doesn't mean they have it all enabled all the time. They still upped the max speed.