How much bandwidth does SL need to run in MB?

[Ogawa]

Hi there!

I have a limited internet connection data allowance that only gives me 20 gigs a month. I need these to split amongst three other people in my household, so I need to know how much SL will let me use safely before I start being a data-glutton.

So therefore my question needs asked: How much download/upload does it take to run SL on a viewer like Phoenix?

[Rolig Loon]

You can get acceptable, though not exciting graphics quality if you set your Maximum Bandwidth (in Preferences >>> Network & Cache) to as low as 500 kB/sec . At that low setting, you are likely to experience some annoying lag, but if that's all the bandwidth you have available, it's better than nothing.  Most people run at 1000 to 1250 kB/sec.  Phoenix is less demanding than V3 or Firestorm, so you may get somewhat better performance at that low bandwidth setting on it.

BTW, that bandwidth setting does not throttle your bandwidth usage for Voice or streamed media, so if you plan on taking advantage of either of those features, your total bandwidth use will be higher.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Setting your bandwidth in preferences does little (actually close to nothing) to control bandwidth usage.  If your ISP has your service capped at a specific amount of bandwidth used you have to find a way to stop or slow the total bits and bytes uploaded or downloaded to your computer.  Setting the bandwidth meter in preferences only slows (or speeds) the flow.......not the total usage.  Think of your bathtube.  Say your bathtube holds 50 gallons of water and your fausett is turned on to a rate of 1 gallon a minute............it will take 50 minutes to fill the tube.  Turn that fausett down to a pint a minute it will take 400 minutes to fill (8 pints equal 1 gallon).  If your cap is set to 50 gallons then you can choice to take 50 minutes (a little less than an hour) or 400 minutes (a little less than 7 hours).  In the end you still have used 50 gallons of water.

To lessen your bandwidth usage you need to limit what is uploaded and downloaded.  Set your draw distance to the minimum.  Set your graphics to low.  Turn off particles.  Don't use voice. Don't use media.   Basically do nothing in SL.  20 GB is not much.........maybe limit your SL usage to a couple days a week until you figure out how much you are using then increase the time as you learn how much to expect for each hour of use.  Be careful about TP'ing around the grid (that causes your viewer to call for more data to be downloaded........increasing your usage).

[Rolig Loon]

Hehehe... Deja vu. You and I have had this conversation before, Peggy. Your example is right, but it's making the wrong point. If he throttles his Maximum Bandwidth so that it's only allowing 500 kB/sec then he has only downloaded half as much in the same amount of time as someone else who is downloading 1000KB of data. Therefore, if he is logged on to SL for an hour, his total bandwidth use is half of the other guy's in the same hour. That's the goal. You're right that if he wants to download as much data as the other guy, he has to be logged on for twice as long, but that's not the question. He wants to know how to limit his total bandwidth for a given amount of time, not get the same amount of data. Now, if he wants to increase the QUALITY of his experience in that hour, he should follow your advice exactly. Lowering draw distance, setting graphics to low, turning off particles, killing antialiasing, and all those other measures will create less of a demand for bandwidth. Unless he lowers the Max Bandwidth setting so that he has capped what's possible, though, he'll find himself accidentally going over his total usage limit.before he knows it. Once again, we're both right, but looking at different parts of the problem.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

So, according to your theory throttling the speed is accomplishing the goal of saving bandwidth usage. I can't go along with that Rolig. If you were to have some cutoff that occurs after a specified length of time slowing the speed will, indeed, lessen the usage for that specified time. And the end result you wait for twice as long for things to happen in SL. That's not an effective way to deal with usage.........why bother with SL at all if you never get to enjoy it? The only "effective" way to use less bandwidth is to set the viewer and limit your actions so that not much is called for by the viewer. At least that way what is called for can be enjoyed. Your way nothing is enjoyed. I guess I can agree to disagree but I did want to point that out.

 

Another point (minor). 500 kbps is not slow enough to do much good anyway. A setting of around 200 kbps might help. Turn on your statistic bar and watch that bandwidth meter while you TP around, spin your camera or walk in a texture rich environment. Set your max to as high as you want. See how many spikes you get above around 800 kbps..........not many. Then take note of where the meter settles.......around 50 to 100 is what I see most of the time. The setting on that meter is just telling the servers how fast your computer can recieve data. That is not telling the servers to send that much data......only what your computer and connection can handle. The servers will only send what the load at that given instant will allow to be sent. If you have a slow connection and use a lot of outside services and you set the bandwidth to a high setting you will get packet loss if the servers send that spike of 800 kbps. Once that spike is sent and things settle down to the normal 100 k or so your packet loss goes away. I see no reason to ever set the bandwidth more than 1500 kbps. 500 k is actually pretty good for most people (I started leaving mine at 500 k and I see absolutely no difference from when I had it set at 1500).

I'm done with this conversation. It's an old one and you have yet to convince me that slowing the speed down will save usage.......not on a monthly basis anyway.

[Baloo Uriza]

Probably a bad idea to use it at all in those circumstances, but turn your bandwidth to minimum, and turn your draw distance down to 128 or less, turn off video and audio streaming, and turn off voice.