 
r81984
Tough to beat.
Premium
join:2001-11-14
Morgan City, LA | Bandwidth Limit?? Why do they have a bandwidth limit on games that people buy??? | |
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Cheese
Premium
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL
clubs:
| 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. | |
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BIGMIKE
"I do not know with what weapons World W
Premium
join:2002-06-07
Westminster, CA | 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) | |
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Tycho
Premium
join:2000-07-23
Grand Rapids, MI | 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. | |
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tapeloop
Light, sweet triceratops.
Premium
join:2004-06-27
Airstrip One
| Re: Good to hear said by Tycho :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.
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Copyright infringement is illegal. Murder is illegal. Therefore, file sharing is murder. | |
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sbhusted
join:2000-05-14
Bethlehem, PA
 ·PenTeleData
| 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.
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Scott B. Hustedhttp://www.Husted.cc | |
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Techie714
join:2005-08-02
Anaheim, CA |  RE: Valve Rocks!
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praetoralpha
join:2005-08-06
South Jordan, UT |  hmmm...
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srt-4
@204.124.x.x | 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. | |
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| | toddinpal
join:2002-09-18
Palatine, IL
| 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. | |
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ss4vegito7
join:2004-07-24
Cranbury, NJ
| 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!
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»www.rockinthebury.comandhttp://w···pair.com | |
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join:2002-09-18
Palatine, IL
| 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 | |
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AthlGrond
Premium,MVM
join:2002-04-25
Aurora, CO
 ·Comcast
| 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.)
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You are now free to paint your hair wild colors and run around naked. -dg2 | |
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| | | | Mordhem
Direct Tech
join:2003-07-10
Gaffney, SC | Re: hmmm... I never have not had any problems using the blizzard updater, so its not like that for every one. | |
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Nsane_iceman
Workaholic
Premium
join:2001-02-26
Bedford, TX
clubs:
| 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.
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Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium
join:2001-11-29
Erie, PA | 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.
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HOLY CRAP, LIONS! | |
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Cheese
Premium
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL
clubs:
| 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. | |
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hihihihi
@bellsouth.net | p2p.. for updates for a game you pay for? seriously.. rofl.
p2p is slow, who would want to sit there all day downloading updates. | |
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GeneStarwind
join:2001-12-13
Fairfax, VA
| 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. | |
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recoil0
Premium
join:2005-02-22
Exton, PA | 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 ! | |
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azinator
CS is the DEVIL
Premium
join:2000-08-12
Alma, AR | 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  | |
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CoxCable4
Temp banned from BBR more then anyone
join:2002-10-02
PwnZone | 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 | |
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Chuck U Farley
@sbs.com | I thought Steam used BitTorrent? | |
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LaZ3R
Premium
join:2003-01-17
Waterloo, ON
clubs:
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| 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?
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Life is a game of blackjack. You keep playing until you bust. | |
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DeeZeee
@tierzero.net | Bram Cohen was hired by blizzard for their torrent updater. Valve doesnt seed, nor did it hire Bram. | |
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Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium
join:2001-11-29
Erie, PA
| 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.
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TrueAudio
192khz
Premium
join:2002-02-24
Belmont, CA
| 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/status.html
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.∙°ß奬År€å¬ßù££°∙. | |
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lucky644
Premium
join:2002-02-04
| 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/status.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. | |
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Valve Increases Bandwidth Limit Again
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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.