Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

[LadyKiKi]

I might be getting one of those internet connections which has a limit on how much I can download/transfer. I was wondering if anyone is on a similar connection and I was wondering how much bandwidth would FFXI consume if I was to play, say, 3 hours? I'm unable to find out myself but I would if I go back home since I have downloaded a program which monitors the total amount of data transferred.

If anyone has a capped connection and monitors their internet usage, please post some useful information. The only connection I can actually manage to get is capped at 1GB a month, but from what I've read from other people it seems that FFXI is capped at 56kb/s speed, as in, dial up. Someone posted on alla:

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...;num=19;page=1

(please see this topic. I posted it there but I want to try and figure out as much information as possible.)

I'm trying to build up concrete "proof" information to make this a viable investment. Should FFXI does indeed cap at about 5kb/s download speed, and even if people have like a 8mb connection and it still caps at 5kb/s and not more, this investment would allow me to play FFXI away from home.

So I hope the kind community can help. It's not that I'm desperate to play or anything, but it would be nice to play and use the internet at home.

[Zamphire]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

I dont have any proof, but last year in college our dorm internet conenctions were limited to 1gb transfer a week, and I left FF running 24/7, like literally, always, and never came close to breaking my limit. Maybe this helps. I really dont think it takes up any more bandwith then like a chat room.

[LadyKiKi]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

You left FFXI on like, all the time and never came close to even 1GB? Wow, that's amazing to know. But I did realise you said week, whereas I'm on a potential maximum of 1GB a month.

It's not concrete proof yet until I (or you) can figure out how much of that 1000mb you use a week, but I've always thought that FFXI is heavy on the bandwidth because everything is happening all the time (like, sitting in Jueno and you're getting 24/7 activity). But in comparison, I'll probably be doing 2 hours or less, a day, and up to 12 hours on the weekend. So once we have some figures I can work out roughly how much it takes.

Do you have some sort of internet monitor program which tells you how much you've spent, data wise, on particular services?

And if anyone else has more info, I'll be glad if you can tell me!

[Zamphire]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

You left FFXI on like, all the time and never came close to even 1GB? Wow, that's amazing to know. But I did realise you said week, whereas I'm on a potential maximum of 1GB a month.

It's not concrete proof yet until I (or you) can figure out how much of that 1000mb you use a week, but I've always thought that FFXI is heavy on the bandwidth because everything is happening all the time (like, sitting in Jueno and you're getting 24/7 activity). But in comparison, I'll probably be doing 2 hours or less, a day, and up to 12 hours on the weekend. So once we have some figures I can work out roughly how much it takes.

Do you have some sort of internet monitor program which tells you how much you've spent, data wise, on particular services?

And if anyone else has more info, I'll be glad if you can tell me!

Well see, the thing is, actually very little of FF is actually transfered over the internet. Almost everything is client side (on your computer). The only thing that gets transfered, is the Auction House, chat, and the position of people. And I say Position, not actual person, the models for the characters are already on your computer. I would agree with FF not going over 56k mark. I've played on 56k before and it's really not that bad for a MMO. Granted it took FOREVER to log in, but other than that it worked just fine.

I actually did go over once on my bandwith (I downloaded Final Fantasy Advent Children) and was limited to 56k connection and was still able to play just fine.

[LadyKiKi]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

Oh, very little is transferred? I never knew that, especially when I once camped King Arthro with my linkshell, it was very very laggy and the "S/R" thing, the R was constantly on 1000+ and got worst as it popped (2000+), which made me think that it's actually transferring HUGE amounts of data.

I'm patient enough to wait to login, but I've never played on a dial connection before. Played with a WHM who did who was a little slow on cures, but it doesn't seem that bad. I like the info you're giving me, many thanks. Is there anything else I should know?

[Zamphire]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

If you'd like to try you can. www.netzero.com you can get a free account that allows 10 hours of dial up a month for free, use it to test out the connection.

The part about KA actually helps back up the theory of being on a 56k max. If you've got 100 people standing in an area, which is really likely to happen at a HNM. Lets say each of those people need to send 2kb to you so you know where they are. That's 200kb a second trying to get through a connection that can only send 56kb a second, that's why you get so much lag. But normally you wont see more than 20-30 people at once, so you dont get lag, and it'd take FOREVER to use up 1gb.

Edit:
Just did a google search and came up with this post form someone
"I was last year a 56k user and I was amaze at how well FFXI play on a 56k. You almost never get lag, only maybe in jeuno but it's normal >.> and the zoning is a little more longer but really not that much. But yeah the big problem was the update >.> just the first one (you know when you just install the game and you have to update it) at that time without even CoP (it wasn,t realease the first time I played FFXI) it took me 27h to download the update and this is non-stop because you can't resume your download >.> so yeah my phone was "busy" for a whole day >.< and I couldn't do anything with my comp because at that time I didn't have a computer strong enough to be able to play another game ith the POL in background XD so yeah update are hell on 56k but IG it's perfect.(god i'm glad to be on cable now XD)"

[Regenshire]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

A couple of years ago, I used to have a perma group that had 3 roommates who all shared a 56k DIALUP connection (they couldn't get broadband in their area at the time). They never lagged due to connection speed, though they had more jeuno lag then I did. Once again, they were sharing the dial up connection. All three of them would be logged onto FFXI at the same time. It was one of the main reasons they all started playing the game.

They were some of the best players I have ever seen. The didn't have any delay due to lag in their actions.

[Macht]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

SE has said before, the game itself is restricted to a 56Kbps transfer rate (7KBps). If restricted to that the actual data has to be less then that. If 3 people could use it lag free with exception of Jeuno would figure the transfer to be something like 15Kbps (1,875 Bps).

Mean that in 1 day 24hrs would be about a total of 162MB transfered. In 1 week that would be about 1.1 GB, which depending on how the company figures it 1.1 GB would be hitting right at the true limit.

So if you have a 1GB limit a week you're likely getting right into the new allowed bandwidth just before hitting it.

Double Post Edited:

If you'd like to try you can. www.netzero.com you can get a free account that allows 10 hours of dial up a month for free, use it to test out the connection.

The part about KA actually helps back up the theory of being on a 56k max. If you've got 100 people standing in an area, which is really likely to happen at a HNM. Lets say each of those people need to send 2kb to you so you know where they are. That's 200kb a second trying to get through a connection that can only send 56kb a second, that's why you get so much lag. But normally you wont see more than 20-30 people at once, so you dont get lag, and it'd take FOREVER to use up 1gb.

Edit:
Just did a google search and came up with this post form someone
"I was last year a 56k user and I was amaze at how well FFXI play on a 56k. You almost never get lag, only maybe in jeuno but it's normal >.> and the zoning is a little more longer but really not that much. But yeah the big problem was the update >.> just the first one (you know when you just install the game and you have to update it) at that time without even CoP (it wasn,t realease the first time I played FFXI) it took me 27h to download the update and this is non-stop because you can't resume your download >.> so yeah my phone was "busy" for a whole day >.< and I couldn't do anything with my comp because at that time I didn't have a computer strong enough to be able to play another game ith the POL in background XD so yeah update are hell on 56k but IG it's perfect.(god i'm glad to be on cable now XD)"

For security reason other players PCs do not send data directly to your PC. It's transfered to the server and the sends out the report were everyone is. The increase on data transfered means there was more important information that had to get through so they were sent twice to try and make sure it got through.

Other specific you might want to check with companies is what are they restricting that 1GB too? Are they restricting the TCP or UDP. Some companies put that limit only on TCP, if that is the case then you can have the game running indefinatly and never hit that limit. However constantly starting up and shutting down the game would actually contribute to hitting that limit.

While in the actual game FFXI only uses UDP, connecting and downloads it should be using TCP.

[Lhun]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

Not much at all. the most I've seen coming from ffxi is about 20kbps in aht urgan whitegate by the AH.
(go go realtime bandwidth monitor on router! )

[Macht]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

Not much at all. the most I've seen coming from ffxi is about 20kbps in aht urgan whitegate by the AH.
(go go realtime bandwidth monitor on router! )

Lol, so my calculations were close. I have a bandwidth monitor on the router just I had it inactive, figured I could always get close on my own calculating if I needed.

[tdh]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

Yeah, I've never really paid attention to the PS2 network activities since I did the Network Adapter Beta test. (Back when it had problems handling some connection sharing, I had to do a lot of trouble shooting over the phone. So I emailed a lotta log data trying to get it fixed.)

But now that you've mentioned this, I'm going to have to turn on some monitors and check out what's going on. I did FFXI Beta on Dial Up though. And I didn't have much in the way of problems outside of Lower Jeuno. Now on a Cable connection I still have problems with Jeuno, but that's more a PS2 issue and not so much a bandwidth issue.

[Jarre]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

I have netmeter on my computer and a 20GB a month limit, I set it going and played fighting in kazham for 2 hours, total data transfer for 2 hours was about 26mb. (total up and down.) The killer is the updates, especially the first one when you install the game.

[Macht]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

I have netmeter on my computer and a 20GB a month limit, I set it going and played fighting in kazham for 2 hours, total data transfer for 2 hours was about 26mb. (total up and down.) The killer is the updates, especially the first one when you install the game.

So that calculates on average to being about 28.8Kbps.

[Jarre]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

I havn't worked it out, unsure how to to be honest, but that sounds about right, It would be more in Jeuno I'll experiment next time I play and visit many areas including jeuno and also with teh festivals going on, more scenery to load and NPC's.

[Tirrock]

Re: Does FFXI consume much bandwidth?

I'd be extremely surprised if it broke 1GB a month, even with a fairly high playtime of 6-8 hours a day.

Edit:
Well, on second thought you might hit it with beseiged if you play the game a lot and do that or any other super crowded event often.