Bandwidth and chatrooms

4 Nov 2010

Not a complaint, just a question.
I have limited download/upload of 1GB per month. Since I have started using the new chatroom server I find that my 1GB runs out much more quickly.
Is this due to the new server and, if so, is here anything I can do to minimise the problem I have?
Thanks

4 Nov 2010

Quote by Couple_NE
Not a complaint, just a question.
I have limited download/upload of 1GB per month. Since I have started using the new chatroom server I find that my 1GB runs out much more quickly.
Is this due to the new server and, if so, is here anything I can do to minimise the problem I have?
Thanks

You could try your settings within the new Chat ('spanner' icon in top right), and reduce the cam size and cam quality, which should 'throttle back' the amount of data you are downloading

5 Nov 2010

Ive heard the same from someone i chat too so ive investigated.
1) The 'Camera Quality' is related to your cam quality that you are sending rather than the viewing quality from what i can see in my bandwidth tests, so this can be a problem for people that have bandwidth limitations as they have no control over it.
2) The 'Camera Size' has no affect on bandwidth usage, its a display thing only.
both the issues cause problems for bandwidth limited users, not least thoes that use 3G cards as it causes longer ping times and makes the connection to the chat even slower.

8 Nov 2010

Quote by TSM
Ive heard the same from someone i chat too so ive investigated.
1) The 'Camera Quality' is related to your cam quality that you are sending rather than the viewing quality from what i can see in my bandwidth tests, so this can be a problem for people that have bandwidth limitations as they have no control over it.
2) The 'Camera Size' has no affect on bandwidth usage, its a display thing only.
both the issues cause problems for bandwidth limited users, not least thoes that use 3G cards as it causes longer ping times and makes the connection to the chat even slower.

Indeed this is spot on.
Currently we can't give different quality streams for receiving, only sending. This is because the server would have to convert the video before sending it out to the users who need the lower quality, which will require a lot more processing power.
We do have plans to integrate this, and also some form of auto bandwidth detection so the camera quality will automatically adjust. However at the moment we can only simply 'repeat' the stream that the user sends up.

8 Nov 2010

Quote by Elliot
Ive heard the same from someone i chat too so ive investigated.
1) The 'Camera Quality' is related to your cam quality that you are sending rather than the viewing quality from what i can see in my bandwidth tests, so this can be a problem for people that have bandwidth limitations as they have no control over it.
2) The 'Camera Size' has no affect on bandwidth usage, its a display thing only.
both the issues cause problems for bandwidth limited users, not least thoes that use 3G cards as it causes longer ping times and makes the connection to the chat even slower.

Indeed this is spot on.
Currently we can't give different quality streams for receiving, only sending. This is because the server would have to convert the video before sending it out to the users who need the lower quality, which will require a lot more processing power.
We do have plans to integrate this, and also some form of auto bandwidth detection so the camera quality will automatically adjust. However at the moment we can only simply 'repeat' the stream that the user sends up.
what about a warning/note on viewing HQ streams and/or a special code that if a bandwidth limited user tries to view a HQ stream the sender starts a simulcast low bw version
this is causing many problems for people using 3G cards as they have no idea about how the camera bandwidth works