>Online games pass mere kilobytes at a time. So I'm not surprised. >There isn't a massive transfer of content such as Textures etc. >normally (Second Life is an exception sort of).
"At a time" perhaps... but that's nearly constant (at least in action games). When you've got 40 people playing in a round of "Resistance" all 40 people are sending constant streams of information and the server is sending a constant stream of amalgamated data to each player. The actual data stream is small (just metadata really) but still - it seems like it should add up. And that's JUST for the core game... nearly all popular games support voice chat as well. When I'm playing "Team Fortress" I'm sending a (granted highly compressed) voice stream and getting an audio stream back - in many games the return stream is unique for each player (as you may only hear those players close to you). It's not nearly as popular but more and more games also support video feeds as well. "Uno" on XBox Live may only require a few bytes of information to inform everybody of the actual play going on, but add in four audio and video streams over the course of an hour of play and it just has to add up. At the very least with the consoles (well, at least XBox and PS3) doing more and more sophisticated online functionality I think that number will begin to climb. When it's release "Home" on the PS3 will allow you to display a video on your virtual apartment's TV screen - anybody in the apartment will get a live feed of it. Same for audio played on your virtual stereo. You'll also be talking to perhaps a dozen people at the same time. Damn... I need FIOS. ;^) Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;203748912;27390454;j Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:262623 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
