Download limits

My ISP has a set of, fairly reasonable, peak time download limits and a, fairly reasonable, sustainable usage policy. Problem is, since I discovered SL these are going to be pushed to the limit. I've already upgraded my account to one with higher limits and I feel, addiction being what it is, that things aren't going to get any easier.

So, my question - is there anything I can do to lower the download from SL, or are these the same steps that we take to reduce lag etc? Is finding some other addiction to wallow in my only option?

Wow! a thread not about copybot!!

Hi Bob, I have the very same thoughts and have tried to find out just what kind of data quantity I've been getting through. My ISP say that in the first month of going over limilt they will politely inform me but allow it and only in the second month put any pressure on to upgrade etc.
I've not been in SL a month yet so am tentatively awaiting the result!

Ok, you need to monitor your network activity.

In WinXp you can do this by

Right click on My Network Places, and select Properties in the Drop Down Box
Find your internet connection in the list, and double click it.

A Network connection status box will appear, in that it will give you a running total of sent and recieved packets

(being on a network can screw up this result, as network traffic on the local net will skew the result... )

If I were you, I would be shopping for an ISP with capacity. Bandwith is cheap in today's market and it's not like people are going to use less of it in the future.

Not sure how much this helps, but I'll copy/paste the statistics from my ISP for this month . Other than web-surfing I really don't do a whole lot online anymore other than SL .

The numbers will be a little bit skewed since anything downloaded between midnight and 8am only counts for half, so the actual numbers are going to be slightly higher.

I don't idle/camp in SL so this is from interactive, actual use. One thing I did find that slashed my download by half was to stop listening to music streams, not exactly a fun thing but I already pay 10€ month extra for extra download just for SL as it is .

(Columns are date, amount downloaded in Mb, amount uploaded in Mb)

   2/11     756     80  
   3/11     798     74   
   4/11     552     62   
   5/11     803     76  
   6/11     699     51   
   7/11     558     48   
   8/11     632     30   
   9/11     968     91   
  10/11   1.035     62   
  11/11     658     64   
  12/11     552     60   
  13/11     673     78

Interesting replies, thanks.

Especially Kitty's comment that not using the music streams cut download such a lot; I guess the same thing would apply to video streaming.

Anyone got any other hot hints like that one? For instance, does reducing graphics detail like ripples and so on have an effect - or is it going to be negligible?

I suppose that keeping draw distance really low (like 64m) would cut down on streaming, as long as you stay in the same place, as SL then doesn't have to stream the whole sim's content (and its neighbor's). Just a guess.

Not clearing the cache every time you log off (which I do) might help as well, but in my experience doing that prevents a whole lot of other problems that it's probably worth whatever little bit of extra download it adds .

Ripples on the water is purely on our end I think, you can ask Linden Answers but I don't think right now is a good time to ask anything you want to see answered .

The suggestion of limiting draw distance is probably a good one as well, although I have mine set to 96, and not 64 because that does seem rather low.

I'm on the move most of the time, or in shops so draw distance I don't think would make much difference to me anyway. Sound stream is an almost constant drain admittedly. A video stream would be a multiple of it.
I do camp at times - sorry folks! - but I'm sure Kitty's data rate would be within my ISP's limits. Shall check on mine tonight using Khainne's tip - nice one!

Dropping your draw distance and setting SL's bandwidth cap low may be the solution to your problem.

I'm unearthing this thread cos I just asked our System Administrator how much in Gb a packet is. He says it isn't a direct ratio. I wonder from this just of what value Microsoft's packets are?

I'd like a clear reading of just how many Gb I'm downloading/uploading but he says even the IP can't accurately measure it. Any views please?

Another way to save bandwidth is to not use streaming music and video where possible. I've noticed a lot of streams in SL are 128k - or higher - when you can't actually tell much difference between that and a 24k stream.

I always use the lowest bandwidth I can when setting my parcel music for that very reason. I am in the UK and almost everyone is on a capped bandwidth package; even my 'highest available' 40GB package could get close if I spent most of the day playing SL, thankfully reality tends to get in the way of that.

Lewis