[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Network bandwidth, and other things.

[Christian Knoke <chrisk@xxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Nov 05, 2002 at 03:37:33PM +0000, Vasco Alexandre Da Silva Costa wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Nov 2002, Raimar Falke wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 05, 2002 at 05:38:38AM -0500, Jason Dorje Short wrote:
> 
> > less real than user. This normally indicates an SMP system. This isn't
> > one. Ok we can say that the setup and tear-down costs are <10ms.
> >
> > Juan may instrument his code to provide better numbers. But IMHO the
> > raw numbers are good enough. More problematic is that because we don't
> > have a stream of packets anymore but a meta-packet which consits of
> > packets the client can't start its expensive graphical updates early
> > (after the first packet arrived).
> 
> I would still like to see real numbers with actual data on the final
> source code which show the performance (bytes transfered, throughput,
> minimum/average/maximum packet latency) of the current client, with
> the delta patch and with zlib before commiting the code.
> 
> I still think zlib compression is probably a waste of time on most cases.
> Fact is if you are on a slow connection like I am you are more than likely
> using PPP with compress or deflate compression built-in.
> 
> Of course if you know beforehand you are going to send the whole map for
> e.g. it may be profitable to compress it before sending it.

I also wonder how _short_ packets can be compressed by zlib at all.

You also should take care of that no packets are sent with delay.
The network lag you have with modems hurts much more, than the occasional
delays due to the amount of data transferred at the beginning e.g..

Also note that big packets are slower than short packets, with modems,
AFAIK. This may also depend on the modem implementation and configuration.

Christian

-- 
Christian Knoke     * * *      http://www.enter.de/~c.knoke/
* * * * * * * * *  Ceterum censeo Microsoft esse dividendum.