Curse

Alexandra-Sweet · Sep 20, 2008, 08:07 AM // 08:07

Lets say that I play Guild Wars 6 hours a day and have an internet connection with a data limit of 200MB a month, how fast would Guild Wars reach the 200MB limit? (excluding updates) PS. In some hospitals mobile phones need to be turned off, does that also apply to laptops with mobile internet?

zeal101 · Sep 20, 2008, 08:21 AM // 08:21

8 <= x <= 14 MB per hour...i stand to be corrected.

Screwin McCat · Sep 20, 2008, 08:44 AM // 08:44

I work in a hospital and use a laptop with a mobile connection everyday so there is no restriction about using mobile broadband. The reason behind the stopping of usage of mobile phones on wards is the theoretical risk that they will interfere with the electrical signals that infusion pumps read and possibly reset them, but I have never had any experience of this or know anyone that has. Added to which the majority of Consultants and senior doctors now all carry mobiles on their ward rounds in order that they can be contacted urgently it kinda makes the above arguments against mobiles defunct. You should be fine to continue to play Guildwars whilst recuperating - good luck!

Numa Pompilius · Sep 20, 2008, 10:10 AM // 10:10

If you add the switch -perfs to your guildwars shortcut, you get stats on e.g. how much data is being transferred per second.

Running in Kamadan, with about a hundred other players ( a worst-case scenario), the transfer rate I got was at all times below 100 bytes per second. That's very low, and would translate into a total transfer of data over one hour of play of less than 300 kilobytes.

Although I didn't think bandwidth requirement was that low, I knew it was low, as I knew GW was playable even with a 28.8 dial up connection.

Numa Pompilius · Sep 20, 2008, 10:11 AM // 10:11

If you add the switch -perfs to your guildwars shortcut, you get stats on e.g. how much data is being transferred per second.

Running in Kamadan, with about a hundred other players ( a worst-case scenario), the transfer rate I got was at all times below 100 bytes per second. That's very low, and would translate into a total transfer of data over one hour of play of less than 300 kilobytes.

Although I didn't think bandwidth requirement was that low, I knew it was low, as I knew GW was playable even with a 28.8 dial up connection.

Lita · Sep 20, 2008, 10:29 AM // 10:29

Don't listen to above, hes probably reading his FPS meter, as that figure is impossible.

I jump between 1-2KB/sec in a major town and 500-700bytes on average in 8-man pve.

By my maths, (200 MB) / (600 (Bytes / sec)) = 16.1817284 days assuming 6 hours a day. Maybe slighly less because of random updates and loading in a new zone has a small bandwidth spike to tell the client where everything is.

Numa Pompilius · Sep 20, 2008, 11:47 AM // 11:47

Haha, damn, you're right. Apologies. However, in my defence, the text is a bit hard to read at high resolutions:
http://s211.photobucket.com/albums/b...rent=gw038.jpg

Flightmare · Sep 20, 2008, 12:54 PM // 12:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Screwin McCat

I work in a hospital and use a laptop with a mobile connection everyday so there is no restriction about using mobile broadband. The reason behind the stopping of usage of mobile phones on wards is the theoretical risk that they will interfere with the electrical signals that infusion pumps read and possibly reset them, but I have never had any experience of this or know anyone that has. Added to which the majority of Consultants and senior doctors now all carry mobiles on their ward rounds in order that they can be contacted urgently it kinda makes the above arguments against mobiles defunct. You should be fine to continue to play Guildwars whilst recuperating - good luck!

I think he isn't talking about WiFi, but about mobile internet which DOES use the mobile phone network. Add in he's talking about a 200MB bandwith limit which often happens to be on mobile internet.

Alexandra-Sweet · Sep 20, 2008, 01:02 PM // 13:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flightmare

I think he isn't talking about WiFi, but about mobile internet which DOES use the mobile phone network. Add in he's talking about a 200MB bandwith limit which often happens to be on mobile internet.

Yep... but like Screwin McCat already said, hospital personel use mobile phones so that shouldn't be a problem... and I'm a she.

moriz · Sep 20, 2008, 01:47 PM // 13:47

GW uses a lot more bandwidth in explorable/pvp zones, and dials it back in towns.

this is because GW relies so much on split second reactions and positioning, so each character in explorable/pvp zones require a lot more bandwidth than a typical mmo. for instance, if WoW dedicates 1kb/s of bandwidth per character, GW dedicates 12kb/s.

shanaya · Sep 20, 2008, 02:21 PM // 14:21

I monitor my usage while playing GW via my ISP and it averages out at about 20mb per hour.

fusa · Sep 20, 2008, 03:47 PM // 15:47

My ISP limits daily bandwidth to 200mb daily. I never reached the limit while vanquishing or doing hm missions, dungeons for several hours daily. The bandwidth is MUCH less than 20mb/hour and defiantly not 14 kbs. Before my current ISP I was on dialup, which maxes at 5kbps, this was much smoother than my current ISP. You should be fine also, unless you need to replace your gw.dat. It wasn't until I started playing a lot less that I exceeded the limit. Unfortunately at that limit, windows updates, driver updates, music and videos aren't an option.

Screwin McCat · Sep 20, 2008, 06:02 PM // 18:02

The only hospital environment that requires mobile phones to be turned off is ITU/ICU, and bearing in mind you would probably be sedated and paralysed if you were in that environment you definitely wouldn't be playing guildwars! There is currently no recognised problem with mobile phones - just a theoretical risk. And to clarify the previous comment I was discussing the use of mobile broadband via a usb dongle - not wifi. I have used this on a daily basis for 18 months with no problems.