Slow version update

[Sureaboutthis]

Apologies if this is posted in the wrong place as this is more of a playonline problem than a game problem.

Platform: Windows
ISP: Canal Digital
Type of Internet Connection: CATV
Internet Connection Speed: 70Mbps
Date & Time: Des 11, 2011 21:43 GMT+1

The version update released 14/12 seem to download very slow.

This patch is 137.1MB for the windows version.

On my 70Mbps connection a bestcase download time would be about 15-16 seconds, instead it seems to be taking about 4-5 hours.
(the same speed a 56 Kbps modem would use to download this amount of data!)

Would it be possible to change the downloader to use a faster server or alternatively bittorrent?

FFXIV uses bittorrent for its laucher so SE obviously has the technology.

[Maranello]

Same for me and I'm on 100MB...

[RAIST]

it's more an issue with the connections in general--as in too many people pulling the download atm. Best I've gotten from most any server over there is a 6Mb stream on average during peak traffic (and I've been able to maintain upwards of 12Mb streams to closer sites). Granted, I don't do much pulling from the JP region, as most companies will have a regional server that is better to use.

14's torrent system was using P2P when I was in the beta...so you were using shared pooling amongst the players. That may require more of a change to the underlying structure of the POL system than they are willing to commit to. Would be great if they would do it...I just don't expect them to any time soon. We'd probably have better luck asking for offline regional download mirrors. Given enough time, a new package with the updated ROM's may be made available at one of the FFXI forum sites to that end.

[Meyi]

Are you new to FFXI and update time? The day of update is always the slowest to upload. If you were to wait a couple of days the speed would pick up tremendously.

[Sureaboutthis]

Point is that i pay 0 Euro per year to access youtube.com and can watch all the 1080p vids i want, while i pay about 155 Euro per year to play FFXI and still download at a trickle.

[Kaisha]

Given FFXI's current dev budget, and how they haven't upgrade their download pipelines over the past 8 years, I doubt we'll be seeing any changes for the foreseeable future.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

One thing they actually got right with XIV was P2P downloads.

[Kaisha]

One thing they actually got right with XIV was P2P downloads.
Only if you used a proper torrent client. XIV's 'official' one was absolutely horrendous on average connection speeds and it abused your upstream while it was at it, making web browsing or doing other online tasks a no-go while updating.

It's always one step forward, two steps back with this company. They don't know how to make PC games, and refuse to look at how other companies do their business as an example.

[Alhanelem]

The update is slow because a lot of people are downloading it. It's not a bug.

[MojoJojo]

Since i've been playing this game i've always considered "update day" a write-off. I've always found something else to do that day because its a bloody nightmare to update it and it's always been like that. SE has shown no interest in fixing the logjam, so you might as well find the closest wall and start shouting at it.

[Kimikryo]

It's not a bug.

Yeah you are right, its a feature

[Alhanelem]

Yeah you are right, its a feature
Well a bad / poorly designed feature, but yes. :p

Usually, if you are able to update the moment the servers go down via file check, or the instant the check version button comes up, the wait isn't too bad. It's when the majority of people realize the servers are up / the update is available that things get crappy.

[Xellith]

Just use a 3rd party source like all the cool kids. Downloading from POL is a pain and they should fix that.

[Sureaboutthis]

Thing is that a lot of companies experience high bandwidth demand, this is handled in 2 different ways.

1. Add capasity to the system.
2. Do nothing and hope for the best.

Just because something has been broken "forever" doesent mean it is supposed to be that way.

[RAIST]

not so much an issue with capacity of their system, as the way the updates are packaged. I pulled down the update list file at 2.6Mb...then the downloads bounced from 200k to 1Mbit as it limped along (I monitor it to get a better picture of how long it will actually take).

It's an issue with the difference between sending 2000 small files in rapid succession, vs one zip file of all those small files as a single download. All that overhead generated from all the extra acknowledgements from starting/stopping all those little files bogs everything down. Couple that with some of the screwy bandwidth throttling policies and you have a nasty mix of things working against you.

So, basically what we've got is hundreds of thousands of users spamming the network for 1700 tiny files and stopping and starting every couple of seconds, injecting a crapload of lag into the process and possibly tripping up throttling from the service providers as well.

What they need to do is tweak the method for downloading the files first, then look into if there are bandwidth issues.

[Sureaboutthis]

I would guess that part of the problem is playonline's netcode using a proprietary protocol instead of http(s).
Switching downloads to http(s) would make it way easier to integrate third-party cdn's to the download process.

[Xellith]

Or they could just pack the patches into .exe files and distribute them to the community sites for them to distribute so the players can either just download with POL on all platforms or PC from alternate sites. Mirrors help.

The Dev team is just lazy. We all know it.

[cidbahamut]

I'd go with 'incompetent', but your adjective might also be appropriate.

[Dreamin]

Going to HTTP as transport is a very bad idea because HTTP is a very inefficient protocol. There are way too many overheads for HTTP to handle that kind of transport. Better use would be FTP (or other derivative versions of file transfer protocol that's meant primarily for transfering of files with much lower overhead) if they want to go with a centralized method and BitTorrent if they want to go the P2P method.

[My gut tells me that SE is probably using some form of derivative of rsync currently and is the cause of the bottleneck]

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Going to HTTP as transport is a very bad idea because HTTP is a very inefficient protocol

The protocol isn't the problem, the bottleneck is that it can only be downloaded from S-E's servers, and their pipe is only so fat.

You can download UCAE multiple times from Amazon in the time it takes to apply this one update.

[xbobx]

Haven't you guys all figured it out yet? The patch is part of the grind. SE's sole purpose is to waste peoples time.