Threading via 5G Smartphone / Laptop

[ApathyMan]

Just came back from a lengthy hiatus, and figured this time around I'd try something a little different.

Basically, I work twelve hour shifts at work, and out of those hours, there can be a lot of downtime. Plenty of time for Gemstone, right? Nope. My company's network has all the good stuff blocked, like many workplaces, and the PC's there stubbornly prohibit just about any non-approved program from executing. However, there's no rules against using personal laptops on the job, and I've seen a coworker tether his laptop to his Smartphone for his own unrestricted internet access.

Curious, I was wondering how much data Gemstone would probably use over a month of 10+ hour a day (heavy) use, using two accounts simultaneously. I receive a very reliable 5G signal at work. Right now my plan is unlimited, but throttles to 256kbps after about 50 gigs/month. I can remember the horrid days of playing GS on 56kbps dialup, but even then I don't remember it being too bad. Even if it should exceed the data cap and throttle back, it shouldn't be too unbearable, would it?

Any thoughts before I went out and got a laptop to satisfy my at-work Gemstone needs?

[Ramrod]

It shouldn't be much data since it's all text. Basically you could look at the size of a log file after a shift and good a decent idea if you're logging everything - story, thoughts, lnet, local echo, etc. Here's a thread on mud bandwidth usage: https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.mud.admin/c/cv0nn2ThliM

[septus]

Logs will cut out metadata. That said, if say you had a 5x amount of data vs logs due to meta-data you'd be looking at a max of about 20MB a day. Most likely a typical month would use less than 500MB. A single load of some websites will most likely consume more bandwidth than a single character would take over a 10 hour session.

[Maerit]

The best way to do this is actually to run Teamviewer on your home PC with a solid network connection, and control that PC from either a cell phone or tethered laptop, vs trying to rely on a weak or unstable connection. It should potentially reduce the network traffic also as all the commands / logging / data is being done via your home PC to the game servers, while your remote device is just interfacing with the streamed display and KB/Mouse inputs.

[Rjex]

You'd probably use up more data watching a single HD youtube film than you spend in a month of playing GS. I'm logged in a solid 14-16 hours a day and my logs total 400 mb per month per char. You can assume actual data received is several times more. You will never come close to hitting your data throttling limit if it's 50 gig/month.

[Anebriated]

The best way to do this is actually to run Teamviewer on your home PC with a solid network connection, and control that PC from either a cell phone or tethered laptop, vs trying to rely on a weak or unstable connection. It should potentially reduce the network traffic also as all the commands / logging / data is being done via your home PC to the game servers, while your remote device is just interfacing with the streamed display and KB/Mouse inputs.

I use the Remote Desktop built into the google platform to play from my home PC when I’m at work.it can be a little slow at times but it gets the job done.

[ApathyMan]

Thank you all for the information! I tried via TeamViewer on our work PC's, which are already installed so our savage IT department can do their business, but it appears they've set them up via a specific company client that only allows the work PC to host instead of connect to a remote client. However, I might try installing Chrome Remote Desktop on my home PC and see if I can connect to it via the work PC as a workaround.

If that doesn't fly, it's nice to know GS won't gobble up too much data if resorting to buying a laptop and tethering it.

Thanks again!

[Rjex]

Can also try anydesk, tends to work better than teamviewer.

[Ramrod]

The best way to do this is actually to run Teamviewer on your home PC with a solid network connection, and control that PC from either a cell phone or tethered laptop, vs trying to rely on a weak or unstable connection. It should potentially reduce the network traffic also as all the commands / logging / data is being done via your home PC to the game servers, while your remote device is just interfacing with the streamed display and KB/Mouse inputs.

If you're trying to save bandwidth, I'm not sure that Teamviewer would be the best approach. Instead of a text stream, now you have images and if you're using encryption all that will get encapsulated. Teamviewer or similar is great for just "playing" on an iPad or if you can't install the client and connect directly.

Regardless, getting throttled to 256kbps still leaves plenty of bandwidth to play GS.

[Rjex]

Agreed, pretty sure a text feed for GS will consume less, even with all the meta data.

[Lavastene]

FYI From 2.2 to 3.1 I used 5.10GB of Hotspot/Tethering data typically running 6 accounts for 9 hours a day.

1.2 to 2.1 was 3.96GB.