[TML] New 3d computer simulation design

[shadow at shadowgard.com]

On 3 Dec 2007 at 10:01, Timothy Little wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 10:20:43AM +0100, Knapp wrote:
> > We are talking, about talking :-}, between planets and I was just
> > assuming that it would take a lot of power to do it thus have high
> > cost but getting cheaper with higher tech planets.  Even with VoIP
> > you must pay for your internet.  Cost more for more bandwidth makes
> > sense to me.
> 
> The flip side is "costs less for less bandwidth".  Voice communication
> requires *hundreds* of times the bitrate of text.  Basing the
> difficulty of character-to-character communication on the cost of
> voice calls and ignoring text is just silly in a game that will likely
> be based almost entirely on text communication anyway.

Yep. I'm old enough to remember when telegrams were still used. 
Though by then they were actually sent by teletype.

For that matter, 15 years ago businesses with international customers 
still used telex systems to send messages. One of my jobs was keeping 
an eye on one (a proprietary computer, that used quad density 5.25" 
floppies as well as a hard disk)

> And yes, I agree you must pay for your bandwidth even with VoIP.  For
> me, that's about 0.000000005 cents per bit.  Your cost is probably
> lower.  If it were 0.01 cents per bit, then VoIP would cost about
> $36/minute.  At the same bandwidth cost, the contents of this email
> would be at most 90 cents - but probably quite a bit less, since then
> it would be worth encoding more efficiently.

It's instructive comparing transmission technologies. For example, 
the fax machine was invented (and in *use*) before the telephone.

Somewhere in the archives is a discussion of formats and cost for X-
boat messages. At a guess, 10 years back.

We had it broken down using then current stuff and a bit of guessing 
as to future tech.

For example, based on per bit or byte charges, it's noticeably 
cheaper to use a limited character set (Baudot or ASCII) than to use 
something like unicode.

Images cost more, depending on resolution, colors and compression. 
Some things, like logos can be encoded for as a code number or 
something, saving a lot. And for some things, vector formats are a 
big win.

Sound? Again you can save a lot by reducing the frequency range and 
digitization rate. It's instructive to compare stuff digitization at 
different rates and with different parameters.

Video gets interesting. 2 hours of high quality video (DVD) uses a 
bit over 4 gig. But you can get quite acceptable results in 1 gig. 
Below that you start getting *serious* digitization artifacts. 

3d moving images will only be worse...


--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com