eli5: Why watching games online (stream) is possible even with low internet connectivity, but playing them isn’t ??
In: Technology
When watching them you are primarily downloading data. When playing you are likely downloading and uploading data at similar rates. This is because you need to send your inputs to other the server which sends them to other people and other people have to do the same thing so you can see their character move. And it has to do this for every character in a loaded area or even just on screen. Either way it’s a lot more data intensive to play than to watch.
All streaming video buffers data for you to play – even if you’re not needing to wait for the buffer. So, if you have an intermittent internet connection rather than say, downloading chunk after chunk after chunk of data without interruption, maybe you’re getting 10 chunks then a delay then 5 chunks then a delay then 2 chunks then a delay then another 10 chunks. That’s fine, because the video’s buffering everything ahead of time so your playback isn’t interrupted because that’d be unwatchable.
With live games though, there’s really no way to buffer. The game can’t know what you or other players are going to do next – I mean yes, there’s some very minor predictive elements going on to hide very minor connectivity issues/variation in connectivity levels between players, but nothing like streaming video. So you get 10 chunks of data, then there’s a delay and suddenly you stop getting information on what all the other players are doing. Then you get the info again with another 5 chunks and it works for a little bit, but then it cuts out again.
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