Super Fast Download!

I don't have a superfast connection but, as someone who has whined at you periodically in the past about getting really crappy speeds through SDC, I am very happy to report that ToA is currently DLing as fast as my connection will allow. Whether it was this update or a previous one that improved things for me, it's much appreciated.

I can't really say it will make me more likely to buy software digitally, though, since I was already very willing to do so.

- Ash

Ideally, I think most people want to be able to download and install in less time than it takes to drive to the store and purchase. I want to at least save some gas money, but I don't want to lose time due to poor upload speeds. I'm running 385KB/sec right now, and that seems to be fine. It's very nice to have the faster speeds on release days.

It does appear to be faster on Impulse than it was on SDC. If this is contributive to the new system then i must say it is working. I am not getting super speed but that could be the sheer number of people trying to download it at once.

Compared to the snail speed on previous downloads i am more than happy and have invested in another 10 TGN tokens.

I'm not sure how fast my downloading is because SDC is telling me the speed is fluctuating a lot. But I will say that faster servers are always worth it. People with broadband get used to pulling down stuff at fast speeds and when a website/service doesn't fill their bandwidth, people get annoyed and impatient.

I'm not getting that high speeds, but that's probably due to my connection. It does seem faster than when I was downloading Dark Avatar.

I think there's a cutoff point. If people want to pay for downloaded content, they expect a fast a download. If it takes ages to download they'll get frustrated and never do it again. They'll pick up their car and go get it. They'll have the advantage of physical medium as well. If however everything goes without a cinch, then they might not notice it and go through to play their game and generally feel happy. This might subconciously convince them that digital download is a good idea and make them consider it again for another game.

I have to say that Impulse is downloading very very fast compared to the speeds at which previous updates were delivered via SDC. I know this by how fast the progress is growing and lots of experience. It would be nice to have a real number in there for download speed though.

Also, does the distributed download system that you refer to cause me to upload anything to other users or is this a distribution of your servers?

It's all our own servers. We're not doing a torrent or anything like that.

I'm way over in Scotland and have been eagerly awaiting this for aages. I was expecting a slooow download at release but after a few minutes ago i'm already over 10% of the way there . I'm averaging about 100kb/s compared to my max of around 500 but, considering the game's just been released and i'm miles and miles away, and still do not have long to wait, i'm more than happy.

In terms of value for Stardock's money, personally if the download had been slow i'd just have left it on overnight, since it's already after 9pm over here, and been quite disappointed but i pre-ordered it months ago. I've only briefly tried the betas though, just enough to become extremely excited about the final release.

I would say though that overall download speed is a big thing for me. I'm happy for a little sluggishness at release time but if I, say, bought a digitally released game a month after release and was getting terrible download rates, i'd be really rather frustrated and annoyed.

So, once again, as i've just reached 25%, congratulations to Stardock on a job well-done. Can't wait to get the game loaded up and have the updated AI wipe the floor with me on tough as i struggle to adjust to the oodles of changes. My DA games are currently pretty much focused on playing the Altarians or occasionally the Korx (the one race i feel really feels massively different from the others in DA) so i'm looking forward to the inevitable destruction of my real life that these new tech trees should force upon me .

Australia here...

Dude, it's smoking down the wire at 155. Was not expecting this sort of speed at all, in answer to your question: Yes. This does fuzzy me up regards digital d/load, I wasn't expecting to be playing for hours... Good thing I'm sick and there's a storm coming.

Today is a great day.

I'm enjoying the speed. The only reason I didn't beta test Twilight is because my connection is kind of finnicky and I didn't want to spend all that time for a slow download to have it konk out on me.

However, if you're going to be using this in the future, I'll be beta testing Political Machine 2008 for you.

I was getting it through SDC, and I had a constant speed of around 1600-1700 KB/sec on a 15 megabit/s line - pretty good. No...in fact that is awesome, considering that I am located in Denmark.

Morten

I'm in the South of UK, with a theoretical link speed of 6Mb, and I got 765Kb/s on the upgrade via SDC. 24Mb links are starting to be a reality in UK, and it will not be long before they become relatively common - albeit not everywhere for a good while yet.

The high speed pipe is definitely worth it from this end. The ever increasing bandwidth being made available to end users will raise the Bar on expectation in a similar way to the original dialup/512Kb/s switchover. Its an excellent move by Stardock to upgrade the link speeds at its end. A Digital "only" provider - or at the least, one who's main strategy is going to be on line purchase & download - has to have top quality links or it will get hammered by users with ever increasing local bandwidth, else at best it will turn off new prospects to routine game downloading & purchase when they cant utilise their increased bandwidth.

Great move - my Vote is a definite yes in terms of utility and encouraging online purchase & download.

Regards
Zy

Whoa! MUCH faster than previous downloads. My jaw hit the floor when it started off at 3200k, as if my computer said "GIMME!" like some drug deprived junkie.

Now it's back down to a "normal" but steady 780k-800k on my broadband. Still much faster than before though.

The speed was awesome, between 1600 - 1800 kB/s, on a 20MBit line in Belgium, that's almost "maxxed out" . It is greatly appreciated, that must have cost you quite a lot, but it encourages digital downloads, that's for sure. At least it does for me. I was fearing 100-150kB download speed, but i was very pleasantly surprised to see the tenfold!

My speed readings were all over the place while I was downloading. But, it only took 7 minutes to get the whole thing (I'm in NW Florida). Since it didn't cost me anything (well, not directly, anyway), your new servers were definitely worth the cost.

Whether or not this would induce me to buy more software online, I don't know. In Stardock's case, since you guys are the best company in the world, and I love the fact that you store my licenses and I can re-download easily via SDC, the download speed doesn't make that much difference (well, within reason, anyway). I buy and download software from you because you're Stardock. On the other hand, I've vowed to never buy certain other company's products because their web sites are agonizingly slow and downloads darn near impossible (and I don't even want to talk about support). In TA's case, seven minutes to download a game is great. Fifteen minutes would still be good. After that, I might start chomping at the bit. But, then again, this being launch day, I was really expecting the download to last for hours.

Pulling TA down at a rate of about 1200 kb/s, which is pretty speedy. Not exactly maxing the connection out (connecting from a university with about 1 gb/s total bandwidth available), but pretty good from Australia

the speed was better than some other places.

avg. 800+ KB/sec, except for that point where it bumped up to 33386 KB/sec

much better for digidownloads. The concept only really becomes useful for those with broadband or better, which is becoming much more common.

Look at the screenshot i already posted elswhere in this forum:



Yes, i think that rocks. ^^ And there is nothing more annoying than to have the connection but not being able to use it because the servers are lame. That were only 4mins or so until i got it fully upgraded from a fresh install

I was getting around the 500kb mark and a test on my line shows the following for speed

I downloaded twilight earlier at my FIOS connections top speed which rarely happens so I definitely like the system as long as it doesn't cost you guys too much to have servers like this. Steam has almost never been that fast for me.

This is great feedback. Glad downloads are working so well.

For me, the download speeds were about what I would expect on days that weren't very busy.

If you were to ask me about what services to add, I would been more likely to say "How about you set aside some space on the forums so we may upload files, pictures, and other stuff without having to rely on another website like Image Shack to do this stuff." than to to say "Increase the download speeds of SDC.".

However, it would appear that many others appreciate the faster download speeds.

________________
Well, thats my feed back.

Have a 10 meg connection here and even before the tweaks I was getting 1mb download speeds. Now I'm getting around 1.3-1.4 and I love it. It was one of the first things I noticed about SDC when I downloaded Sins. Hardly any sites let people download that quick and I'm impressed. Definitely the first place I'd look to when wanting to download a game.

I recently downloaded TA on my home's high-speed cable-connection, from SDC, at a steady speed of 800 to 840 kb/sec. It beats my Gamespot subscriber downloads by about 100 kb/sec.