Live data from Hacker News

Why PS4 downloads are so slow

snellman.net

71–80 of 201 posts

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#71
Its bizarre because I bought something from the PlayStation store on my PS4 and it took DAYS to download.

The strange part of the story is that it took so long to download that the next day I went and bought the game (Battlefield 4) from the shop and brought it back home and installed it and started playing it, all whilst the original purchase from the PlayStation store was still downloading.

I ask Sony if they would refund the game that I bought from the PlayStation store given that I had gone and bought it elsewhere from a physical store during the download and they said "no".

So I never want to buy from the PlayStation store again.

Why would Sony not care about this above just about everything else?

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#72

The CDN thing is an issue too. Using a local DNS resolver instead of Google DNS helped my PS4 speeds. The other "trick" if a download is getting slow is to run the in built "network test". This seems to reset all the windows back even if other things are running.

> Using a local DNS resolver instead of Google DNS helped my PS4 speeds.

that's not a surprise, as when using Google DNS the CDN has much less information about you to try and route you to a good choice of CDN endpoint. will be variable based on where the google DNS endpoint is and you are [plus the connectivity of a given CDN to both of those places]

More information about that here including "EDNS Client Submit" a solution they deployed to send a partial client IP to the server but only for specific CDNs they have set it up with: https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/faq "I've read claims that Google Public DNS can slow down certain multimedia applications or websites. Are these true?"

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#73
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My network has multiple iOS devices, two computers and a bunch of appliance devices I also use voip. Maxing out the standard 3mb uplink is easy when photos sync or any number of other use cases.

3mb uplink? That’s... I’m sorry for you. Maybe you can find another ISP, I’m in northern Germany and my ISP provides 100mbps down, 40mbps up via DSL.

Now I pay extra for "enhanced" service. 50/5!

Here in America we believe that competition involves 1 cable company and one legacy phone company who offers 2/0.5 DSL for $70/mo, and will not actually install it if you try!

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#75
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of Apple's Jim Reekes "engineers are retarded". https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C5d151lqJsA (The annecdote really starts at 2:30).

Haha, what a great video. To some extent he's onto something. Sometimes you are in this zone when everything will work if you just do this one quick little hack, and then the hack ends up not getting replaced with a proper solution, and in the end you end up with a harddrive right next to a speaker >.<

There actually seem to be people whose default mode of operation seems to lie entirely in that zone though. I'm pretty sure everyone arrives at a similar conclusion if they realise that attempts to fix a certain person's code always end in a express trip to the 6th stage of debugging [1]...

[1]: http://plasmasturm.org/log/6debug/

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#77

Totally unrelated but: Dang it must be awesome to have a service that people dissect at this level. This analysis is more in depth and knowledgable than anything I've ever seen while employed at large companies, where people are literally paid to spend time on the product.

It is astonishing how oblivious people who are "paid to spend time on the product" can be about the products they ship. Case in point, Microsoft shipped a EXPLORER.EXE with Windows 10 that is 20% whitespace because of an Adobe invented metadata format that I bet nobody involved with Windows ever thought about it. See http://ontology2.com/essays/LookingForMetadataInAllTheWrongP...

The PC release of Sonic Mania was delayed because of slowdown issues.

Slowdown issues. On a game that is literally nothing but 90s graphics.

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, what a great video. To some extent he's onto something. Sometimes you are in this zone when everything will work if you just do this one quick little hack, and then the hack ends up not getting replaced with a proper solution, and in the end you end up with a harddrive right next to a speaker >.<

There actually seem to be people whose default mode of operation seems to lie entirely in that zone though. I'm pretty sure everyone arrives at a similar conclusion if they realise that attempts to fix a certain person's code always end in a express trip to the 6th stage of debugging [1]... [1]: http://plasmasturm.org/log/6debug/

Definitely. And that "quick hack by default" person will often end up being the favorite of management because they get so many things "done."

So it's important to figure out what kind of manager you have, and try not to be the slow guy on a team full of quick-hack people. You won't look good and nobody will be happy.

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#79
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is astonishing how oblivious people who are "paid to spend time on the product" can be about the products they ship. Case in point, Microsoft shipped a EXPLORER.EXE with Windows 10 that is 20% whitespace because of an Adobe invented metadata format that I bet nobody involved with Windows ever thought about it. See http://ontology2.com/essays/LookingForMetadataInAllTheWrongP...

The PC release of Sonic Mania was delayed because of slowdown issues. Slowdown issues. On a game that is literally nothing but 90s graphics.

The game is more graphically intensive than you might think and the people that care about this kind of game very much value a solid 60 FPS frame rate.

Re: Why PS4 downloads are so slow

#80

Its bizarre because I bought something from the PlayStation store on my PS4 and it took DAYS to download. The strange part of the story is that it took so long to download that the next day I went and bought the game (Battlefield 4) from the shop and brought it back home and installed it and started playing it, all whilst the original purchase from the PlayStation store was still downloading. I ask Sony if they would…

Because they are in a dominant market position. Honestly, it's your fault for buying a console - you knew you'd be at sony's mercy due to the monopolistic nature of consoles. The cost of switching to the one comparible console option is so great, most people will not bother unless sony's issues become too great - and network speed is presumably not a deal-breaker for enough people for sony to care.

So you will continue to suffer abominable download speeds on your PS4, because the cost of switching is too great for most. Basically, suck it up.

I hate to get all PCMR on you, but this is why everyone should game on PC. If my steam purchase downloaded super slow, I could simply get a refund on steam (an automated process) and purchase the same game on GOG, or on Humble Store. Sometimes Origin or Uplay. PC means freedom, or not being at the mercy of a single uncaring corporate entity.

Post reply on HN