Bandwidth usage?

[thegreatradish]

So, I finally acquired an R-Motion last week and I'm super impressed and very happy wih TGC (I knew I would be, I've been a user since release on the PC with a gamepad).

I'm using the setup in my garage at the moment while I wait for one of our outbuildings to have its 8ft high ceiling joists modified so that I can put a permanent setup in there (garage is not an option btw).

I would like to upgrade to the full TGC licence, the problem is the shed is 230ft away from the house. For that, I'll obviously be needing internet access. I can't run ethernet cable to the shed, ethernet powerline adapters didn't work and point to point outdoor wifi solutions don't look suitable for me as they invariably need a clear line of sight to each other. My house is a small cottage and is blocked out of a view to the shed by a much bigger ex-farmhouse built in 1837 with extremely thick stone walls.

So, it would seem that I can pick up 3G mobile broadband at a decent speed and signal strength. I'm therefore thinking of getting a mobile wifi hotspot and a sim from my current broadband provider (BT, they do a decent deal).

However, if TGC is particularly heavy on bandwidth for loading extra courses then this becomes unviable. Bear in mind that I would only be using extra courses, not multiplayer (local only). How much data would I be likely to consume if I, let's say, played 18 on Magnolia National?

[G4zzel]

It doesn't take much. My internet connection was acting up this weekend so i tried internet-sharing from my iphone (4G) and it worked like a charm. It will only take a bit longer to load the courses. The only thing i can say is that it needs to be fairly stable.
I would say that 2-5 Mbit mimimum, 10 Mbit is ok. But as always the more you can get the better.

[thegreatradish]

Thanks - will run some tests at the weekend to establish how stable the connection is in the shed. I note from some posts on the HB studios forums that others have done this with success and also I've seen suggestions that each course is something along the lines of 3-5mb to download. I have a mobile data plan with a 3gb per month allowance and I currently use just under 1gb of that roughly so I would hope that 2Gb would suffice for TGC and cost me no more than I pay just now.

Would anyone agree the 3-5mb figure is about right for an average 18 hole course?

[Dan McWhirter]

Except for the initial program downloads that can amount to several gigabytes. Perhaps download to a non-phone connected computer and move the program (gigs of compressed files) to your shed computer.

[thegreatradish]

Yes, thanks Dan, TGC is already fully installed on the dedicated sim PC so I'm good to go I think.

[thegreatradish]

For reference, in case anyone else was considering this sort of thing, I have just tested this with the Steam version of TGC and used my phone as a wifi hotspot. I played a full round at Magnolia National and in total from booting up the game to completion of the round I used 28Mb. I consider that to be a success so I now have my solution.