Potential New PC Build, Thoughts?

[Some newbie driver]

Coax and specially optic fiber are more than able to deliver the whole contracted speed (DSL on the other hand, has strong limitations due how the technology works). But that was not what I meant.

Usually, domestic telecoms are like energy supply: the amount of service contracted on a given zone is way higher than the real capacity of the distribution network on that zone. It's a very usual way to optimize resources (or to over-profit when cutting costs, depending on the way one wants to see it) made by lots of all kind os "services companies".

In the case of telecoms, if the local distribution point is too over-saturated, you aren't going to reach good speeds, far from the theoretical maximum contracted. It all depends on the company and the zone; also on the usage profile made by all the clients connected to this distribution point. I know of several residential zones where it's clearly noticeable when the kids have finished school, if you know what I mean. At the start of the pandemic, this effect was a widespread problem, when the consume of Internet ramped up everywhere all day long and the infrastructure wasn't ready for that (well, neither the ISP, they really struggled to stabilize their services for a good month long at least).

When a company requires a line with granted bandwidth, or maybe dedicated point to point links out of Internet (so, not sharing transport frames and links with regular Internet traffic); then telecoms can't do that kind of dirt tricks. They need to be sure the appropriate infrastructure is in place and they are going to gladly charge you for that.

Regards

[Reignman]

Oh wow, I wasn't expecting such a detailed response lol. Very informative, thanks.

No, your ISP is offering you a service with a ALLEGEDLY maximum speed of 25/3Mbps. Your final speeds are never going to reach those values.

I've had ISP's in the suburbs where I never actually got the speeds I was paying for, but now that I'm in a rural area, I do get what I signed up for. I use a number of different tests and I'm always around 26/3.

[ external image ]

The speed test wouldn't work while I was uploading a video though lol. And pinging just gave me a lot of "request timed out".

Now you want to browse the web an to do so, your browser needs to transmit a bit of data. A very slow amount, that your computer has no problem into sending it to the router.

Alright, that's probably where I was getting confused. I didn't know a bit of data was being sent when I wanted to do something download/browsing related, or I didn't know it used the upload avenue. Makes sense now. I'll have to figure out how to limit the upload speed to a tolerable amount.

The objective one is that almost all communications through Internet are highly asymmetric: one side listens and the other side talks. So, one side needs to be able to send a lot and the other side needs to be able to receive a lot. We are the consumers, the ones who listen what it's on Internet.

As consumers, sure we do more "listening" than "talking" but what's the harm in allowing us to do an equal amount of talking? If we're not using it, we're not using it. What is the company losing? Besides an opportunity to make more money lol?

- The separation of the lines so not them all come from the same place (to avoid, for example, that an ass**** with an excavator doesn't let you completely down)

Haha funny you should mention that, last fall the city was doing some roadwork in the neighborhood and someone did cut the internet line with an excavator. We were without internet for about 6 hours. At least it wasn't the electricity. I've been through 2 storms the past decade that knocked the power out for 4 days each time. Ooof, now that's some misery. After day 2 I went and stayed with my brother until it was back up xD.

But even so, I'm sure more than 90% of what Google payed was the accumulated debt of Youtube and more than half of it was telecoms bills.

I did know google owned youtube and I knew they were operating at a loss, but it's not going to stop me from complaining about the number of ads they play during videos these days lol. Wow! I mean just recently they started the double ads, and for a bit there they had double unskippable ads. Now they got some new annoying thing where they play an ad 10 seconds before a video finishes.

But all of this (excuse the wall of text) is for you to understand WHY our consumer-grade lines are asymmetrical for a "profit reason" too. If your line would be 25/25; then you could leverage it to run on your home an small Internet company (let's say a Reignman boutique of handmade gear knobs for ATS freaks ).

Ha! That gave me a chuckle. But that explains my question from earlier I guess. Handmade gear knobs eh? Is that in high demand? Maybe I could do that instead of parking triples xD. About 10 years ago I was running a World of Warcraft server from my basement. I signed up for the business class internet connection from my ISP to get higher upload speeds. It was a nice little gig while it lasted.

I haul whatever cargo and whatever truck that suit my goals. In the current profile, I want to send and deliver from every single company yard; so the cargoes I try to pick are those who sent me to a place still left in the list (this way, I deliver one cargo and pick one all in a straight; easier to track the process of the goal then).

So I'm not the only one? I've been to every company now (700+ in ATS) and have 100% exploration. I created a spreadsheet that keeps track of when I picked up and delivered to a company, so now I'm trying to get at least 1 pickup and delivery at each company, since most of them have a different receiving and shipping areas. Otherwise I just take a job that I haven't been to in awhile.

I own every garage on the map and I own 20 different trailers. I use the garages to teleport my trailers around lol. It helps me get my "every pickup/delivery" achievement accomplished quicker. I had another goal of getting 100k miles on every truck, but now I only have 1 truck to go, so maybe I should get back into ETS2 and put 100k on those funny looking Euro trucks too. I guess it would be 160k km haha. I don't think moded triples would work so well in that game though. The roads seem narrower over there, and the turns tighter.

Sometimes I take a tour with a light 4x2 and 1-axled dry-box... that combo is shorter than some USA semi-tractors!!

I'm not gonna lie, last time I tried to park one of those 28 foot (8.5m) 1 axle trailers, I struggled more with it than a double. For some reason it's easier to park a 28 footer when it has a 32 footer attached to the back of it haha.

You are used to stop too further. IRL and in the game, one stops a bit before to see it right.

Ahhh is that the trick? Stop further back? Makes sense I guess. How am I supposed to block the crosswalk if I stop further back though? If you stop too short of the crosswalk over here in the US, people will honk at you just for that lol. Move up dummy, I need to feel 10 feet closer to my destination while I wait at this light.

[Some newbie driver]

They can honk whatever they want, you are the truck and they are the ants. Let them try to push you if they dare.

And about the speed of your line, seems that your ISP is mostly giving you the promised numbers at least in that moment. If coaxial and in a remote zone it'¡s easier to achieve that: the physical line is capable of a lot more than that and not so many people connected to the same distributor so it's less probable it will be saturated and all its clients start to loose max performance. Anyways, bear in mind that in domestic contracts the speeds are never granted; so if you find a way to upload the video limiting the upload speed, top it at 2Mbps at most.

The speed test wouldn't work while I was uploading a video though lol. And pinging just gave me a lot of "request timed out".

Of course it doesn't. Speed tests are nothing but a controlled download and upload of a temporal file (with no real content) of a known size. Dividing time elapsed by the size of the file the average speed is known (and that's the speed the program has been able to use, whatever other simultaneous transmission will mean your real speed could be higher). But as with any communication, as I told you before, there has to be a minimum back and forth talk between the computers. If you already saturates the upload bandwidth with the video, the speed test can't have that "talk" with the server of the test and it fails; like the pings fail due timeouts as not being able your router to send them before their expiration time.

Regards

PS: Those insane triples you drive would fill a lot of pages on the REKT! thread if you would use them in ETS2... I dare you to try to reach the Carrara quarry with them.

[plykkegaard]

The speed test wouldn't work while I was uploading a video though lol. And pinging just gave me a lot of "request timed out".

Similar case with a family of four using the connection extensively with streaming, multiplayer, downloads etc
I did have a hard doing my work before I went to cable and flat rate (the same down and upload speed)

Speed is not all, you also need to consider data throughput
The same situtaion if you pour water through a funnel to a container if just keep ouring all you can the water will spill over the top of the funnel (packet loss)

---

On a side note: Hardware prices is dropping like a rock atm

[Some newbie driver]

@plykkegaard I remember at the start of the GPU-craze that a major retailer from your country even disclosed purchase orders amounts and units received counts (something REALLY rare any store will publish ever) to say to people
"yes, we know, there aren't as much as you want, stop freaking collapsing out support line". (the freaking is mine, but well implicit, the rest was almost literal):

[Reignman]

PS: Those insane triples you drive would fill a lot of pages on the REKT! thread if you would use them in ETS2... I dare you to try to reach the Carrara quarry with them.

Haha yeah the little bit I played ETS2 last year, I remember thinking that I might not be able to haul doubles/triples in this version. I only saw a few cities in the Czech Republic while I was over there, but the streets seemed narrow and the corners tight, so maybe other areas of Europe are a little more roomy? Then again I remember someone (Squirrel) driving a quad in ETS2 a few years back and he managed to not have any incidents. He couldn't park it though because the docks were too small. The trucks over there are more compact and maneuverable though. Speaking of ETS2, I'm downloading 1.41 as we speak, so I'll be giving it another shot soon. Does that version even have doubles? I don't remember.

Oh and speaking of internet speeds, I'm able to play videos and browse the net just fine while I'm downloading stuff, so what's up with that? The download host isn't saturating my blazing fast 25 Mbps or what xD?

[plykkegaard]

Iberia, Germany, Scandinavia and Finland have doubles

Your download speed depends on your wiring in the house, your connection, your providers internal routing and connection to the rest of the net
Throw in a large number of users also using the net, it is a nice mix of unknowns
Do you have a guaranteed speed for download?

Check the region Steam has put you in, you might connect to a secondary data center which quickly gets overloaded

[Reignman]

Iberia, Germany, Scandinavia and Finland have doubles

Well I'll be "modifying" that so I can drive doubles anywhere lol. I did that in ATS too. Or maybe not. I've done 5 jobs already, in the Germany/Switzerland area and ohhh boy yeah, some of these roads/corners don't look like they're going to be much fun with a double. Are the roads really that narrow in Europe lol? But I'll tell you what ... the load that gave me the most difficulty parking so far was the one where I had a 4 axle flatbed, where all 4 axles were steerable. I think I had to pull up 3 or 4 times to get that one straight in the spot. I'd rather not have steerable trailer wheels on such a short trailer lol. First time I've ever tried to park that kind of trailer.

I do like the way these funny looking Euro trucks handle though. I don't know what a Scania is, but it drives nice xD. Oh and for the love of god, someone tell me how to make right hand turns at a red light in ETS2 because I keep getting fined. I was even behind another truck that made a right on red and I did everything he did, but I still got fined. It doesn't seem to work the same way it does in ATS. I never get fines on red over there. Signal on, complete stop, stay in the near lane ... doesn't work. Now I just wait for them to turn green xD. I don't have $50m yet, otherwise I wouldn't care about the fines, but I'm trying to save up for my first truck. I hate these "quick jobs".

Your download speed depends on your wiring in the house, your connection, your providers internal routing and connection to the rest of the net
Throw in a large number of users also using the net, it is a nice mix of unknowns
Do you have a guaranteed speed for download?

I pay for the 25/3 and I get 26/3, so there's no problem there or nothing more I can do, except pay for a faster connection, which I don't need to do at this time. I'll just do whatever uploading/downloading I need to do when I'm away from the PC or sleeping.

Right now I need a faster connection from one HDD to the other though lol. My 2TB HDD was filling up pretty quickly and starting to feel a bit sluggish, so I popped another 1.5TB HDD in there today, which will be my recording/video drive. Earlier I moved 500GB worth of video files to it and it took over an hour. Is that normal (110 MB/s)? Seems like it should be much faster to copy from one HDD to another, but now that I check, 80-160 is normal apparently. But anyway, after it was finished, I screwed up. I needed to go into my video capture program to let it know to start recording to the new drive and I thought the shortcut to open the program was ctrl+z lol ... see where this is going? Yeah, no, ctrl+z is the shortcut for "undo" duh! ... so idiot me just undid the 500GB transfer. Now I gotta wait another hour+ for it to copy again. Alt+z is the shortcut I was looking for /face palm.

I hope this solves my sluggish problem though because that's a brand new HDD and I hope it's not failing on me or something. Slow write time on a full HDD I would understand a little more, but should it have a slow read time too? When I'm on it looking for files or watching videos, it often pauses and I get a "working on it" message, like a browser page refreshing. It can take 10-30 seconds though. Maybe a windows 10 issue? I was using this HDD on my old PC, with windows 7 and never had these kinds of read/write delays. I guess I'll find out when it has 500GB of more space to work with.

[GT182]

Ok, another thought I know nothing about. Does the number of television cable boxes in use come into play with down and upload speed, while computers are running at the same time too?

[plykkegaard]

Different or the same internet cable?
If the same cable they all contribute to the bandwith usage