How viable is a 30MB mod?

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ChristienChapman
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How viable is a 30MB mod?

by ChristienChapman » Post

A new mod may be on the horizon but it is 30MB. How much time would it take to download from Minetest when joining a server and would anyone actually download a mod of this size?
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Festus1965
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Re: How viable is a 30MB mod?

by Festus1965 » Post

I don't believe in any good - I trust in facts. (and the stupid of human)

As so your questions can't be answered,
as the only fact is 30 MB - but everyone has another provider, connection and SO another need of time to download data depending on the individual connection (possibility max to download) and hardware (able to download) and also limits on international sea-cables, as my max download from Europe is maybe only 100 MB/s.

One Download to start a server might be not that problem,
but to have to download ALL every time again even after some minor update of the mod ???

And not all data of a mod is also send to the clients, most stay at server (I think), and what the client get is the look of nodes and their data to be able to show it - as the main calculations are done on server.

More I fear many clients might not be able to handle it as of the amount of memory it might need beside.

Example:
I have Download rate 960 MB/s - I might not realize that much,
but as most might still be near 1-3 MB/s they realize it.

Also if data is sent smoothly as needed, that download / sending might spread a bit also.

Mods are downloaded as of they are interesting or fast - not as of their size.
Just see for mod petz mod what is told to be downloaded 100.000 times, if I remember right, but we have only near 400 announced servers, and no admin was responding to make a profiler extract using this mod in a month.
So far I found even only 2 server using it.

So maybe check what well known biggest mod you find, and see how much it is spread on servers.

Example: On my server all mods together are using 85.6 MB, where the biggest mod or pack is homedecor_modpack with 9.9 MB.
So IF your mod contains all needed for a server, then 30 MB is compare to my one not even half of all data, and might work es others also.
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Blockhead
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Re: How viable is a 30MB mod?

by Blockhead » Post

Festus1965 wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 23:49
but to have to download ALL every time again even after some minor update of the mod ???
Thankfully most assets should be cached properly and won't need re-downloading unless that asset actually changes. In particular if it's only a code update nothing should need to be re-downloaded.
Festus1965 wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 23:49
So IF your mod contains all needed for a server, then 30 MB is compare to my one not even half of all data, and might work es others also.
Yes, 30 MB is pretty heavyweight
ChristienChapman wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 21:14
A new mod may be on the horizon but it is 30MB. How much time would it take to download from Minetest when joining a server and would anyone actually download a mod of this size?
In short: Not a huge amount of time on a decent connection, but you're ruling out a bottom few % of mobile and super low spec PC users, who might not have enough memory in their systems.

In your shoes I would also be asking how many mods you expect to run in total when you have your mod installed. If it's a huge and expansive mod that takes over a lot of gameplay, changes recipes and so on, 30 MB could definitely be worth it. If it's just a pack full of various animated farm animal mobs with super high resolution textures, different model options for each mob, hi-fi sound effects and so on, but interacting with them is totally optional, then I would say 30 MB is probably excessive.

Edit: The main body of this post has been moved to a separate thread where I think it belongs.
Last edited by Blockhead on Mon Jul 04, 2022 05:10, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How viable is a 30MB mod?

by joe7575 » Post

ChristienChapman wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 21:14
A new mod may be on the horizon but it is 30MB. How much time would it take to download from Minetest when joining a server and would anyone actually download a mod of this size?
Mods are not downloaded from the clients, only the media and object file. You only have to check the size of the folders "textures", "models", and "sounds".

E. g. the mod techage has a size of 31 MB, but the three folders together have only a size of around 500 KB.
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ChristienChapman
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Re: How viable is a 30MB mod?

by ChristienChapman » Post

Well, that is very good to know that code is run on server. For me, I won't be hosting any servers but I will leave it up to users to do it. My mod has an original soundtrack which will take up 22.8MB. It is fully compressed .ogg. My concern is that I have most of the data put into media which is downloaded by the client everytime. Is media put into cache? Also, I have music called at certain events, is it streamed to clients or downloaded when called? I am also aware mobile players may have to wait to download media.
God bless you.

List of releases:
Minetest Zombies Minigame - viewtopic.php?f=9&t=28442&p=412633#p412633

- > cdb_1d60e1a03f83

ChristienChapman
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Re: How viable is a 30MB mod?

by ChristienChapman » Post

joe7575 wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 13:58
ChristienChapman wrote:
Thu Jun 23, 2022 21:14
A new mod may be on the horizon but it is 30MB. How much time would it take to download from Minetest when joining a server and would anyone actually download a mod of this size?
Mods are not downloaded from the clients, only the media and object file. You only have to check the size of the folders "textures", "models", and "sounds".

E. g. the mod techage has a size of 31 MB, but the three folders together have only a size of around 500 KB.
Well in that case 22.8MB of music will have to be crammed down player's bandwidth. Ouch. I could make a version without music for servers but then it's not as cool :( Is there anyway to let players download the music and then load it from them? Or is there anyway to manually cache the music into their cache (would have to be done by user). If not, is there any way to further compress .ogg (already used lowest quality settings in Audacity)
God bless you.

List of releases:
Minetest Zombies Minigame - viewtopic.php?f=9&t=28442&p=412633#p412633

- > cdb_1d60e1a03f83

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joe7575
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Re: How viable is a 30MB mod?

by joe7575 » Post

ChristienChapman wrote:
Fri Jun 24, 2022 16:44
...Is there anyway to let players download the music and then load it from them? Or is there anyway to manually cache the music into their cache (would have to be done by user).
Yes, sure. The media files are cached:
cache.png
cache.png (14.54 KiB) Viewed 1084 times
But don't ask me how much and how long.
Sent from my Commodore 64. Some of my Mods: Tech Age, TechPack, Hyperloop, Tower Crane, Lumberjack, vm16, Minecart, Signs Bot.

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TenPlus1
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Re: How viable is a 30MB mod?

by TenPlus1 » Post

Ambiance Lite loads it's sound files from server but the music itself can be stored in .minetest/sounds folder for it to load locally by players themselves if needed.

https://notabug.org/TenPlus1/ambience
https://notabug.org/TenPlus1/ambience_music

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Re: How viable is a 30MB mod?

by c56 » Post

a 30 mb mod reminds me of the days when having a gigabit of storage was like having all the storage in the world
also splitting it up into a modpack (for each node you plan to add ) migh help with updating as you would only have to download the parts of the modpack that have actually changed as for the client side most low end computers have at least 256 megabit of ram today and besides that like others have pointed out only meshes , textures & node data is send to the client
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Re: How viable is a 30MB mod?

by AiTechEye » Post

1: about 5 minutes i think (ullas server usually have lots of mods)
2: probably, but maybe not hundreds of downloads

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