Zoe
Member
I've seen people say that sometimes pausing and restarting the download repeatedly could get you connected to different servers.
Is PSN really this bad?
- Thread starter Ninja Scooter
- Start date
I've seen people say that sometimes pausing and restarting the download repeatedly could get you connected to different servers.
The XBOX 360 is light years ahead when it comes to purchasing a full game online. Here is my personal comparison;
I recently purchased HALO Reach digitally and the download took minutes and was instantly playable. XBOX360 victory.
I purchased Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition on the PSN service. And it took about an entire day to download it. Then, what made matters even worse, it took about 4 hours to install the damn thing. Just horrible PSN.
I recently purchased HALO Reach digitally and the download took minutes and was instantly playable. XBOX360 victory.
I purchased Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition on the PSN service. And it took about an entire day to download it. Then, what made matters even worse, it took about 4 hours to install the damn thing. Just horrible PSN.
Here ya go:
Background download is a feature that enables you to perform other operations while downloading multiple data items or data with a large file size. This feature is available only when the [Download in Background] option is displayed on the screen that is displayed while downloading content.
Hints
You may not be able to perform background download depending on the type of data or number of data items being downloaded.
Installation may be required to use downloaded data such as games or video files. When downloading is finished, data that requires installation will be displayed as or in each category.
Background download may not be available when there is uninstalled data in the system storage.
If the PS3 system is turned off during a background download, the download status is saved. Downloading is automatically restarted the next time the PS3 system is turned on and connected to the Internet.
A background download will be temporarily stopped when any of the following operations are performed. The download will be restarted automatically once the operation has completed.
- When playing a Blu-ray Disc or DVD
- When using network features of online games *
- When starting PlayStation®2 format software
- When starting (Folding@home)
- When using voice / video chat
- When performing a system update
- When adjusting setting items under (Settings)
* While a game is in process of ending, background downloading will be stopped temporarily.
cj_iwakura
Member
Downloading and installing Dragon Force from the Japanese store took me all of an hour, from a US console.
Good luck doing that on the 360, or even getting to their Japanese store.
The PSN is the absolute best for region-free gaming, no two ways about it.
Good luck doing that on the 360, or even getting to their Japanese store.
The PSN is the absolute best for region-free gaming, no two ways about it.
Hot damn you moved that goal post lol
pharmboy044
Member
All I hope for is that Sony improves on their network infrastructure for the PS4.
The Vita has pretty fast downloads so I think it's possible for the PS4.
The Vita has pretty fast downloads so I think it's possible for the PS4.
Baconsammy
Banned
Relevant to a different thread. Not this one.
cj_iwakura
Member
Partially relevant, I haven't had any downloading issues. The other part was in defense of the PSN in general.
Sintoid
Member
So if we want to speak purely of PSN we have to exclude PS3 because PSV can download games and patches while playind or making anything else and the speed is always quite good for me.
PS3 can't manage some kind of background downloads (updates are quite ugly) but that's more a PS3 problem than PSN
PS3 can't manage some kind of background downloads (updates are quite ugly) but that's more a PS3 problem than PSN
Live Free or Die
Banned
I think the problem is people aren't configuring their routers properly for the PS3/PSN. that's why they are getting slow speeds.
GTFO with that garbage who the hell is going to change there home network for one device. I have 3 online wifi consoles 3 online wifi laptops a roku box and at least 2 phones 2 tablets that all use wifi. The PS3 is the only one with a problem.
But I need to reconfigure my router????
Baconsammy
Banned
Router has nothing to do with it. If I take the router out of the equation, nothing changes.
I never understand when people hate on PSN for download speeds. I guess it must just vary a lot. I've always gotten 3-5MB/s download speed. I think it's throttled at that point though, as I recently upgraded my Internet packag significantly and didn't notice a difference.
The one company I fucking hate for download speeds is Apple. iTunes downloads are capped at such a low speed for me...500KB/s max?
The one company I fucking hate for download speeds is Apple. iTunes downloads are capped at such a low speed for me...500KB/s max?
Live Free or Die
Banned
You dont have to change your home network. You just need to open the ports for the PSN. It's worked for lots of people including myself.
http://us.playstation.com/support/answer/index.htm?a_id=241
Go here http://portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/routerindex.htm look for your router then look for PlayStation Network and follow the instructions.
I have a more stable connection and faster speeds. I also used to have a NAT 3 connection but, after following that portforward guide I now have a NAT 2 connection and dont get randomly kicked off the PSN anymore.
If anyone has a D-link DGL 4500 gaming router here is a good guide on how to set up game fuel for PSN.
Well you've pretty much answered your own point. Personally I'm not "hating" on anything. I just don't think well over an hour to download a 217mb data update is particularly acceptable, considering no other device I own would take anything like that time. Especially when it wipes out an hour of my limited spare time I did intend on using to actually play my new copy of the MGS HD Collection.
I did wonder if it was my PS3 to be honest, given I'm running on a pretty clunky 40GB Phat, but it sounds like others have some pretty poor times too.
It's not. If it were, everyone would have slow downloads. That's not the case.
SGRU
Member
Mine too. PSN on the PS3 is just ridiculous.
Baconsammy
Banned
That's not the point. If I go directly from the cable modem into the PS3, the speeds don't change. The issue isn't the router.
I got that update in about 4 minutes yesterday. Its weird how varied of performance people get. I get about 200kbps on PSN which is just fine.
If you check earlier, my PS3 can get over 96Mbps to PSN on wired connection. Wireless is quick too. The WAN connection and other LAN download activities affect my download speed more than anything else.
In some other cases, some people get different speed on the same network.
It's probably people attributing all sorts of different problems to PSN overall. Sony should work towards minimizing or at least categorizing these issues so the users know how to avoid or fix the problems.
Chinpoko_Master
Member
I've done all of this before and PSN is still slow as shit. I'm pretty sure the problem is with my PS3 since I have an older, "fat" model and I heard that the WiFi antennas are placed poorly in these.
They use Akamai and other CDN partners. Some of them also serve XBL.
Hard to say. My Fat wireless was fine.
What does your PS3 Connection Test say ? Where are you located ? Do your HDD have issues ? What were you trying to download ? Which router are you using ? Does download speed up if you use a PC/Mac as a proxy ? etc.
MightyHedgehog
Member
There's no need to guess. As long as I can remember, this has been one of the longstanding and most commonly-complained about issues with PSN from the beginning, especially after more multi-gig releases were made available, particularly with PSN+ offering tons of those to D/L. Whatever the case, PS3 PSN access is the only case for a network device that I have that has need for more than just port-forwarding to operate satisfactorily. Everything else I have works great out-of-the-box.
Live Free or Die
Banned
Yes, the old PS3 doesn't have good wi-fi. That's why you should use a wired connection if you're able to. If you're too far away from your router for a wired connection, I would recommend something like this http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0083GA6UW/?tag=neogaf0e-20 It's not as good as being directly connected to your router but, it's a whole lot better than a wireless connection.
DL'd the 4GB Batman year one flick in about an hour. Speed remains consistently decent for me. Two minor things I'd really like to see:
- An option on Account history to remove/hide demos, or some other method to show and separate owned DLC & games.
- To be able to continue DLs while playing -every- game when not signed into the PSN. Stuff like RDR pauses downloads whether you're on the PSN or not. Somewhat annoying.
- An option on Account history to remove/hide demos, or some other method to show and separate owned DLC & games.
- To be able to continue DLs while playing -every- game when not signed into the PSN. Stuff like RDR pauses downloads whether you're on the PSN or not. Somewhat annoying.
Polishin8r
Member
I think PSN is awesome, i just learned you can have 2 consoles active, and re download all the stuff you bought on them, and if one messes up you deactivate it and and activate a new one online. Does xbox have similar feature?
MightyHedgehog
Member
This needs to happen on both PSN and XBL. One long list of everything is dumb and annoying without sorting options. They both need to adopt Steam's library view to make going back through your uninstalled library easier.
This might be because of streaming demands of or writes to the hard drive while playing.
With X360, you can download and use everything that is tied to your account (which is everything you buy with that account or Gamertag) on another unit if you only sign on with your profile on that unit, but it's only fully active if you are signed in on that machine for the duration. Assuming you have your profile downloaded to two consoles, you can log in on a second one with that same Free or Gold Live account and make a purchase on that system, and this will be accessible to any profile on that specific system, while you can then re-download that item on your first or main console, too, without affecting the first unit it was purchased and downloaded to, AFAIR. XBL assigns ownership to your tag making the purchase and the first console it was downloaded to. You can take the secondary unit's ownership out by using the license transfer tool in the account options on the system or on the website to bring it back to the console you enact it on, cutting off full access (for that current list of items) for any secondary units it may have been previously associated with. So, yeah, I think so.
My latest favorite is Cross Buy. My son can play Sound Shapes on the PS3 while I play it on the Vita. I thought they would lock one of us out at the same time. ^_^
Hope they improve cloud features and the PS Store layout next. The improved RemotePlay should be combined with Gaikai into something "bigger".
My least favorite PSN "feature" is the single PS3 PSN video activation. Vudu, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus don't even care. Sony should relax PSN video DRM.
Hope they improve cloud features and the PS Store layout next. The improved RemotePlay should be combined with Gaikai into something "bigger".
My least favorite PSN "feature" is the single PS3 PSN video activation. Vudu, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus don't even care. Sony should relax PSN video DRM.
Chinpoko_Master
Member
I just used the connection test and it says 5.5 down, 1.9 up with like 60% signal strength, I'm located about 30-40 feet from my router, HDD is fine, I've downloaded game demos, games, and trailers, my router is this one and I haven't tried using my PC as a proxy but it's certainly faster.
I might try that out, I'm just wondering how it works. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from my understanding, it gives you broadband from a power outlet? I might be misunderstanding but I didn't even know that was possible.
I was also thinking about buying a new PS3 when the new revision comes out but it's not even going to have wireless n so I don't know.
Live Free or Die
Banned
Yep, that's exactly how it works. Here is a comparison video.(the newer units have gone up from 200Mbits to 500Mbits since that video was made.)
Edit: Updated the url of the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sue1Zvmh8JA Here is a review of a newer version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiw_a1h_Kyg of a power line product.
No harm trying the PC proxy too.
This is easily one of the more annoying things about the PS3. Everything requires double the free space to download and install. It's no big deal when talking about small games, but when you've got a 6GB or 10GB game and then need 12GB or 20 GB respectively just to convince the system to let you download the file, it's annoying.
At the very least (assuming Sony is stuck with the "download and install" method vs the 360's "download and play" method) Sony could at least let you download the installer package (the "bubble") and then let you install it once you've cleared off enough free space. Nope, PSN will refuse to let you even download the bubble if you don't have the free space to fully install the game.
I think you'll find it's the users with the faster Internet connections that are usually complaining about PSN speed.
Those on slower connections don't notice as much of a difference, but when you're pulling 30 Mbits or more through your pipe, you start to notice when a server can't keep up.
That doesn't mean it isn't a stupid design.
Whoever thought up the bubble system obviously doesn't have much of a UI background.
I'm also in the Bay Area and have more than enough bandwidth to go around. PSN has always been slower than Xbox Live in terms of download speed for me, though to be fair Sony has upped the PSN game recently. I don't know if they brought more servers online or simply moved to a better data center, but I would say that over the past six months I've seen faster PSN speeds than I've ever seen before.
It's all relative. When you've got a fast pipe, an hour to download 4.5 GB is slow.
That's probably the biggest problem with discussions like this. Most everyone is speaking in relative terms rather than actual speeds.
Now if Sony could just get rid of the lag in the XMB whenever you hit the PS button, that would be awesome. It may be an elegant design, but it has some issues in implementation.
It goes back to poor workflow design. The smart thing to do would be to reserve the space on the hard drive and start filling it up as the file downloads. If the download is interrupted, it is fairly each to do an integrity check on the existing chunks and then resume where it left off.
1MB/sec isn't that fast when you're talking about broadband. It makes sense that you wouldn't see much difference between Xbox Live and PSN on a slower connection. In order to see a difference, your network has to be faster than what either can provide.
Aren't PS3 backups system locked? If you backup a system and the system fails, can you then restore that backup to a brand new PS3?
Yes. The 360 supports resuming downloads. It will do so automatically.
Only 1MB/s? Again, as mentioned earlier, if you've got fast broadband, 1MB/s is slow. If I'm ever pulling 1MB/s or less on a download, I'm thinking the server sucks, not my internet.
Out of curiosity, I just did the following test. It's not scientific and it was done at a single point in time, but does highlight why some of us say that PSN is noticeably slower than Xbox Live.
For setup I used both a fat PS3 and a fat Xbox 360.
Both were turned on individually.
Both used the exact same network cable.
Router is running DD-WRT and has UPnP enabled.
For the test, I downloaded "I Am Alive" from both PSN and XBLA.
PSN reports I Am Alive as being a 1954 MB download.
Xbox Live reports I Am Alive as being a 1.86 GB download. That converts to 1905 MB.
To time the downloads I used a stopwatch. Pressed start on the stopwatch when I pressed the button to initate the download. I stopped the stopwatch as soon as the system indicated the download had completed.
On PSN I downloaded 1954 MB in 11 minutes and 23 seconds. (683 seconds)
On Xbox Live I downloaded 1905 MB in 7 minutes and 18 seconds. (438 seconds)
Unless I've done my match wrong, that works out to the following:
PSN = 2.86 MB/s (or 22.89 Mb/s) download speed.
Xbox Live = 4.35 MB/s (or 34.79 Mb/s) download speed.
Granted, that's a single run, but PSN is downloading at two thirds the speed of Xbox Live.
One other thing to keep in mind is that casual end users probably don't make much of a distinction between "time to download" and "time until ready to play." That is one area where the PS3's install requirement hurts it. For the test I simply compared download speeds. I did not count the PS3's install time.
Total "time until ready to play" on the PS3 was about 17 minutes.
Total "time until ready to play" on the Xbox 360 was the download time of 7 minutes and 18 seconds.
PSN is already slower than Xbox Live in raw download time, but when you factor in the ready to play time, it ends up making PSN "feel" even slower.
Depending on the wireless adapter used, this isn't really a fair comparison as the 802.11n adapter on the 360 will KILL the PS3's outdated 802.11g. If you're going to compare wireless on the two, you do need to make sure you're using the older, white, 802.11g adapter on the 360.
Even then though, 802.11g is too slow to really compare either. With network overhead, you're likely to saturate the 802.11g connections.
Now why would you say that?
Getting to the Japanese XBLA storefront is as easy on the 360 as it is to get to the Japanese PSN storefront on the PS3.
1) Create Japanese account.
2) Log in.
3) Browse away.
On the Xbox 360 you don't need to activate or deactivate on the system or the web.
Games are automatically activated on the first 360 you download them to. If you want to move the activation to another console, you can do that by logging in to the new console and selecting an option.
This moves the license to the new console, but the game will still work on the original console as the full version so long as it is not deleted.
This is so true. When I first went from a 20GB 360 hard drive to a 120GB drive, the one thing I wanted more than anything else was a "download all" button.
Both PSN and Xbox Live are equally bad in this regard.
Metalmurphy
Member
Holy multi quote Batman!
It really depends on your region. 30 Mbits is exactly my contract speed and PSN maxes it out as I've previously shown on this thread. I'm sure if I had more PSN downloads would go faster.
That said when there's other problems, like having a faulty/shitty wifi adapter downloads go slower then 2.86 MB/s so that's probably all ur gonna get on your region.
It really depends on your region. 30 Mbits is exactly my contract speed and PSN maxes it out as I've previously shown on this thread. I'm sure if I had more PSN downloads would go faster.
That said when there's other problems, like having a faulty/shitty wifi adapter downloads go slower then 2.86 MB/s so that's probably all ur gonna get on your region.
R_thanatos
Member
woah to lazy to quote
No , For this you'll need a system transfer ..
No , For this you'll need a system transfer ..
My PS3 Connection Test says my download link is 98.6Mbps. I have never encountered any download speed issues in the Bay Area.
Yeah, you'll need to run more tests based on different games and systems. One run is inconclusive. We already know from earlier feedback that the performance may vary for different PS3s on the same network.
If I run my connection test multiple times, I see it fluctuate too. It reports higher than 98.6 sometimes, and lower other times.
Metalmurphy
Member
Damn!
What would be simplest (and give the widest range of results) would be to have others post their results with the same demo download. Since it is a third part, catalog title, I doubt I Am Alive has any special treatment in terms of cache placement on the servers.
If would be interesting to see:
1) If either service has a distinct advantage.
2) If differences are regional.
3) If differences are by ISP.
4) If either service has a maximum cap.
That last one intrigues me. What is the point at which a faster pipe does you no good as neither PSN or Xbox Live simply won't go that fast?
How long does it take you to download the I Am Alive demo on you PS3 on your connection?
I did a similar test a while ago but I'm not sure where I posted my results. I'll have a look. My results showed that XBL was faster but not significantly faster (just about 200KB/s faster).
I'm on a 100,000mbps connection (12.5MB/s is the max I can download with).