bandwidth checker 1

[boyfromoz]

I'm curious whether anyone has amde a bandwidth checker, ie, surfer goes to site, site runs something that checks the surf'ers bandwidth, then runs a high/low bandwidth designed site depending on the result?

I don't want the surfer to have to choose.

 

[rgstewart]

I've seen it done, but I'd say it's fairly complicated. I also see a lot of people posting about this kind of thing, saying "why the heck won't this work?!".

Keep it simple ... best policy. If you think it necessary, put a splash page on the site, giving a brief explanation about what constitutes high or low bandwidth, then let the user decide.

 

[boyfromoz]

Complicated is fine

Large client. Large expectations.


Nippi

 

[wangbar]

I guess you could have an inital movie, reasonably small, which calculates the download speed and then automatically loads one of two other files depending on whether it's judged you have a high or low bandwidth capability.

This will still need to be a big enough file for the loading procedure to settle down a bit - I've found the first few seconds when timing a download tend to give you screwy results, you need five to ten seconds to get something sensible.

Calculating the bandwidth is easy enough - time how long the initial file takes to download using getTimer() and divide the total filesize by the number of seconds it took to download. You then know how many bytes per second the user can handle, this can be used to trigger a condition like...

if (bytesPerSec>100){
loadMovie("highBandwidth.swf",""
} else {
loadMovie("lowBandwidth.swf",""
}

100Bps is of course a completely arbitrary amount...

 

[boyfromoz]

Perfect.

 

[rgstewart]

Only problem is the user will have to wait for five to ten seconds for something to happen ... bad ...

 

[wangbar]

Not necessarily - content can go anywhere.

If you're committed to having a few kilobytes of initial download to set up the main download then you can make it a few kilobytes of good content, something that persists through the main download killing time or infoming the user as the new movie parks itself in a higher layer.

 

[boyfromoz]

Yes. I was thinking preloader/timer. like a rotating 3d logo with some text or something,... somethng I can use later as well.

 

[oldnewbie]

Make it Flash 5 compatible! Regards,