Article

A traffic model for the Xbox game Halo 2

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NOSSDAV '05: Proceedings of the international workshop on Network and operating systems support for digital audio and video

Pages 13 - 18

https://doi.org/10.1145/1065983.1065987

Published: 13 June 2005 Publication History

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Abstract

This paper analyses the traffic characteristics of, and proposes a traffic model for, the Xbox game Halo 2. Our goal is to help players and network providers to estimate the amount of traffic caused by the game and the impact on access links or provider networks. It also enables other researchers to use a realistic Halo 2 traffic model in network simulations. We focus on the following characteristics: bandwidth, packet rate and distribution of packet inter-arrival times and packet lengths. We compare the results with a previous analysis of Halo 1 and find some major differences - the client packet rate has been reduced, packet sizes have no longer a single fixed value per game and the mean packet size has decreased (so Halo 2 requires less bandwidth). Finally we develop traffic simulation models for Halo 2 and compare them against the experimentally obtained data.

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Yang YHanisch SMa MRoos SStrufe TNguyen G(2024)First Steps Towards Game and Activity Inference on Encrypted VR Datastreams2024 IEEE 25th International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks (WoWMoM)10.1109/WoWMoM60985.2024.00030(105-110)Online publication date: 4-Jun-2024
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Index Terms

A traffic model for the Xbox game Halo 2
1. Networks
  1. Network services
    1. Network management
    2. Network monitoring

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Reviews

Reviewer: Antonio Pescape'

A packet-level traffic model of the Halo 2 network game is presented in this paper. A network simulator, version 2 (Ns-2) implementation of the found models is also presented. For the traffic model, a statistical analysis of interpacket times and packet size is provided, and both bandwidth and packet rate are studied. The paper contains an interesting analysis of a hot research topic, and is well written and organized. I think it would be useful for other researchers in this area to have the used traffic traces, but in the paper, there is no indication of repositories for the data. Also, as for the tails analysis, it would be useful to adopt methods like the slope or the scaling method. Moreover, an estimation of the fit in the tails could be of importance. As for the quality of the test tools, in section 5, the explanation of the X2 in equation (6) seems to be incorrect. X2 should not represent the chi-square distribution. Instead, it is a statistic very similar to K, which is also used in the chi-square goodness-of-fit test [1,2]. Online Computing Reviews Service

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Published In

NOSSDAV '05: Proceedings of the international workshop on Network and operating systems support for digital audio and video

June 2005

210 pages

ISBN:158113987X

DOI:10.1145/1065983

Program Chairs:
Wu-chi Feng
Portland State University
,
Ketan Mayer-Patel
University of North Carolina

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 13 June 2005

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NOSSDAV05

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NOSSDAV05: The 15th International Workshop on Network and Operating Systems Support for Digital Audio and Video

June 13 - 14, 2005

Washington, Stevenson, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 118 of 363 submissions, 33%

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Cited By

View all

Yang YHanisch SMa MRoos SStrufe TNguyen G(2024)First Steps Towards Game and Activity Inference on Encrypted VR Datastreams2024 IEEE 25th International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks (WoWMoM)10.1109/WoWMoM60985.2024.00030(105-110)Online publication date: 4-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/WoWMoM60985.2024.00030
Wei FXu GWu QKuang JTian PQin PLi Z(2022)Azure Kinect Calibration and Parameter Recommendation in Different ScenariosIEEE Sensors Journal10.1109/JSEN.2022.316654022:10(9733-9742)Online publication date: 15-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/JSEN.2022.3166540
Xu XClaypool M(2021)A First Look at the Network Turbulence for Google Stadia Cloud-based Game StreamingIEEE INFOCOM 2021 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops (INFOCOM WKSHPS)10.1109/INFOCOMWKSHPS51825.2021.9484481(1-5)Online publication date: 10-May-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/INFOCOMWKSHPS51825.2021.9484481
Chen T(2015)Online GamesComputers in Entertainment10.1145/2582193.263344512:1(1-26)Online publication date: 10-Feb-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2582193.2633445
Suznjevic MMatijasevic M(2015)Trends in evolution of the network traffic of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games2015 13th International Conference on Telecommunications (ConTEL)10.1109/ConTEL.2015.7231199(1-8)Online publication date: Jul-2015
https://doi.org/10.1109/ConTEL.2015.7231199
Claypool MFinkel DGrant ASolano M(2014)On the performance of OnLive thin client gamesMultimedia Systems10.1007/s00530-014-0362-420:5(471-484)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s00530-014-0362-4
Suznjevic MStupar IMatijasevic M(2013)A model and software architecture for MMORPG traffic generation based on player behaviorMultimedia Systems10.1007/s00530-012-0269-x19:3(231-253)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s00530-012-0269-x
Claypool MFinkel DGrant ASolano M(2012)Thin to win?Proceedings of the 11th Annual Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games10.5555/2501560.2501562(1-6)Online publication date: 22-Nov-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2501560.2501562
Claypool MFinkel DGrant ASolano M(2012)Thin to win? Network performance analysis of the OnLive thin client game system2012 11th Annual Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games (NetGames)10.1109/NetGames.2012.6404013(1-6)Online publication date: Nov-2012
https://doi.org/10.1109/NetGames.2012.6404013
Font JCascado DSevillano JDíaz del Río FJiménez G(2012)Network traffic analysis and evaluation of a multi-user virtual environmentSimulation Modelling Practice and Theory10.1016/j.simpat.2012.03.00326(1-15)Online publication date: Aug-2012
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.simpat.2012.03.003
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