The bandwidth required by Boundless can be configured by changing the following option:
[ESC] -> Settings -> Network -> Chunk Download Rate
tl;dr
The options are approximately equal to:
- Max - 240 chunks/s
- Ultra - 60 chunks/s = ~2 MB/s or 16 Mbit
- High - 30 chunks/s = ~1 MB/s or 8 Mbit
- Medium - 15 chunks/s = ~500 KB/s or 4 Mbit
- Low - 8 chunks/s limit = ~250 KB/s or 2 Mbit
- Min - 4 chunks/s limit = ~125 KB/s or 1 Mbit
You also need to reserve an additional ~125 KB/s or 1 Mbit for the Entity information. There is no option to control this.
Note: Reducing the “Chunk Download Rate” will make the worlds load slower.
mtl;ddr
Boundless has 2 main channels of data with the server:
- Entity Information: locations and actions of players and creatures, and
- World chunk information: the description of all the blocks in the world.
The Entity information is time critical and ultimately determines the game’s latency with a World. If the entity information, which includes your own player information, isn’t communicated quickly then things will appear to jump around / rubber band / etc. This is the heart beat of all communication. It’s critical.
The World chunk information around your position is essential to move around, hence why portals don’t open instantly, but the more distant chunks can happily load slowly.
The Entity information is a small amount of data all the time.
The World chunk information is a large amount of data infrequently.
Caution: This information was prepared with Release 153 and may be different to the bandwidth required for Boundless 1.0.