Online gaming between Earth and Mars will be laggy as hell
We know that not everyone was blessed with knowledge of aeronautical physics and interplanetary telecommunications, so we'll try and keep this simple. A recent Edge Online article examined the possibility of online multiplayer matches between human Earthlings and human Martians -- as one might expect, the future of galactic Left 4 Dead bouts looks pretty grim.
First off, NASA's two Martian orbiters, through which information is relayed to Earth, can only transfer a single megabit of data per second. Worse still, these orbiters only work in 15 minute increments before they must be repositioned -- a process that takes hours. Furthermore, bandwidth is unsurprisingly limited on the Red Planet -- messages between Earth and Mars usually suffer 4 - 20 minutes of lag, depending on the positions of the conversing planets.
Check out the full article for even more interesting tidbits about extraterrestrial multiplayer. It's all a bit pointless, though. From what we've recently learned, folks on Mars are far too busy causing property damage to play any video games.
First off, NASA's two Martian orbiters, through which information is relayed to Earth, can only transfer a single megabit of data per second. Worse still, these orbiters only work in 15 minute increments before they must be repositioned -- a process that takes hours. Furthermore, bandwidth is unsurprisingly limited on the Red Planet -- messages between Earth and Mars usually suffer 4 - 20 minutes of lag, depending on the positions of the conversing planets.
Check out the full article for even more interesting tidbits about extraterrestrial multiplayer. It's all a bit pointless, though. From what we've recently learned, folks on Mars are far too busy causing property damage to play any video games.












Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ArchiGamer 2.0 [Master of Epic Irony] [Wiizer Sweatshop Human Resources] @ Aug 6th 2009 6:08AM
Astrophobia on Xbox Live confirmed?
J.Goodwin @ Aug 6th 2009 6:13AM
Griffin demonstrates that he doesn't understand the difference between bandwidth and latency. No wonder he gets all the ladies.
WINterfang @ Aug 6th 2009 10:48AM
I know you are blue already but I still voted you up....I hope the message turns gold or something.
Decanus @ Aug 6th 2009 6:20AM
we will just sling a big wire across no one will know the difference
Micah @ Aug 6th 2009 6:34AM
Where's the "big-fricking-durr" tag for this article?
[tre, loquacious lover of long names and anti-activision ambassador that likes alliteration)] [blogs at trespeak.tumblr.com] @ Aug 6th 2009 6:59AM
You can also use "Well, DUH" and it'll give you the same effect.
Frost @ Aug 6th 2009 6:49AM
By the time we need to worry about intra-solar-networking for gaming, Quantum entanglement should offer a decent gateway for data transfer between data hubs, regardless of their distance.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/06/22/2604918.htm
And yes, this should also mean you could have low pings between North America and Europe/Asia.
KevlarGibs @ Aug 6th 2009 11:09AM
This is exactly what I was going to say.
Raffi @ Aug 6th 2009 2:13PM
Quantum entanglement doesn't get around the light speed barrier though, which is mainly what this is about.
kftgr @ Aug 6th 2009 5:55PM
@Raffi
Yes, it does. it can provide faster than light communications.
Light speed is approximately 1 foot per nanosecond.
If you can determine the status of the particle in 1 nanosecond, but have the entangled particles over 1 foot apart, that's faster than light transfer of information.
ThatPCgameryouhate @ Aug 7th 2009 12:51AM
Well kftgr, if that's true, you just proved thousand's of scientists wrong; considering the speed of light is the fastest known movement of anything....-ever.
Speed of light=nature's speed limit.
Direct from wikipedia:
"Speeds faster than that of light are encountered in physics but in no such cases is any matter or information transmitted faster than c. The speed of light also plays a role in general relativity, and is believed to be the speed of gravitational waves."
Ghen @ Aug 6th 2009 6:53AM
Agreed with property damage. I don't know who would ever want to build on mars with me around.
sonicspike41 @ Aug 6th 2009 6:55AM
Am I the only one who found it odd that 100 megabit/second is supposedly fast enough for HD video to be sent there and back?
Are they confusing bit with byte?
I'd imagine they'd need something faster than 12.5 bytes/second, which is apparently 0.01 kb/s
Ian @ Aug 6th 2009 9:34AM
Well, seeing as HD is usually encoded at around 20mbit/sec, I'd imagine that a 100mbit connection would be just swimmingly fine. After all, we can stream HD just fine over current 54mbit/sec 802.11G connections.
Vidikron @ Aug 6th 2009 9:55AM
"After all, we can stream HD just fine over current 54mbit/sec 802.11G connections."
Hah... not in my experience.
sonicspike41 @ Aug 6th 2009 10:07AM
100 bits is apparently 12.5 bytes, which is about 0.012 kbytes, which is also 0.00001 megabytes.
My 1.5 mbyte/s DSL connection averages 150kbyte/s per second for downloads and such, but almost every HD video I watch needs plenty of time to preload/buffer.
That's at 150 kilobytes a second, which is supposedly 1228800 bits per second.
This is what I'm using for the conversion rates:
http://www.beesky.com/newsite/bit_byte.htm
The way i understood it was 8 bits = 1 byte, and 1024 bytes = 1 kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes = 1 megabyte.
Are they interchangeable now?
R (XBL: Esoteric Lord) @ Aug 6th 2009 10:19AM
Byte is the correct term, but its not uncommon for non-techies to interchange them. Guess you'd have to do some research and see what the actual speed is.
rallion @ Aug 8th 2009 8:29AM
There's a huge difference between 100 megabits and 100 bits, dude. A million-fold difference. 100mbit is 65 times the speed of your internet connection.
Also, you don't have a 1.5 megabyte/sec connection, you have a 1.5 megabit/sec connection. Every ISP on the planet speaks in megabits when they talk about speed.
[tre, loquacious lover of long names and anti-activision ambassador that likes alliteration)] [blogs at trespeak.tumblr.com] @ Aug 6th 2009 7:00AM
So I won't be able to play Burnout with my friends there?
CRAP!
Alex @ Aug 6th 2009 7:06AM
I can't see sales of the next Doom game being very good from Mars.
snarfoogle @ Aug 6th 2009 7:23AM
If Ender's Game has taught me anything, it's that we need a race of buglike aliens to attack our species so we can steal their instantaneous communication technology to improve our interplanetary internet speeds.
Skaz @ Aug 6th 2009 8:45AM
I could have gone without that whole subplot with Ender's brother and sister.
snarfoogle @ Aug 6th 2009 9:31AM
They weren't in the original short story but it's not bad and sets up some stuff in the sequels.
RedSonRising @ Aug 6th 2009 7:35AM
i swear i was expecting an article about patcher making another stupid prediction..
@snarfoogle
Ender's Game, havent read that in a long time. great book, mediocre follow ups: i really wish osc would stop milking the franchise tho. the last few entries were barely passable.
MRLN, Fountain of Wisdom and Wit @ Aug 6th 2009 9:46AM
If you're talking about the short stories, then yeah, but don't be dissing my Children of the Mind!
Anonymouse @ Aug 6th 2009 7:48AM
*Takes aim*
Yes, headshot..... Haha, I have defeated you, Martian1337!
/Martian 1337 has logged out. "You guys suck"
*2 games later*
Anonymouse has killed Martian1337
Muu @ Aug 6th 2009 8:14AM
Turn-based strategy games could withstand a 15min time delay.
The Baron @ Aug 6th 2009 9:28AM
Was thinking the same thing. Some turns towards the end of Civ 4 can take 5 minutes anyway.
LaughingTarget @ Aug 6th 2009 8:26AM
People have overcome worse obstacles to gaming before, they'll do it again. Get between a gamer and a Halo 3 match and humanity can create miracles.
tmacairjordan87 @ Aug 6th 2009 8:41AM
Can we, ya know...get to Mars before we start worrying about online gaming?
40 years and we still don't even have a moon base set up.
Jesus (PSN: Luttdawg) @ Aug 6th 2009 8:50AM
It's tmac's fault dude. With all that time off he has been causing trouble at NASA.
Storm Eagle [Wiizer Sweatshop R&D] @ Aug 6th 2009 9:20AM
Rekall Live Confirmed?
Now, here is the plan. Get your ass to Mars. There's no lag there.
CH3BURASHKA @ Aug 6th 2009 9:23PM
GET TO DA CHOPPER!
Azerael @ Aug 6th 2009 9:25AM
Have to work out a way to exploit quantum entanglement. If changes to two particle at any distance happen simultaneously, then you can use the changing state to represent 1's and 0's etc. and transfer information instantly.
Now that i think about it...
BRB going to the patent office.
MRLN, Fountain of Wisdom and Wit @ Aug 6th 2009 9:52AM
Yeah, but the nature of the subatomic particles means that if you can somehow observe the spin, it's going to be going both ways (so to speak). I think.
I'm not a quantum physicist, but I remember reading something about this.
Jeffrey @ Aug 6th 2009 10:16AM
Spin is just the term for an intrinsic angular momentum. I've only taken introductory Quantum Mechanics (pretty rudimentary course, at that), and spin wasn't discussed too much. Since angular momentum is governed by the uncertainty principle, it seems reasonable to think that intrinsic angular momentum is also governed by the uncertainty principle. So with that being said, if you can precisely know the spin then you will not be able to determine it's position. Take this with a grain of salt, though, since I'm fairly new to Quantum Mechanics.
CH3BURASHKA @ Aug 6th 2009 10:32AM
At this moment, yes, Earth-Mars games would be laggy. However, by the time colonies are established enough to be running interplanetary games those satellites will have multiplied into dozens, and smart programming would have them changing information with whichever satellite is closest. Also, by that time, we will be using single-beam lasers to transmit data, getting rid of the 4-20 minute problem.
Or we can rely on quantum mechanics. Either way, it'll work.
kftgr @ Aug 6th 2009 5:47PM
psst... yes, you, CH3BURASHKA. Lasers work with light. Light travels at ... light speed.
How long would it take, traveling at light speed to get from Earth to Mars, you ask? 4 to 20 minutes.
Yes, it is really the same speed as using radio waves. That's because they are both part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
CH3BURASHKA @ Aug 6th 2009 9:23PM
Wow, I REALLY didn't think that post through. Man, light isn't as cool as it's hyped up to be; 4-20 minutes? Come on, photons, you could do better.
Well, then, the quantum majiggers are all we have left.
goboColossus (LIVE, PSN - gobopop) @ Aug 6th 2009 10:51AM
Maybe some of the humans working on Mars can create some kind of portal or teleportation device that can transmit data between two non-linear points. Hopefully unleashing the hordes of hell won't put strains on the network.
Stevetrop @ Aug 6th 2009 11:01AM
Screw mars lets focus on on Earth & Moon online matches. I was to see some hard core matches between the earth and the moon.
TomCo @ Aug 6th 2009 11:38AM
Relay satellites at lagrange points, mark my words.
Ashkental @ Aug 6th 2009 11:47AM
That's because Subspace communications hasn't been invented.... yet.
Drew @ Aug 6th 2009 12:24PM
This reminds me. NASA is a blackhole of inefficiency that moves far too slowly and is far too cumbersome, financially speaking, to ever do anything satisfactorily. Even when we went to the moon, we were like "OOOOOOOH. Now what?"
Drop NASA, and give their toys to Apple, or Microsoft, or even Gibson.
ROCK....IN......SPACE!!!
milimetersquared @ Aug 6th 2009 12:52PM
It was really funny to read this article, since I actually work on a daily basis with a lot of the data that's sent back from MRO (all publicly available imagery can be found here: http://ode.rsl.wustl.edu/mars/index.aspx). The cameras that are onboard the spacecraft are very high resolution; some of the grayscale images are pretty enormous in size (as big as 1 GB), so, unfortunately, the virtual pipes will likely be too gummed up even a game of Civ :(
However, luckily some new orbiters will be going up in the 201X's, so maybe if we ask NASA really really nicely, they'll let us have some playtime with our martian pals.
Hardcore @ Aug 6th 2009 1:16PM
So NASA uses Comcast too?