network.download performance problems (Windows simulator)

Solar2D Network
#21

I’m conducting several tests. I’ll post my MacBook results in another post.

My network setup:  AT&T Fiber. I however am on WiFi and have a 250mbps download connection and 4ms ping times on an HP Envy Laptop running Windows 10. For the sample app, I commented out the progress, so I only get the “began” and “ended” phases printed.

Downloading https://developer.coronalabs.com/sites/default/files/corona/2018.3349/Corona-ApiDocs-2018.3349.zip via Google Chrome: 1:28 seconds.

In one run with the app in the simulator, I got this: 

20:30:53.093  Downloading file: 28.24 MB

20:31:51.373  [20:31:51] Done

20:31:51.373  Finished in : 0.97 min

That was 58 seconds. However a second run, I got worse times: 2 min 50 seconds.

21:22:26.338  Downloading file: 28.24 MB

21:25:16.496  [21:25:16] Done

21:25:16.496  Finished in : 2.84 min

Then from my MacBook Pro, with Google Chrome: 2 min, 32 seconds

I tried three times to run your app on my MacBook with the file from our servers. The first two runs produced:

Aug 12 09:48:11.337 Downloading file: 28.24 MB

Aug 12 09:49:14.816 [21:49:14] Done

                    Finished in : 0.04 min

Aug 12 09:52:23.279 Downloading file: 28.24 MB

Aug 12 09:57:04.491 [21:57:4] Done

                    Finished in : 0.11 min

That’s a 63 second download and 4+ minute download. I aborted the 3rd download because it was well over 7 minutes. Ironically, I had to abort downloads in the browser (on both platforms) several times because they were taking way too long.

Now to the IE file:

For: https://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/398.82/398.82-notebook-win10-64bit-international-whql.exe

Google Chrome: 57 seconds.

With the test app, 1 min 58 sec.

21:33:27.608  Downloading file: 55.39 MB

21:35:22.371  [21:35:22] Done

21:35:22.371  Finished in : 1.91 min

Google Chrome on the Mac: 8 seconds

The test app: 7 seconds

Aug 12 09:45:55.399 Downloading file: 55.39 MB

Aug 12 09:46:02.693 [21:46:2] Done

Aug 12 09:46:02.693 Finished in : 0.04 min

I’m not going to do the 500mb file.  

So it does appear on Windows that the simulator is slower (though I do have one test that’s faster).  Let me jump to my MacBook and I’ll update this post for comparisons.

Here are my conclusions:

  1. We have an issue with our downloads. It doesn’t matter if I’m on a browser or your test app, sometimes I get similar quick speeds, sometimes I get horrible speeds. It’s not possible to identify issues with the network.download() API because the downloads are all over the place regardless of where the download is happening. I’ll report this to our system admins and have them investigate.

  2. With a very small sample size (one run each on Windows Chrome, App, MacBook Chrome, and App), there wasn’t any noticeable difference between the two Mac downloads and both were very quick.  On Windows, both downloads were significantly slower than the Mac, by nearly a 10:1 ratio or more. The App was twice as slow as the browser.  This could indicate a difference between the browser and the app, but with a sample size of 1, that’s going to be a difficult sell to our engineers.  

I’ll try on Windows some more tomorrow with the IE download and see if I can get a few more data points to see if it’s a transient network issue or an issue with the simulator. But on my MacBook, with the IE download there wasn’t much of a difference there.

Rob

#22

Your first run matches mine very closely.  I think you reproduced it.  The second run is definitely due to the running over the Wifi.  If possible use wired connection for testing.  The bandwidth / latency jumps you experienced are pretty common with Wifi connections. I’ve tested on Mac OS and IOS.  The download speeds were much more reasonable and it looks like these platforms are not affected.

Downloading file: 28.24 MB [7:44:29] Done Finished in : 0.95 min

Thank you for taking the time to test

#23

My Wifi is at least 250 megabits per second. That means I should be able to download a 25 megabyte file in one second between my router and my laptop. Since my hardwired connections are in the 950 megabit per second range, that file over my connection should take 0.25 seconds to transfer to me. Any time longer than that is overall Internet slowdowns, throttling or server’s being busy and having their bandwidth overwhelmed.

Rob

#24

Hello, was there ever a solution found for the slow download on Windows?
Having the same problem too. People who play our game on Windows have to wait way too long for those 70MB the game needs to download. iOS, Android and Mac are downloading them within a few seconds, while on windows I need to wait minutes.
What should we do about this?

#25

I’m working on a patch to expand the buffer and bring the current throughput of 4.4Mbps up to around 100Mbps, which should be enough.
Stay tune with Solar2D!

4 Likes
#26

Hey, that sounds very promising!
Any clue when the patch is available?
Thanks!

#27
#28

Sorry for the delay. I can’t promise you, but Solar2D is open source, we should help each other and make Solar2D better.

Solar2D has made a version that should be available in 2 hours, please provide feedback, thank you.

1 Like
#29

The GitHub Action’s macOS part failed… but Windows part passed.
You can download it from the Artifacts section at Action.
Note that later fixes to macOS builds may overwrite this version.