How do I reduce data usage?

Cronsky

Honorable
Nov 21, 2012
11
0
10,510
For the past 2 months I've been capped halfway through the month. I watched A LOT of youtube videos and I downloaded a few episodes of game of thrones throughout those 2 months and also played a lot of Dota 2. I have 50gb of data. The thing I want to know is, does playing games use a lot of internet data? How much? I play a lot of Dota 2 and I'd like to get an idea of how much internet usage it uses and I also want to know how much internet data watching videos on youtube uses, and also downloading tv shows.
 
Games use up practically 0 bandwidth. Like 40MB in about 5 hours of online play. Whereas YT and other video providers use up huge amounts on bandwidth, especially at higher resolutions. Like over a gigabyte for an hour video at 1080p (maybe even more). If you want to reduce data usage, only use 720p for videos as it looks very good but takes up a lot less of your available downloads.
 


I only watch in 360p and I still went over my limit in 13 days lol
 
Yeah, Video is the main user. That and downloading new software (ever wonder why some games need several DVDs?).

I normally shy away from posting links to software not from a very trusted source - it's too easy to be taken for someone promoting malware. Besides, every ISP I know of, and some routers, duplicate that function.
 


This is not true at all, as watching youtube/netflix for an hour at 1080p can be 1 or more GB, I downloaded Marvel Heroes the other day off of steam to see what it was like and it was 10GB. So an hour a day and 1 game is already at least 40GB for a month.

Though, I chose my ISP as the one with no data caps, since companies that do this are idiots.

 

I guess you missed the response where the OP said he only watches 360p
 


And he still blew the cap in 13 days. 360p or 1080p....far too much time on YouTube.
 


Where I am (NZ) that's a really bad idea - the ISPs that offer "unlimited" data all strongly traffic shape overseas traffic, which all the major data usage is. Plus they have draconian fair use policies that cut you off at a few hundred GBs.

Seriously, someone build us another undersea cable.