Why does Planetside 2 use up a lot of my download limit? Is there a way to stop it?

(For starters, I am an Australian living in Sydney)

I have played many different games/mmo online.

From Wow/Rift/Tera
to LoL/HoN/
to CSS/CS:GO/Borderlands 2.

Every other game hasn't had a problem with capping my download.
Even if I play them all day.

But for some reason when I played Planetside 2 for about 4 hours last night, I decided to check my usage..
It used up about 1.4GB of data!!

I was gobsmacked!!!
I wasnt even in a squad (and wasnt using voice chat)

And it really sucks, because tbh, It was the most gaming fun I have had in such a long time...it actually gave me the feeling again of when I played my very first MMO online.. (yes...I actually caught the purple dragon!!)

Please if anyone, Particularly Australians have found this issue, and maybe a solution that would work for me, please fill me in.

Otherwise, the most fun game I have played in ages will need to be avoided...

(and please, for all intents and purposes, assume raising my internet cap is not an option)


Thankyou

inb4 someone says "BUT THERES MORE PEOPLE ON SCREEN" like that matters.

For all those people, I have also played EVE online quite a lot.
And those 1000 ship battles are intense...and don't even come close to using up as much data usage as 4 hours of Planetside2 did.

What 4 hours of this game cost me, I could play for a week...all week long on other games like EvE, and not even come as close to it

You positive it was just Planetside? Sometimes i forget utorrent is sitting in my background or steam didnt just decide to update games in your list?

Iv had both happen multiple times. "Why am i lagging...?" "Oh TF2 is updating at 3 megs "

Nothing else running.
No programs of mine are set to start up on windows startup. And I haven't touched torrents for a little while.

0 Lag whilst playing too.

Just checked my usage, I'm not anywhere near 1.4GB used despite a longer timeframe of playing.

With Telstra Bigpond, if it matters any.

Damn.
See, I am also with telstra bigpond. On a 4g wireless.

Never had any other issues.

And it's only an 8g data allowance, but tbh, if i need to download big patches etc, I just go to my sisters house and flog her 250gb allowance for all my patching and bittorrent needs....
Even though it's only 8g.its always been PLENTY for simply gaming online...

Maybe it's something to do with wireless? I don't know much about this kind of stuff. No viruses or anything eating away at your usage?

Any fetishes you're not telling us about?

Because its hundreds of people doing shooter actions. You have to update their movement and facing, all those bullets and explosions and sync-checks and planes flying overhead etc et al :|

Eve is as follows:

1. fire gun
2. server rolls dice
3. client displays message about the hit / miss & damage

In Planetside 2 hit detection is client side (which is why we cannot hit infantry beyond the render range, the server knows they are there but our client does not) which means data on the bullets, players, vehicles, etc has be fly back and forth between the client and the data to work out what happens when you pull the trigger.

You not using steam for PS2? Just trying to be thorough.

I went on the Steam PS2 forums the day it was added.

Sooooooo many issues with that client.

So glad I just downloaded from planetside2.com.

yeah i havnt had a single issue, regardless my point of the question was steam would be in the backround but people wouldnt think anything of it cause you need it to open the client.

EVE is notoriously 1hz. Nothing ticks faster than a second at a time. that is SLOW. And one ship generates considerably less actions than one player in a shooter.

hey i've noticed the same thing, just not as extreme. It was using about 2.5 gigs in a 8 hour day with some skype which i know uses about 25 megs an hour so thats obviously not a major contributor...

It sucks because i use my verizon broad band, being that its better then anything i can get around here by a ton. PS2 with 600+ ping just wouldnt be fun.

Do your countries not offer unlimited connections then?

Not a single ISP without a "fair usage" policy or data caps?

I'm in Hawaii, using my phone in a barracks room. The internet i could get from them IS unlimited, but slow as stale molasses...

Nah, no other programs running in background.
I'm always pretty thorough with it.

Got the game through Ps2 website.

And as for the "Lots of people on the server comments"

I don't see how it's different to gigantic BG's on WoW, or playing a **** load of CS.

I'm not saying there isn't more data usage to be considered in this game....but I mean, 1.4 gigs is damned extreme!

Wow is the same as Eve:

press a button, server decides if you hit.

There's no need for hit detection, etc.

But I agree 1.4gb is extreme, which is why people are repeatedly asking you to confirm that you had nothing else running.

:edit:

And comparing a game with the size & scale of PS2 to a small instanced lobby-based game like CS is pointless too I'm afraid. You would need to play for a hell of a long time to need the same bandwidth as big battles in PS2.

I feel for anyone who's forced into data caps for their home connection. That **** just seems like a money grubbing scam, to me. I understand network congestion, but it's not as if data is a finite resource or something.