Improve Download Speeds on RaceDepartment

[Kayumi]

Even without premium membership, how can it be that in 2023 I have dl speeds this slow on a site as big as RD with a Gbit connection? Even with premium membership those speeds weren't much better. How can a skin download take more than 5 mins at best and at worst nearly half an hour. This has to be a joke. Im sorry.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

As outlined in the announcement, speed increase is one of our top priorities.

We appreciate the patience of our community here while we prepare this engine to fire up on all cylinders in the future.

 

[Kayumi]

As outlined in the announcement, speed increase is one of our top priorities.

We appreciate the patience of our community here while we prepare this engine to fire up on all cylinders in the future.

That's fine, but the dl speeds weren't always this bad. I would rather like to know why they became so slow...

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Sure, the simple answer is massive growth in traffic over the years with infrastructure staying the same or not being able to keep up.

We have opted for all users to be able to browse the site stable at peak times but if thousands at the same time are downloading files there is simply a maximum of data that can go through a single pipeline.

 

[Dzul]

Ah, the good old times when downloading the 2 min. trailer of "The Phantom Menace" over a phone line took the entire night... you clicked on download, went to sleep and the next morning the download was just completed. It did feel almost instantaneous!

And if the download had been disrupted overnight you knew it could only mean one thing: Invasion!

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

@Dzul don't forget about that massive phone bill at the end of the month

 

[offroadracer516]

4 months after you are "working on it" I pay for premium and my download speeds are still 200ks. Your priority downloads are clearly a scam and I feel totally ripped off.

 

[Neilski]

4 months after you are "working on it" I pay for premium and my download speeds are still 200ks. Your priority downloads are clearly a scam and I feel totally ripped off.

No, there is no scam here whatsoever, and anyone who feels let down by their Premium upgrade can request a refund.

I can see from our logs that most of your downloads between 2am and 5am CET this morning were not very fast, with a few exceptions (though most of them were considerably faster than 200kB/s).

However, this was at a time of day when the server's network link was lightly loaded, so the majority of even our non-Premium users will have been getting high download speeds. (For the benefit of anyone else reading this, if your download speeds from RD are bad at 4am central European time, then upgrading to Premium is not going to help. Instead I recommend asking us to take a look.)

I'm unsure what is causing your speeds to be so low at that time of day but it's likely to be something wrong with the connectivity between your ISP and ours.
You now have two options: work with us to help us understand (and ideally fix) it, or have a rant at us and call us scammers. If you want to choose the former then please let me know.

Either way, please use the "Contact us" link at the bottom of the page to request a refund of your Premium membership.

 

[offroadracer516]

When you clearly list priority downloads as part of the premium upgrade and my download speeds are 200k with internet like this. Clearly you have a massive problem going with the service you are offering and selling. Priority downloads should NOT get you 200ks a second or less no matter what time of day it is. I have great internet. Never saw above 1 meg a second and I can get faster downloads from literally any other free site. Fastest I saw was 900k's for a few seconds than it went down to 500ks and ever as low as 100. This is absurd at this point. This has been a known issue for a long time and literally nothing has been done to fix it.

 

[Neilski]

When you clearly list priority downloads as part of the premium upgrade and my download speeds are 200k with internet like this. Clearly you have a massive problem going with the service you are offering and selling. Priority downloads should NOT get you 200ks a second or less no matter what time of day it is. I have great internet. Never saw above 1 meg a second and I can get faster downloads from literally any other free site. Fastest I saw was 900k's for a few seconds than it went down to 500ks and ever as low as 100. This is absurd at this point. This has been a known issue for a long time and literally nothing has been done to fix it.

It's almost as if you didn't read what I wrote - maybe take a breath and go back and do that. I will reiterate my suggestion that you request a refund.

Priority downloads should indeed not get you 200kB/s, which is why I suggested we could attempt to investigate the problem.

For the record, my own download speeds as a Premium member at peak times are normally close to full wire speed (for me that's a mere 8MB/s) but on occasions they dip to more like 2 or 3 MB/s. We welcome reports that help us improve the service.

It's not true to say that nothing has been done - the work to prioritise downloads for Premium members was only put in place about a year ago.

Finally, we are still moving things into place to get higher speeds for the site as a whole (including non-Premium members). We'll update everyone about that as soon as we can.

 

[Neilski]

4 months after you are "working on it" I pay for premium and my download speeds are still 200ks. Your priority downloads are clearly a scam and I feel totally ripped off.

You now have two options: work with us to help us understand (and ideally fix) it, or have a rant at us and call us scammers. If you want to choose the former then please let me know.

Just for the avoidance of doubt here: my genuine preference is that you work with us on the issue - that way we have at least a fighting chance of sorting it out for you and other users.

 

[offroadracer516]

Just for the avoidance of doubt here: my genuine preference is that you work with us on the issue - that way we have at least a fighting chance of sorting it out for you and other users.

Not sure what I can do to help. Seems like an issue with the servers you guys are using.

 

[Neilski]

Not sure what I can do to help. Seems like an issue with the servers you guys are using.

Well, if you're willing, I have some things in mind - e.g. tweaking a configuration and asking you to attempt another download while Europe sleeps...
(Edit: that particular type of thing would help me rule out anything on our server as being the culprit. Edit2: as you might be aware, rare/intermittent problems are a nightmare to fix, so if you can find a way to reproduce an issue, or a person who has the issue consistently, that makes things hugely easier.)

 

[offroadracer516]

I can give it a go tonight. See what happens.

 

[Neilski]

I can give it a go tonight. See what happens.

Just saw this. Not sure I can get the tweaks in place immediately, but will have a stab.

Edit: OK, I've made a very unsubtle change. Our network interface is typically lightly loaded for the rest of the EU night. Would be grateful if you could attempt a couple of downloads over the next 6 hours or thereabouts (Basically I mean between now and midnight PDT.)

 

[offroadracer516]

Just saw this. Not sure I can get the tweaks in place immediately, but will have a stab.

Edit: OK, I've made a very unsubtle change. Our network interface is typically lightly loaded for the rest of the EU night. Would be grateful if you could attempt a couple of downloads over the next 6 hours or thereabouts (Basically I mean between now and midnight PDT.)

This was right now. 8:07 AM Berlin time. 11:07 PM California time wednesday night. 15 megs a second. How it should be

 

[Neilski]

This was right now. 8:07 AM Berlin time. 11:07 PM California time wednesday night. 15 megs a second. How it should be

Glad it was better for this file (should still have been somewhat better though).

However, that download was after I reverted the change, so I think the main information we learn from this is that your download speeds from our site are inconsistent. By all means please alert us if you experience the issue again, especially if it's after around 5pm Pacific time.

 

[jgf]

Not sure what I can do to help. Seems like an issue with the servers you guys are using.

There is an old adage - "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link".

How many nodes, how many links, how much equipment, does the signal pass through on its way from RD to your computer? Every one of those could have 100meg passthrough but if any one is throttled at 200k, that is the speed you will get.

Weather, traffic levels, overheating equipment, at any point can affect speeds.

If you use a VPN, try a different server, that can often bypass a bottleneck.
If it is heavy traffic here or on your ISP, try at a different time.

The problem may be with RD, but it may not.

 

[Watanuki198]

Hey I just wanna keep u guys updated. Im new here and got myself the Premium because i thought the download would go faster which didnt happen. For me its 11.30PM UTC+1 and im downloading with 100-150 KB/s. Normaly its about 12mb/s, just letting u guys know and i feel like the guy above here with the premium thingy

 

[Neilski]

Hey I just wanna keep u guys updated. Im new here and got myself the Premium because i thought the download would go faster which didnt happen. For me its 11.30PM UTC+1 and im downloading with 100-150 KB/s. Normaly its about 12mb/s, just letting u guys know and i feel like the guy above here with the premium thingy

Sorry to hear that, but it looks like you're another victim of the connectivity issues between i3D and Deutsche Telekom AG
We hope that it'll be resolved in the future but it's essentially out of our hands.

(By all means use the "contact us" button at the bottom of the page to request a refund.)