Comparison of Multiplexing Policies for FPS Games in terms of Subjective Quality

TL;DR

This study compares two multiplexing policies for FPS game traffic, analyzing their impact on subjective quality under different network scenarios to guide optimal policy selection.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of timeout and period multiplexing policies for FPS games, highlighting their effects on QoE and network performance.

Findings

Timeout policy saves bandwidth but may increase delay.

Period policy reduces delay and jitter.

QoE differences are significant mainly with fewer players.

Abstract

This paper compares two policies which can be used for multiplexing the traffic of a number of players of a First Person Shooter game. A network scenario in which a number of players share an access network has been simulated, in order to compare the policies in terms of a subjective quality estimator. The first policy, namely timeout, achieves higher bandwidth savings, while the second one, period, introduces less delay and jitter. The results show that the difference in terms of QoE is only significant when the number of players is small. Thus, in order to make the correct decision, the concrete network scenario and the characteristics of the router would have to be considered in each case, taking into account the estimation of the subjective quality that can be expected.