Introduction
I propose a new feature for osu!supporters called streamable beatmaps. It would work so that instead of waiting to download a beatmap only it's metadata information would be downloaded and then you would be able to start playing while still downloading the rest of the beatmap.
Advantages
- Players in multiplayer would spend less time waiting for all players to download the beatmap and more time playing
- It would also allow players to start spectating instantly instead of first downloading the beatmap and then maybe missing spectated player's play on just downloaded beatmap.
Disadvantages
- Players with really really slow internet download speed wouldn't benefit from the use of this feature (slow = less than about 200 kbit/s or 25kb/s)
- It would take a lot of work and effort to implement this
I propose a new feature for osu!supporters called streamable beatmaps. It would work so that instead of waiting to download a beatmap only it's metadata information would be downloaded and then you would be able to start playing while still downloading the rest of the beatmap.
Technical stuff
Streaming beatmaps
Beatmaps are easily streamable. First beatmap's information like title, creator, artist, difficulty, timing points, combo colors, hit sounds would be downloaded. At this point you could start playing the map. Then slowly alongside the main music file, hit objects would be streamed. For extra compression instead of streaming plain .osu text file only binary information would need to be transfered, which would compress .osu file greatly.
Streaming music
Now we just have to take care of the music file. I took a quick look into mp3 and ogg specification and found out that both the mp3 and ogg files are made up off sound frames which means that they are both streamable.
During streaming
Streamed data would be saved to files locally and displayed(map)/played(music) when needed.
Beatmaps are easily streamable. First beatmap's information like title, creator, artist, difficulty, timing points, combo colors, hit sounds would be downloaded. At this point you could start playing the map. Then slowly alongside the main music file, hit objects would be streamed. For extra compression instead of streaming plain .osu text file only binary information would need to be transfered, which would compress .osu file greatly.
Streaming music
Now we just have to take care of the music file. I took a quick look into mp3 and ogg specification and found out that both the mp3 and ogg files are made up off sound frames which means that they are both streamable.
During streaming
Streamed data would be saved to files locally and displayed(map)/played(music) when needed.
Advantages
- Players in multiplayer would spend less time waiting for all players to download the beatmap and more time playing
- It would also allow players to start spectating instantly instead of first downloading the beatmap and then maybe missing spectated player's play on just downloaded beatmap.
Disadvantages
- Players with really really slow internet download speed wouldn't benefit from the use of this feature (slow = less than about 200 kbit/s or 25kb/s)
- It would take a lot of work and effort to implement this