Black Ops data usage tested

Yesterday we posted out review of Call of Duty: Black Ops, and shortly thereafter we received requests from gamers wanting to know exactly how much bandwidth the game uses when playing online. Ever dutiful, we promptly set about testing the game’s data consumption.

The tests were performed on the PC version, so we can’t comment at the data usage of the console versions. We used Bandwidth Monitor, and we made sure that no other programs were running that could suck up additional MBs. To make sure Bandwidth Monitor was reporting data usage accurately, we tested a few small downloads, and once everything was in order, we set about playing the game.

The tests were performed in 20 minute intervals on a 4MB ADSL line. 

We played on various servers, most of which were busy if not at full capacity for most of the time. During the 2 hours test period, Black Ops consumed 79.67MB of data. The majority of this was downloaded, but a 27.16 MB was attributed to the uplink, indicating a fair amount of data being sent from the PC to the server. From this we can assert that the game uses roughly 40MB of data per hour, but results will vary depending on your connection speed, server load, and even play style. 

This means that if on average you play Black Ops for an hour a day, it should consume between 1GB and 1.5GB of data per month. Naturally, the more you play, the more you pay. 

Each test was exactly 20 minutes long. 

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