I had this idea while seeing those temp cache files..
Would it be possible to make it save unfinished downloads in some directory and next time ur about to download the same file again it would continue downloading it. It's just so frustating when ur downloading a 10 MB file at 95 %, then server map change and you have to start over.. or is the idea too time consuming to make?

I'd assume that doing this would be relatively simple. While downloading the file, occasionally dump what has been downloaded so far into the file <GUID>.tmp. When starting a download, check to see if this file exists. If so, open the file and resume the download from there. I've never tried doing anything with saving files in C++, but I can't imagine that it would be too difficult to implement ths.

Yea sounds like requiring a few intelligent changes to both server and client. File handling itself is easy (relatively) and fast in C++. But you know things are ALWAYS more complicated than they first appear :-O

no, you are right. It is what you think.
But on the other hand, it might be not necessary at all when the download is fixed. I tried it with havoks suggestion to set the tickrate of the server to 70- long time i ago i saw such a fast download. So there must be a way to fix that.

Well once I saw some map data in 1 of those temp files like "Brush103" "Nali1" etc...
So, I think it stores the currently finished downloads there while game is downloading, then when its finished it moves the file to cache folder and renames it. Maybe some unexpected shut down makes unreal not to delete them when download cancels (crash, exit?).

I wrote an instant messaging program in C# once that allowed users to resume previous downloads from other users. The idea actually isn't difficult at all, assuming the files are sent sequentially (starting at byte 0 and ending at the last byte, which I assume it is). When the server is rattling off the server packages to the client, and the client checks to see if it has each package, if it encounters a package that it doesn't have, it simply needs to check if <GUID>.tmp exists (as Bane said). If it does exist, then all it needs to do is send back the file size of the .tmp file to the server, and the server should begin transferring the file to the client at that offset, and the client should begin appending. If the file doesn't exist, the client just sends back 0 so the server begins sending from the 0th offset, or the beginning of the file. It's easy in theory and was easy to implement as well, as long as the files are sent from server to client starting at byte 0 and ending at the last byte (I can't imagine any reason why it wouldn't be sent in order, but just thought I'd stress it lol.)

Bump for justice.

I guess it'd also then keep the download and not restart it from the beginning if the server switches maps, that's really annoying when it happens.

Hyper wrote on 01/19/10 at 14:00:37:

Actually it's very hard for me to do that without the source code of Unreal Engine 1. Even so it might not be worth the time and all the trouble with debugging it when HTTP redirecting handles downloading very fast anyway.