Optimizing Consistency by Maximizing Bandwidth Usage in Distributed Interactive Applications

A key factor determining the success of a Distributed Interactive Application (DIA) is the maintenance of a consistent shared virtual world. To help maintain consistency, a number of Information Management techniques have been developed. However, unless carefully tuned to the underlying network, they can negatively impact on consistency. This work presents a novel adaptive algorithm for optimizing consistency by maximizing available bandwidth usage in DIAs. This algorithm operates by estimating bandwidth from trends in network latency, and modifying data transmission rates to match the estimated value. Results presented within demonstrate that this approach can help optimise consistency levels in a DIA