ints/floats/strings and the bandwidth they use

Hey I was searching google to find info on how much bandwidth these different types of things send, but I couldn't find anything, so I'm now asking here.

I've read some things about how different types of numbers use different amounts of bandwidth, like how there are 4 bit numbers, 8 bit, 16, 32, 64..And that this may have something to do with binary. Numbers 1-255 are low bandwidth etc

Long story short, can you refer me to any reading material on this? I must be using the wrong search terms in google since I know so little about this subject. I don't know what search terms to use. Thanks.

 

int = 4 bytes, float = 4 bytes, short = 2 bytes, long = 8 bytes, double = 8 bytes, byte = 1 byte (ooh!), bool = 1 byte, string = 2 bytes per character (more or less).

--Eric

 

strings are usually 2 + (2 * characters)

 

are doubles any slower in mono compilation? I ask because a) mono isn't as optimised as .net, particularly the version unity uses and b) there's no evidence that the compiler packs floats on 64 bit architecture where possible to save time on 64 bit.

So is there any measurable speed difference between doubles and floats?

Personally I don't think so - but the habit of appending f is probably not going to go anywhere for anyone.

 

For strings I'd use UTF8 and to bring it down to ~1byte/char [barring exotic languages].

 

fholm turned me on to SlimMath, a really nice .NET half precision library that works great in Unity. Really nice for packing all your floats into 2 bytes before serializing or RPC'ing them, and unpacking them on the other side. Cut all my bandwidth in half.

 

This sounds like a nice way to significantly reduce bandwidth consumption indeed. Thanks for these information.

 

can you share slimmath code ?