Centre closure

As part of a broader organisational restructure, data networking research at Swinburne University of Technology has moved from the Centre for Advanced Internet Architecture (CAIA) to the Internet For Things (I4T) Research Lab.

Although CAIA no longer exists, this website reflects CAIA's activities and outputs between March 2002 and February 2017, and is being maintained as a service to the broader data networking research community.

Why Look At Xbox Traffic

Basically games are fun and entertaining. Just as Hollywood has established a multi-billion dollar industry producing movies, so have hardware and software companies producing video games. The current video game console market is extremely lucrative and worth around $9-billion a year in the USA alone. It is also extraordinarily difficult to penetrate, due to the wide social audience it attempts to capture. The ultimate goals are to dominate the massive multiplayer gaming market and to integrate the console into an Internet-connected living room.

Microsoft's Xbox is one of the newest kids on the game console block. It positions itself clearly in the same arena as the Sony Playstation 2 (PS2) - a console for everyone, with a particular emphasis placed on teenagers and adults. The Xbox distinguishes itself from PS2 by offering multiplayer games, not only for playing on just a single console but also between multiple consoles connected to each other, and even through the Internet. It is equipped with an Ethernet type network port and uses Microsoft's System Link facility to do so.

To date, only a handful of Games feature System Link capabilities for online gaming - Halo, MotoGP, Nascar Heat 2002, Nascar Thunder 2002, Tony Hawk 2x and Tony Hawk 3. Halo allows sixteen players to compete online or on a local network - to which you will need four consoles with four players per console. In many reviews, Halo has been rated as the best First Player Shooter console game.

Essentially as more Xbox gamers immerse themselves into the online gaming experience, Internet Service Providers will need to ensure they can meet the demand and quality of service requirements. The objectives of capturing and analysing Xbox traffic are to identify traffic patterns between gaming consoles and the quality of service requirements for Xbox multiplayer gaming.

Reports

T. Lang, G.J. Armitage, "A Ns2 model for the Xbox System Link game Halo," Australian Telecommunications Networks & Applications Conference 2003 (ATNAC 2003), Melbourne, Australia, December 2003

A.M. Pavlicic, "Capturing Xbox System Link Traffic While Playing TimeSplitters2," (html) CAIA Technical Report 031009A, Oct ober 2003

T. Lang, G.J. Armitage, "A Ns2 model for t he Xbox System Link game Halo," (pdf) CAIA Technical Report 030613A, June 2003

G. J. Armitage, "Eight Players, Two Xboxes, One Screen", (html) CAIA Technical report 021224A, December 2002

M. D. Pozzobon, "Capturing Xbox System Link Traffic while playing Halo", ( html) CAIA Technical report 020802A, August 2002