Broadband and online gaming advice

[Whistler]

Most of my mates are now getting into ps3/360 online gaming and keep on to me about it. However I'm on a relatively slow B/B connection at @ 400kb/s. Is this fast enough for me to join in? I'll leave the "what to get, ps3 or 360" discussion for another thread
Thx

[StuartC]

Originally Posted by Whistler

Most of my mates are now getting into ps3/360 online gaming and keep on to me about it. However I'm on a relatively slow B/B connection at @ 400kb/s. Is this fast enough for me to join in? I'll leave the "what to get, ps3 or 360" discussion for another thread
Thx

guess it depends on the type of games you're going to play and how much data they want to shift through the link.

I don't use a console for online gaming, so you'd be better browsing on more relevant forums for the consoles you're looking at, or test it by ask one of your mates to bring theirs around and hook it up for some "evaluation" over a weekend (assuming it's not tied to their network identity etc)

My PC online gaming experience is that speed isn't everything.
Latency is.

If you've got a low latency to the server, then the response time is closer to your action and reaction. So you shoot the bad guy in the head and he sprays the walls, result!

Crap latency is like really bad shutter lag on a digital camera
press the button to shoot the fishy, and all you get is a tail and blue water...

If you've got a PC then you should be in a position to use the online checkers and measure the speed and quality of the connection.

[intothebigblue]

What he said!

I use a pc for online gaming also. I started off using a 56k modem, which was a nightmare.

I then went to BB, first on 512k then 1Mb, 2Mb, 8Mb, 10Mb and now 20Mb and to be honest I've seen no difference on any of them. Latency (or your 'ping') is what counts. I've never used a console for online gaming (never likely to either!) and don't know what interface you see when joining an online game. With a pc, it brings up a list of servers running the game and various columns (game map, number of players etc) one of them is ping. I never, ever join a server that is over 80ms as it is almost impossible to get smooth, accurate gameplay.

[Matt-75]

As long as you have a minimum of 128kbit upload, i wouldnt worry about it. Most games only use about 10k up/down on default settings.

Ive played Counterstrike on 512kbit ADSL, 8Mb ADSL, 24Mb ADSL, and 2Mb Cable. I've notice absolutely no difference between the lot, well except my latency has been better on Cable with my in game latency being around 2ms to most servers in the UK. On ADSL i was getting 8-15ms which is weird since i had a better contention ratio on the ADSL than on the cable (but i guess copper vs fiber is the answer).

[StuartC]

Originally Posted by Matt-75

As long as you have a minimum of 128kbit upload, i wouldnt worry about it. Most games only use about 10k up/down on default settings.

Ive played Counterstrike on 512kbit ADSL, 8Mb ADSL, 24Mb ADSL, and 2Mb Cable. I've notice absolutely no difference between the lot, well except my latency has been better on Cable with my in game latency being around 2ms to most servers in the UK. On ADSL i was getting 8-15ms which is weird since i had a better contention ratio on the ADSL than on the cable (but i guess copper vs fiber is the answer).

yup, I used ISDN for a while before ADSL was available.

Latency has improved from this change, but the difference is not as great as when going from modem to ISDN.

Analogue (dial-up modem) is lousy for latency as the signal is being turned from digital to analogue before you send out, and then from analogue to digital as it comes back in. This inevitably adds delays, and thus adds to the latency.

Since latency is the time for the round-trip from you to the server and back again, you're likely to get better performance over services that have as few hops as possible.

as already said, your online games normally have some sort of game browser or lobby facility that you can search for games to join - sort this by the latency/ping/response time and choose the lower ones.

Anything under 50ms will give you an acceptable gameplay experience and shouldn't put you at a disadvantage.

If you get patchy experience, then you may need to investigate the quality and consistency of your connection to that server. Some games provide an in-game display of the network traffic and you might see peaks and troughs that mean you're connection to the server is not smooth.

[Whistler]

This is the speed test result. Good, Bad, Indifferent?

[StuartC]

this is mine

I'm with Metronet and on a 1Mb pay as you go package
this test was to their recommended server.

ping time is quite high and I'd normally select game servers at lower ping times than it shows in this score

There probably isn't much contention (sharing) of the bandwidth on my exchange out in the sticks, which may be why I'm getting close to the full 1Mb performance, plus it's at 10pm

Game-wise your figures should be fine.
Your upload speed is the main bottleneck as broadband is asymmetric, with the download bandwidth typically being 4x the upload capacity.

So, if anything was to limit your experience it'd be the 78kb/s upload figure