500k connection fast enough for online gaming?

[FDF12389]

?

 

[DainBramaged]

are you playing Doom? sure

 

[spidey07]

Games don't use much bandwidth at all. You're fine.

 

[iamaelephant]

I played games on a 512kbps DSL connection for years, it's fine. Only recently switched to full speed. Before that I was on 256kbps DSL and before that 128kbps, all are fine for CS:S, DoD:S, TFC, Dawn of War and a number of other games. Games don't use a lot of bandwidth, it's the latency that matters, and the latency doesn't change a lot with bandwidth.

 

[Rubycon]

What's the latency? Above 200 ms and the shooters start calling out the LPB's with normal pings.

 

[Flammable]

how is latency calculated?

 

[iamaelephant]

Originally posted by: Flammable
how is latency calculated?

Latency is the time it takes for signals to get from your PC to the server and back.

EDIT: You probably know it as "ping"

 

[TheRyuu]

Games only really use 10-50kB/s download, and 5-20kB/s upload. It's the latency that really matters though.

Example:
CS:S only really uses 20kB/s MAX download and 10kB/s MAX upload, it's normally less then that.
That being said, if the 512kb DSL connection has a lower latency then the OC12 connection some other guy is playing on, the DSL connection will work way better with the game.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Flammable
how is latency calculated?

By adding the serialization delay to put a fixed sized packet (normally 64 bytes) to the over all round trip delay. The serialization delay is calculated by (packetsize in bytes * 8)/data rate speed. This happens on both ends of the overall round trip delay so it happens 4 times on a round trip.

So
1) serilization delay on the sender side
2) delay while traveling the network
3) serilization delay on the last hop to destination
4) serialization delay on the receiving host to put packet onto wire
5) dealy while traveling the network
6) serialization delay on the last hop to the original sender.

That's your latency.

 

[Zolty]

anything above 256k is fine, so long as the latency (ping times) remains low.

 

[Svnla]

How do I find out whether my DSL <1.5MB down, 256Kb up> has low or high latency? I know the lower is better, just wonder if mine is low enough for FFS games.

 

[Conky]

Originally posted by: Svnla
How do I find out whether my DSL <1.5MB down, 256Kb up> has low or high latency? I know the lower is better, just wonder if mine is low enough for FFS games.

http://www.speedtest.net/ This link will give show your ping to various servers.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: Flammable
how is latency calculated?

By adding the serialization delay to put a fixed sized packet (normally 64 bytes) to the over all round trip delay. The serialization delay is calculated by (packetsize in bytes * 8)/data rate speed. This happens on both ends of the overall round trip delay so it happens 4 times on a round trip.

So
1) serilization delay on the sender side
2) delay while traveling the network
3) serilization delay on the last hop to destination
4) serialization delay on the receiving host to put packet onto wire
5) dealy while traveling the network
6) serialization delay on the last hop to the original sender.

That's your latency.

:laugh:

 

[iamaelephant]

Originally posted by: Svnla
How do I find out whether my DSL <1.5MB down, 256Kb up> has low or high latency? I know the lower is better, just wonder if mine is low enough for FFS games.

Just install a damn game and try to play it FFS. It depends on the relative position of the server to you. Jesus H Sodapop Christ....