How much bandwidth does online gaming use?

[Maximilian]

Specifcally league of legends, ive been stuck with no net for 3 weeks but now ive got a mobile 3g USB thing with 3gb of net use on it till my ISP gets its act together. Can i game with this thing? Im fine with sticking with league of legends for now and forfeiting SCII or MW2 etc as with LoL theres only 10 people running around the map so it should use less bandwidth right?

Thought i would ask before i go and download the big patch thats available for it now, i dont wanna tear into this 3gb too much as i dont know how long my ISP is gonna take.

 

[nsafreak]

Online gaming itself doesn't use all that much in terms of bandwidth you could use it for SC 2, MW2 and LoL for a couple of weeks and not go over your limit provided you don't download any large files.

 

[Lonyo]

The serious issue is going to be lots of latency, which may have a serious impact on any gaming, even if it's not as sensitive as things like FPS games.

 

[CurseTheSky]

The serious issue is going to be lots of latency, which may have a serious impact on any gaming, even if it's not as sensitive as things like FPS games.

Depending on the service, those USB 3G modems aren't bad. My fiancée's family has satellite through Direct TV for their main connection and the overall speed and latency is HORRIBLE. Seriously, just a few steps above dial-up at best. She bought a 5GB / month WLAN card from Verizon a couple of years ago, and it's perfectly suitable for playing Titan Quest together, at the very least. It feels fairly snappy overall, probably equivalent to a 1-1.5 Mbps cable connection.

 

[Maximilian]

Well i just played a 35 min game of LoL which i lost lol... yeah went pretty well on this 3g thing, my latency is around 120-200 which is crap compared to everyone else in the game but tbh it didnt affect my gameplay much. I remember back in RA2 300 ping used to be pretty good and we would only kick people over 450 ping heh.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Well i just played a 35 min game of LoL which i lost lol... yeah went pretty well on this 3g thing, my latency is around 120-200 which is crap compared to everyone else in the game but tbh it didnt affect my gameplay much. I remember back in RA2 300 ping used to be pretty good and we would only kick people over 450 ping heh.

It depends on the type of game. On some CS: S servers, you get kicked for breaking 100 ms ping. I can personally play decently with up to 250 ms or so.

RTS and other strategy games, on the other hand, do quite well with higher ping. I still wouldn't want to be at 500+ ms, but 250-400 shouldn't be too much of a problem, since there are interface delays anyway and delays related to unit pathing. Christ, after playing Warcraft III online for so long, I couldn't play single player anymore due to the fact that I was used to that half-second delay between clicking a unit and telling them to move and them actually starting to go in that direction.

DotA (and subsequently LoL, HoN, etc. most likely) sucked with a lot of lag, but it was more due to the elitist attitude of most players than the actual game itself. "ZOMG WTF YOU MISSED THAT STUN AND HE GOT AWAY YOU SUCK YOU NOOB I'M PUTTING YOU ON THE BANLIST!!1!!11!111" etc.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Download TCPView from Microsoft and track how much bandwidth LoL uses during your next session.

 

[zebano]

As stated latency is a much bigger deal than bandwidth. I've played LoL on my DSL and on my parents cable and it's much snappier on the cable (~45ms as opposed to 125ms ping).

 

[McLovin]

As stated latency is a much bigger deal than bandwidth. I've played LoL on my DSL and on my parents cable and it's much snappier on the cable (~45ms as opposed to 125ms ping).

That's because all DSL connections have some inherent latency built into the ISP network. Some companies, like QWEST, I've bene told add anywhere from 15-30ms of latency before it even hits the node at the main office.

I have frontier communciations where I live currently and I'd say that estimate above is pretty close for them.

This, and having to use their equipment, for the most part, is why DSL sucks soooo much asshole for anything. Hell frontier told me they don't offer port forwarding "support" because it's not a feature their customers need! LOL

 

[micaturbo]

That's because all DSL connections have some inherent latency built into the ISP network. Some companies, like QWEST, I've bene told add anywhere from 15-30ms of latency before it even hits the node at the main office.

I have frontier communciations where I live currently and I'd say that estimate above is pretty close for them.

This, and having to use their equipment, for the most part, is why DSL sucks soooo much asshole for anything. Hell frontier told me they don't offer port forwarding "support" because it's not a feature their customers need! LOL

Perhaps if your line sucks and it's set to interleaved.

 

[Nirreln]

Wow, I've been out of online gaming for a little while but anything over 100ms is now crap for ping?! Back in the late 90's and early 2000's that would have been considered fast.

 

[micaturbo]

Damn those LPBs

 

[Homerboy]

Perhaps if your line sucks and it's set to interleaved.

I was going to say someting similar.
I went from cable to DSL and there is no difference at all. Unless you got really shitty copper in your house, but even with interleaving you shouldn't notice a thing.

 

[zebano]

That's because all DSL connections have some inherent latency built into the ISP network. Some companies, like QWEST, I've bene told add anywhere from 15-30ms of latency before it even hits the node at the main office.

I have frontier communciations where I live currently and I'd say that estimate above is pretty close for them.

This, and having to use their equipment, for the most part, is why DSL sucks soooo much asshole for anything. Hell frontier told me they don't offer port forwarding "support" because it's not a feature their customers need! LOL

Funny you mention Qwest since they're my provider.

 

[Lonbjerg]

That's because all DSL connections have some inherent latency built into the ISP network. Some companies, like QWEST, I've bene told add anywhere from 3-30ms of latency before it even hits the node at the main office.

I have frontier communciations where I live currently and I'd say that estimate above is pretty close for them.

This, and having to use their equipment, for the most part, is why DSL sucks soooo much asshole for anything. Hell frontier told me they don't offer port forwarding "support" because it's not a feature their customers need! LOL

FYP.

/topic:
Bandwith is largely irrelevant for gaming a 128/128Kbit/s line would be fine.
Lag is the killer.
This thread has some posts from me about networking and lag:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2085280&highlight=shdsl&page=2

Post #38 and onwards.

 

[lord_emperor]

I actually benchmarked this a few years back.

World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3, Battlefield 1942, Command & Conquer Generals all used around 5Kbps.

The latency inherent in your ISP's cable or DSL network is a significant part of overall latency, also if you have any packet loss it will make your multiplayer experience terrible.

The best connection I ever had was a 1.5Mbps dedicated business wireless, I'd take it any day over my 15Mbps cable internet, aside from the $700/mo price that is.

 

[HybridSquirrel]

league of legends shouldnt take up much. i've played it with little lag on one of those mobile broadband usb modems from verizon. though the way lag is percieved is different depending on the game. I ping 200+ to eve but feels fine. 150+ on wow is fine. anything higher than 80 on CSS is ridiculous. over 50 on bc2 is ridiculous. Depends on the game really.

 

[velillen]

World Of Warcraft was usually sub1-2kbps which if you played 20 hours a week which is ~600mb a month. Should give you at least somewhat of an idea.

 

[bhanson]

Wow, I've been out of online gaming for a little while but anything over 100ms is now crap for ping?! Back in the late 90's and early 2000's that would have been considered fast.

I actually recall 80-120ms being "crap" back when I played UT99.

East vs west coast was a nightmare because their home servers were obviously on the coasts and 30ms vs 100ms was not fair at all.

Central was okay but then the argument was always Chicago vs Texas. East coast pinged better to Chicago and west didn't like that, but when playing on central east would always complain about some mysterious server lag.

Oh, the memories.

 

[TheRyuu]

I actually recall 80-120ms being "crap" back when I played UT99.

East vs west coast was a nightmare because their home servers were obviously on the coasts and 30ms vs 100ms was not fair at all.

Central was okay but then the argument was always Chicago vs Texas. East coast pinged better to Chicago and west didn't like that, but when playing on central east would always complain about some mysterious server lag.

Oh, the memories.

That's because Texas servers magically suck and always produce mysterious lag.
Games take up very little bandwidth as others have said. I believe CS:S takes up about ~10-15 KB/s down and ~5-10 KB/s up and that's for 100 tick.

 

[sushanth]

hey guys i never cared about bandwidth as i have unlimited plan and i tested just to reply this thread and i tried with crysis 3 multiplayer and it took only 35 mb for an hour...

 

[FalseChristian]

I'm limited to 120GB of downloads a months on my Rogers Cable Internet (65Mbs) per month. Is this a problem when playing multiplayer games? My ping is only 8ms. Is this also a problem?

 

[Stuka87]

Some games use a lot of bandwidth. Diablo 3 on upper MP Inferno difficulties likes to use quite a bit. BF4 with 64 players uses a fair amount as well.

So keep an eye on your usage.

 

[CPA]

I was going to say someting similar.
I went from cable to DSL and there is no difference at all. Unless you got really shitty copper in your house, but even with interleaving you shouldn't notice a thing.

We have copper, but don't experience latency except for an occassional spike. Normally, we are looking at 75ms or less on LOL, TF2, even BF4. I was told yesterday by a tech with the phone company (he was installing some new equipment at my house so we could get 20MB) that we were pretty close to the relay, though. /shrug

 

[Maximilian]

Thank fook I got out of that crappy flat and now have unlimited 30mb cable