MMORPGs bandwidth/latency

blackwight

Junior Member
Aug 29, 2007
2
0
0
Dial-up and satellite connections I'm told result in very high latency/ping to MMORPG's in general, where bandwidth is typically not your problem but that ping needs to be avoided. I have several questions.

Does anybody happen to know a rough estimate what bandwidth is consumed by one computer system playing a World of Warcraft account? Like the actual upload/download fluctuations in use?

If someone is playing a World of Warcraft US server (or similar game), from somewhere on the other side of the planet, say in Africa, is the latency/ping going to drown them without a doubt? Is there any program or web-based method to run a check from a certain location in the world that'll give you an estimate how good/bad your ability to play would be?

Take Kenya as an example. WiMax may be available, would that be totally unsuitable for gameply on a US server? Would DSL or broadband cable-like (which probably isn't available, but anyhow) connections alleviate the ping/latency problems?
 

novasatori

Diamond Member
Feb 27, 2003
3,851
1
0
I used to play wow on a 115.2kbps cellular connection, guild wars too with 400-1000ms pings.

It varies though from game to game, it wasn't so bad in those two but in some games you can't even really play.
 

blackwight

Junior Member
Aug 29, 2007
2
0
0
I'm not a major techie. If I were to learn that the ping from a far away place like Kenya/Ethiopia will be as bad on DSL as it would be on WiMax or similar wireless solution I would likely just go ahead and go wireless.
 

CKent

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
9,020
0
0
WoW seems to average 1kbps or less up/down when I'm just sitting around, I never checked it in a raid however. I think it will use more in a raid situation, possibly choking a 56k modem. The issue with satellite isn't bandwidth but the laws of physics. That type of signal travelling that distance = high latency. The speed is plenty high enough but when your ping is 4-5 digits, you can't reliably game. Ideally you want DSL or cable, but between 56k and satellite I'd go with the modem - just don't expect to raid or do alterac valley.
 

aCynic2

Senior member
Apr 28, 2007
710
0
0
Originally posted by: CKent
WoW seems to average 1kbps or less up/down when I'm just sitting around,

That's not related to latency whatsoever. As an analogy consider latency to be response time to a question, but upload/download to be more related to the amount of information you get.

Latency depends on a lot of factors (conversion from analog to digital, switching at the telco, etc).

If you can afford broadband, get it. If you can't afford it, deal with it. If the server and client code have a decent deadreckoning algorithm, it should minimize the affect of latency, however...some might boot people with high latency for a number of reasons, to include cheating. Yes, people use latency to cheat or at least game the game.
 

CKent

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
9,020
0
0
Originally posted by: aCynic2
Originally posted by: CKent
WoW seems to average 1kbps or less up/down when I'm just sitting around,

That's not related to latency whatsoever. As an analogy consider latency to be response time to a question, but upload/download to be more related to the amount of information you get.

Latency depends on a lot of factors (conversion from analog to digital, switching at the telco, etc).

If you can afford broadband, get it. If you can't afford it, deal with it. If the server and client code have a decent deadreckoning algorithm, it should minimize the affect of latency, however...some might boot people with high latency for a number of reasons, to include cheating. Yes, people use latency to cheat or at least game the game.

I'm well aware of this, but he asked about both latency and bandwidth.