online gaming question

[dfuze]

I currently have a cable connection w/ speeds of 12 Mbs down and 2 Mbps up. Since I never hit those speeds I was wondering if I downgraded my service to the 3 Mbps down and 256 768 Kbps up if I could still online game smoothly. I understand some has to do with ping to the server you are playing on, but would that tier be fast enough?

I currently play Battlefield 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 online if it matters much.

Edit - Looks like cox has upgraged the package from 256 to 768 Kbs up, a nice surprise from them for once.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Yikes, I play with DSL at 3mbps down and 600 something up, and my ping is usually not good, 90's or higher (I think), and I do get lag pretty often in Call of Duty. So, while you could still play online, I don't know if I'd call it smooth.

Maybe long after I'm gone we'll have access to South Korean speeds, haha.

 

[Xcobra]

I know that for L4D pings of 100-200 don't really matter, you can still play smoothly. Once you get passed that then it starts getting annoying. In my experience anyway...

 

[brencat]

You are only as good as your weakest link. I'd be less concerned with DL as with UL speed. Less than 1mb gets laggy in first person shooters based on my experience.

 

[dfuze]

Is there any way to limit my upload speed to see how it would run?

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

256kbps is heaps if you're not hosting. I've played with 128kbps up and had no issues.

 

[Mike Gayner]

Heaps of nonsense in this thread. Yes those speeds will be fine, assuming all other factors are good. You don't need anywhere near 256kbps upstream for gaming. The person who says you need >1mbps is wrong.

 

[dfuze]

Thanks for the responses. They must have changed it since I printed it out a couple weeks ago, checking the websites now shows upstreams at 768 Kbps so that is even better.

I also see in my router settings to set the limit QOS upstream bandwidth to 768 Kbps so I can try it out.

 

[Maximilian]

I currently have a cable connection w/ speeds of 12 Mbs down and 2 Mbps up. Since I never hit those speeds I was wondering if I downgraded my service to the 3 Mbps down and 256 Kbps up if I could still online game smoothly. I understand some has to do with ping to the server you are playing on, but would that tier be fast enough?

I currently play Battlefield 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 online if it matters much.

Yes hell yes! Dont start to worry unless your getting less than 1mbps and even then everything should be fine. I used to play online on a 56k modem, lag wasent that bad, it lags about as much today online as it used to although for different reasons like using pentium II's for a gaming rig still or downloading 50 torrents in the background etc.

Depends on the game too, BF2 and L4D2 arent as slow as the slowest person (unless they are the host of the server) so you will be fine with 3mbps.

 

[mb]

Nothing less than Verizon Fios 50/50 will do!!!

No, seriously, 256k up is enough.

According to the net_graph 3 in TF2, even in heavy fire fights you aren't receiving more than 20k/s and sending more than 10k/s. I can't imagine other games having to use that much more upload bandwidth.
Edit: after playing some more, I saw the dl spike to 50k/s. Up never really went over 15k/s.

Yikes, I play with DSL at 3mbps down and 600 something up, and my ping is usually not good, 90's or higher (I think), and I do get lag pretty often in Call of Duty. So, while you could still play online, I don't know if I'd call it smooth.

Maybe long after I'm gone we'll have access to South Korean speeds, haha.

Sounds like a problem with your PC or the quality of your connection. I had 1.5/768 dsl in my apartment in college many years ago and online gaming wasn't a problem. Pings were no worse than they are using fios now (15-50 depending on where the server is).

 

[Mike Gayner]

Latency has nothing to do with downstream or upstream speeds in games.

 

[dfuze]

I tested Battlefield 2 with my upstream throttled and saw no difference in 64 man servers. Sweet, hate to overpay for bandwidth I'm not going to use.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Nothing less than Verizon Fios 50/50 will do!!!

No, seriously, 256k up is enough.

According to the net_graph 3 in TF2, even in heavy fire fights you aren't receiving more than 20k/s and sending more than 10k/s. I can't imagine other games having to use that much more upload bandwidth.


Sounds like a problem with your PC or the quality of your connection. I had 1.5/768 dsl in my apartment in college many years ago and online gaming wasn't a problem. Pings were no worse than they are using fios now (15-50 depending on where the server is).

Yeah, it likely is a problem with my setup. I use a 100ft strand patch cable to get to my router on the floor below my computer room, which likely makes things worse.

 

[Nik]

256kbps is heaps if you're not hosting. I've played with 128kbps up and had no issues.

What were you playing? Chess?

 

[Skurge]

I play counter strike source, Shift, GRID, Crysis and COD4 on 256kbps down and 192kpbs up. and I haven't had any lag. apart from large ping spikes we have in my country

 

[Mike Gayner]

What were you playing? Chess?

Do some research genius.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

What were you playing? Chess?

CoD4, CS Source, TFC, HL2 DM, BF2, BF 1942, DoD Source and many more. Obviously this spans a large amount of time. The information bandwidth in games really hasn't increased a great deal since the days of TFC when 56k was common and most people were getting more like 28k up. Chuck a bandwidth meter on your machine and play an hour of TF2, you'll find it does a total of ~30mb down and ~10-15mb up over an hour. That's a total of less than 10kbps each way. Online games are not bandwidth intensive at all. The information that goes over the wire is mostly stuff like coordinates and velocities of objects and events. These things are easily serializable and compressible to tiny sizes.

 

[Nik]

Do some research genius.

easy there, francis

 

[Nik]

CoD4, CS Source, TFC, HL2 DM, BF2, BF 1942, DoD Source and many more. Obviously this spans a large amount of time. The information bandwidth in games really hasn't increased a great deal since the days of TFC when 56k was common and most people were getting more like 28k up. Chuck a bandwidth meter on your machine and play an hour of TF2, you'll find it does a total of ~30mb down and ~10-15mb up over an hour. That's a total of less than 10kbps each way. Online games are not bandwidth intensive at all. The information that goes over the wire is mostly stuff like coordinates and velocities of objects and events. These things are easily serializable and compressible to tiny sizes.

I'm aware. I just felt the urge to poke this thread with a stick. :twisted:

 

[Oakenfold]

I currently have a cable connection w/ speeds of 12 Mbs down and 2 Mbps up. Since I never hit those speeds I was wondering if I downgraded my service to the 3 Mbps down and 256 768 Kbps up if I could still online game smoothly. I understand some has to do with ping to the server you are playing on, but would that tier be fast enough?

I currently play Battlefield 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 online if it matters much.

Edit - Looks like cox has upgraged the package from 256 to 768 Kbs up, a nice surprise from them for once.

Your package is fine. Just find a server that you have a good connection (latency) to and you are set.

Latency has nothing to do with downstream or upstream speeds in games.

+1, to expand on Mike's comment he's pointing out that latency is just a measurement of sending data from the client to the server and back again.
Your U/L and D/L do not have anything to do with your ISP Tier, they do however determine your available bandwidth.

As other users have commented your available b/w should be fine as long as you aren't maxxing out your connection with torrent or other bandwidth intensive app's at the same time. If you do then your latency to the game server really won't matter.

Someone chime in if I've stated something incorrectly here.
Oak