Online gaming with ...dial-up?

[Zogglet]

I am fairly new to online gaming, having gotten really serious about it only a year ago. I live at college, so I am connected to the network here and everything runs fine (minus lag of course), but at home my family just has dial up and I can't convince them to get DSL. They will not budge. I haven't yet dared to try any gaming at home, not knowing what would happen if I did. Has anyone had any experience gaming on dial-up? If so, and if it is possible, how is it?

 

[imported_Hi]

average ping on dial-up will be 600+

 

[HamburgerBoy]

If you play something like Starcraft or the original Diablo there shouldn't be too much lag, but games like UT2004 and Warcraft III will be unplayable.

 

[Zogglet]

I just found this thread, and it seems that a lot of people can do it with minimal problems. Different people tell me different things whenever I ask them, so it seems like I should just try and see what happens. My one friend told me that Warcraft 3 actually works, but that most FPS's (what I'm really into) will be nearly impossible to play. Just thought I'd get more opinions.

 

[EpsiIon]

RTS games work fine, as do some MMOs (I have friends who play both regularly on cheap dialup).

FPS games will be pain. You can expect an average ping of 300 to 400.

EDIT: BTW, your ping will be about the same across all genres. You'll just notice it less in the first two.

 

[bersl2]

A good idea is to invest in a true hardware modem. Most modems ("Winmodems") offload much of the work to the CPU. This drowns you in latency.

There is a list of modems available that has info on what kind of modem it is. The page is Linux-centric, but for your purposes it has the necessary info.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Hi
average ping on dial-up will be 600+

Whose ass did you pull that number out of?

You might be looking ar 300+, but doubtful it will come close to 600 unless you have a poor connection (to the server).
Older games may be OK to play on dialup, but modern games will just really kill you
Some gaymes, like UT2004, start to suck when you have a ping approaching 100.

And you also have to remember that not all games are just playable. With some, you will need to download files from the server befre you can even connect (with UT2004, sometimes this can be 30MB worth of files, and that gets tedious on a 1MB DSL connection).

Some stuff might be playable though, especially less fast paced games.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: EpsiIon
RTS games work fine, as do some MMOs (I have friends who play both regularly on cheap dialup).

FPS games will be pain. You can expect an average ping of 300 to 400.

EDIT: BTW, your ping will be about the same across all genres. You'll just notice it less in the first two.

He's right. RPGs and RTS's are good if you are on dialup, but avoid FPS's. It is much more crucial to have a good ping in an FPS due to the twitch gameplay.

 

[lxskllr]

I play UT2004 everyday on dialup. It takes awhile to get used to the ping, but it's manageable. I usually ping in the low 200's, sometimes dropping to 180ish. I'm comfortable playing up to about 260 or so, but that's not the best situation. There's plenty of servers for UT2004 that ping under 230 for me. I don't play other games online so I can't say what's going on with them.

If you're just home for a little while it may not be worth it because it takes a bit to get used to high ping, and you'll have to readjust when back at school. If you'll be home for a few weeks I'd give it a try, once used to the ping it isn't so bad.

 

[Zogglet]

Eh I was afraid of that...

 

[glorifiedg790]

Originally posted by: Hi
average ping on dial-up will be 600+

I'm on 56k my ping in UT is 150-170. Get a Diamond External Modem.