Question about Gaming Latency and Broadband Connections

[erikiksaz]

i'm a little confused. i heard that gaming latency usually depends on the rate at which you upload. when playing around on lan games in cstrike, the netgraph told me the "up" speed was 5k. i'm guessing that is what i need to achieve a low ping (i have a feeling that my clue-less-ness about latency kicks in right about NOW). and since i have cable, i know that the 5k needed is possible to achieve. even though it's only a mere 5k, my friend's T-1 still gets a lower ping, but i don't understand how that works, since both of our connections can support that 5k upload. can anyone please explain this to me?

 

[rlism]

Here's a little analogy I found...

"Latency and Bandwidth are both important. A 3000 kbps (for simplicity we will stick to kbps for everything) connection with bad latency would be like a 300-lane freeway with a speed limit of 25 MPH. It could handle tons of traffic, but it would still be slower then snot. On the other hand a 5 kbps connection with superb latency would be like having a 300 MPH speed limit, but only one lane, and would look like rush-hour in Chicago whenever too much traffic hits it at once. The best connection is the one that has a large amount of bandwidth with the least amount of latency. Ideally in our example you would want a 300 lane freeway with a 300 MPH speed limit!"

 

[Howard]

<< gaming latency usually depends on the rate at which you upload >>




Latency is measured as the time between packets sent and received. So if a packet comes in and then there's 50ms between that packet and a new one, you have 50ms latency. That's how I see it.

Your friend's T-1 probably has less lag.