What is an acceptable ping for online gaming?

[frostedflakes]

I am using mobile broadband through my cell provider (live out in the boonies, so broadband options are limited). Download/upload average around 600kbps/70kbps, which doesn't seem too bad, but the latency is high, I've seen as high as 500ms for US servers, although the average seems to be about 400ms, and I have seen as low as 100-200ms for closer servers. Will this be a major problem? IIRC, low ping will only effect me, and will not lag others in the game, right?

I'm actually not a big gamer, but I was looking forward to Super Smash Bros: Brawl online when it shows up, may look into some other games if the connection will work alright for it.

 

[Fardringle]

Your ping time determines how long it takes between when you click on something (or press a button) and when the game actually acts on the click (or button press). For games that require quick reactions, a high ping time is a major handicap. For other games that don't really depend on reaction times, a high ping time is usually just a minor annoyance.

Your ping times won't affect other people in the games unless you are hosting the game, or they are depending on you to react quickly.

 

[KuJoe]

From what I've seen, anything under 150ms is ideal for online FPS/fighting games.

 

[Fraggable]

40ms is normally ideal for FPSes like BF2 and such. For Smash Brothers you will want 60ms or less, the whole game is based on reacting quickly. 100-150 will be basically unplayable.

Your ping will not slow others down, but it will make your character jump around and makes it very annoying for other players, not to mention you will keep ending up in places you didn't want to be.

 

[Bradtechonline]

It really depends on the location of the source you are pinging. The closer the source, the lower your ping. I've seen wireless providers have great network latency, which are maybe 20-30 ms higher than wired connections. I have seen some wireless providers whose network latency is pathetic.

I'd say coast to coast ping latency is usually around 80-120 ms. I live in oklahoma, and ping in the 20's to Texas servers, and about 60-70 to west/east servers. Overseas ping is anywhere from 160-350. You can do tracert in Windows to see the network latency from hop to hop to find problems with your providers network latency.

I'd say your ping times are not that good even fore wireless.

 

[frostedflakes]

Yeah I figured as much, but thanks for confirming. Looks like I'm stuck with RTS gaming and such until I find a better provider or latency improves.

 

[Bradtechonline]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
Yeah I figured as much, but thanks for confirming. Looks like I'm stuck with RTS gaming and such until I find a better provider or latency improves.

You may tell them about their latency problems. I had a friend on Cox Cable that was having horrible ping times 300-600 ms. He got free internet until they fixed it.

 

[frostedflakes]

I appreciate the suggestion, will look into it. I assumed that the high latency was simply inherent to the connection, but this may not necessarily be the case.

 

[jersiq]

If you have a CDMA provider and are using EVDO your ping will be high. It's inherent to the Over the Air Protocol.

EVDO REV-A will decrease ping times, and REV-C will be coming sometime.
Implemetation of MLPPP on the backhaul will help somewhat, but it's the OTA protocols in Cell Phone Providers wireless implementations that cause high ping times

 

[frostedflakes]

The provider is Alltel, they just recently rolled out the EVDO rev 0, so I'd assume it will be a while before rev A is deployed. Even then pings are still pretty high, though. What kind of latency is C promising? <100ms? (BTW what happened to rev B?)

 

[Noema]

It depends on the game. A game like WoW is playable with pings even in the realm of the 400ms (just as all the aussies playing in the american servers ) but more fact paced games likely require <100 for one to be competitive.

 

[Noema]

Double post