Question Why high speed internet is needed for 4k gaming and what speed do we need?

[anandtechreader]

Hi, I heard that high speed internet is required for 4K gaming. Why can't we do it the old way like installing everything to the PC's local storage and play the games from there?

Somebody mentioned that it might have something to do with streaming? What is that? What sort of wifi connection is recommended?

 

[DigDog]

You dont need high speed internet. Graphic rendering is done locally, on your machine; the game only transmits your in-game location and other minor amounts of data.

 

[mikeymikec]

Streaming is a different thing altogether, as is wifi from either of those topics. They're not even vaguely related.

Streaming normally refers to the transmission of (most commonly) video content in a way unlike the downloading of a normal file; a normal file is downloaded at whatever the fastest rate that the link between A and B can achieve, and the recipient reads the file when it has finished downloading. Streaming the content involves sending it at a rate that allows the recipient to start viewing the content straight away and delivering the next bit of content in time for a normal rate of playback to continue smoothly. The rate is also kept as low as possible to ensure that as many recipients as possible can be serviced simultaneously.

I suppose there are some minor exceptions to that rule when players' custom avatars and such things are used, but I suspect that content is kept to an absolute minimum.

As DigDog more or less said, multiplayer gaming doesn't typically involve the sending of graphics data. Bear in mind that multiplayer Internet gaming has been around since the days of dial-up and the inner workings haven't changed much over the years (ie. less is better). Sending around graphics would be a) costly and b) screw up the game's playability completely if say the textures for a given wall never arrived or arrived improperly, not to mention that 3D wall textures will get thrown around the insides of a PC at rates of gigabytes per second when most connections are capable of speeds of at least an order of magnitude less.

 

[dubaivirtualreality]

Hi, I heard that high speed internet is required for 4K gaming. Why can't we do it the old way like installing everything to the PC's local storage and play the games from there?

Somebody mentioned that it might have something to do with streaming? What is that? What sort of wifi connection is recommended?

It is not appropriate to install everything to the PC's local storage and play the games from there especially when time and technology both are changing. As per the data, latest graphics cards can help you attain 60 fps in most modern PC games. But if you are planning for 4K gaming then Internet speed of 100 Mbps would be the absolute minimum.

When the fresh slot of gaming consoles was generated they were structured for 720-1080p game assets which turned out to be difficult for 4k gaming. You will definitely need robust Internet connection in order to get the best possible gaming experience in 4K and for that all you require is dual-GPU setup. It is the ticket to reaching that frame rate consistently.

 

[Homerboy]

It is not appropriate to install everything to the PC's local storage and play the games from there especially when time and technology both are changing. As per the data, latest graphics cards can help you attain 60 fps in most modern PC games. But if you are planning for 4K gaming then Internet speed of 100 Mbps would be the absolute minimum.

When the fresh slot of gaming consoles was generated they were structured for 720-1080p game assets which turned out to be difficult for 4k gaming. You will definitely need robust Internet connection in order to get the best possible gaming experience in 4K and for that all you require is dual-GPU setup. It is the ticket to reaching that frame rate consistently.

What? 100% wrong

 

[mxnerd]

Wired ethernet is always the king, especially regarding gaming.

Low latency is more important than high speed.

https://blog.parsecgaming.com/how-your-wifi-band-impacts-low-latency-connections-9f1e538a63dd

Game server location & your location also take into account.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Lots of developers are shitty, and they make you redownload the whole game as 0 day patches and stuff. The old days of putting a disk in the drive and playing are mostly gone. Even if you wait until after game comes out, many of them have some shitty DRM or some other "always on" type of connection.

If you are playing online with other players, then you will want some level of "high speed" connection, as using a 56k modem will give you bad latency and not enough throughput to be able to play, but, you likely don't need more than 1mbit for anything other than downloading huge obscenely sized patches.

 

[Stg-Flame]

High speed internet really only helps when downloading the game itself or patches, updates, or DLC. If you plan on playing MMOs or other online games, then you'll want a really fast wired connection. Now, if you plan on just downloading some single player games or installing some from physical discs, then you don't need anything faster than what's tolerable for your taste to download the game. My brother has incredibly slow internet and it takes him a few days to download a new game whereas I have Xfinity which usually takes around half an hour to download even the biggest games.

It is not appropriate to install everything to the PC's local storage and play the games from there especially when time and technology both are changing. As per the data, latest graphics cards can help you attain 60 fps in most modern PC games. But if you are planning for 4K gaming then Internet speed of 100 Mbps would be the absolute minimum.

When the fresh slot of gaming consoles was generated they were structured for 720-1080p game assets which turned out to be difficult for 4k gaming. You will definitely need robust Internet connection in order to get the best possible gaming experience in 4K and for that all you require is dual-GPU setup. It is the ticket to reaching that frame rate consistently.

Also, don't listen to this guy. He's completely wrong.

 

[mikeymikec]

It is not appropriate to install everything to the PC's local storage and play the games from there especially when time and technology both are changing. As per the data, latest graphics cards can help you attain 60 fps in most modern PC games. But if you are planning for 4K gaming then Internet speed of 100 Mbps would be the absolute minimum.

When the fresh slot of gaming consoles was generated they were structured for 720-1080p game assets which turned out to be difficult for 4k gaming. You will definitely need robust Internet connection in order to get the best possible gaming experience in 4K and for that all you require is dual-GPU setup. It is the ticket to reaching that frame rate consistently.

And just so we're not a bunch of people who are just saying "you're wrong", I googled for "what connection speed do I need for online gaming", and every one of these results (including an ISP whose business it is to sell you the most expensive package they can), say that even 1mbps is adequate for gaming and actually it's the response (ping) time that matters more than the available bandwidth:

https://go.frontier.com/best-internet-for-gaming
https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/how-much-speed-do-i-need-for-online-gaming/
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/utilities/how-to-decide-what-internet-speed-you-need/
https://www.xfinity.com/hub/internet/internet-speed-for-gaming

Here's StarCraft 2's system requirements:
https://eu.battle.net/support/en/article/27575
Internet: Broadband Internet connection
Even in the 'recommended' column.

One thing I will add as it hasn't already been said is that while ping times are absolutely king in online gaming, available bandwidth is also handy insofar as games are often entirely downloaded these days to begin with (ie. akin to installing a game from CD/DVD) and then there are updates to consider. 'XCOM2 War of the Chosen' with all the DLC is over 70GB to download, so a faster connection does make some elements of gaming far less tedious. Also, the fact that more devices in a given household are Internet-connected than it used to be makes it so that more available bandwidth at any given time is more likely to be in use, and spare bandwidth is a must for online gaming (ie. if some douchenozzle in your house starts uploading a video to Facebook while you're gaming then on a lower speed Internet connection you're a lot more likely to start crying about it); there are some ways to mitigate this though.

 

[ImpulsE69]

The important piece here is that bandwidth does not equate to latency. There are scenarios where they do intermingle though (such as if your family has netflix streams going and using all your bandwidth, then yea, you are probably going to get latency). Otherwise, by itself, 1mbps is going to have the same latency as 100mbps.

NOW, you mention streaming games and it surprises me that no one has commented on this. This could potentially be a different beast. You need both low latency AND a decent bandwidth for the video data for it to even be usable. I won't pretend to know everything about how they plan to implement it, but I think that if the plan is to stream at 4k, then yes, just like Netflix, you will need a faster connection because you are not just passing 'play' information, but they are sending you the video output. 4K requires quite a bit more bandwidth than 720/1080. I've messed a bit with the PS3 streaming in the past and honestly was not a fan. I only have a 15mbit connection and even with that I got quite a bit of pixelation due to the connection not being fast enough at times. Latency is a whole other beast - and suits some genres better than others.

Ultimately, IMO until our internet infrastructure is improved considerably, game streaming anywhere other than major metropolises will be less than desired for some time yet.

 

[DigDog]

People here really earned their stars today.

 

[mindless1]

^ Welcome to the forum but you necro'd an old topic, that didn't need answered more than can be found with a google search.

Nope, playing with other players online just needs low latency to connect to the server hosting it. All the game-world is downloaded ahead of time, for "Most" decent games. Entirely online game file serving is never as fast as local storage and this becomes more and more important as the size of games continues to grow.

Site name deleted They sell internet service and recommend paying more for faster? Who wouldda thunk it?

Please don't repost spam links or site references.
admin allisolm

 

[Stg-Flame]

^ Welcome to the forum but you necro'd an old topic, that didn't need answered more than can be found with a google search.

Nope, playing with other players online just needs low latency to connect to the server hosting it. All the game-world is downloaded ahead of time, for "Most" decent games. Entirely online game file serving is never as fast as local storage and this becomes more and more important as the size of games continues to grow.

Site name deleted They sell internet service and recommend paying more for faster? Who wouldda thunk it?

Pretty sure you replied to a bot. Bots will necro old threads with a mundane response but have a link to something unknown within their comment.

Please don't repost spam links, site names or any other spam info.
admin allisolm