Informal VG focus group query (1 Viewer)

SoggyBottomBoy

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Looking for some feedback about the importance of hi-speed broadband. Speeds of 30, 50 and 100 mbps. How does it specifically benefit online gaming play? Does the hi-speed, low-latency and no compression improve or enhance the play? Would it provide an advantage over an opponent (skill aside)? Basically, if you had access to it, would you want it and why? I'd appreciate any knowledge you're willing to share.
 
Looking for some feedback about the importance of hi-speed broadband. Speeds of 30, 50 and 100 mbps. How does it specifically benefit online gaming play? Does the hi-speed, low-latency and no compression improve or enhance the play? Would it provide an advantage over an opponent (skill aside)? Basically, if you had access to it, would you want it and why? I'd appreciate any knowledge you're willing to share.

Depending on price... Yeah.

Widge sez BC2 has hit detection issues... I say it's lag.

We've seen laggy sessions where you'd shoot @ someone with their back to you, standing just feet away (literally empty a LMG into them), and they'd move across the screen, or just reappear next to you, and blammo, yer outta there.

He sez hit detection... I say it's a combo of lag, crappy laplacian interwebz, and his OMT.

But what do I know...

Yeah, I'd take the juiced speeds, but in the end (twss), it'd depend on cost.
 
Depending on price... Yeah.

Widge sez BC2 has hit detection issues... I say it's lag.

We've seen laggy sessions where you'd shoot @ someone with their back to you, standing just feet away (literally empty a LMG into them), and they'd move across the screen, or just reappear next to you, and blammo, yer outta there.

He sez hit detection... I say it's a combo of lag, crappy laplacian interwebz, and his OMT.

But what do I know...

Yeah, I'd take the juiced speeds, but in the end (twss), it'd depend on cost.
Thanks, Uproar. This is exactly what I'm seeking.

Prices: 10 mbps - $29, 30 mbps - $45, 50 mbps - $58, 100 mbps - $199 per month.
 
No, I don't think it matters for gaming. It matters for downloading.

Once you get like 3 down and 1.5 up, gaming will be fine, depending on your latency. The ping is more important once you get 3 and 1.5.
 
Thanks, Uproar. This is exactly what I'm seeking.

Prices: 10 mbps - $29, 30 mbps - $45, 50 mbps - $58, 100 mbps - $199 per month.

After looking @ the prices, I'd jump @ 10mbps @ $29.00.

I hate paying too much for internetz, but I hate crap internetz more.

I'm @ $29.99/mo now and I've gotten as high as 3.5dn/.9up and on a good day, my ping is mid 20's to high 30's. I'm really sure about the physics behind DL volume vs. speed vs. latency, but I do know for a fact that when I was on the 'next level down' tier from Cox, that my game would crap out religiously if anything else was being downloaded (Netflix, youtube, torrents, etc.). Further speedtests showed ping speeds in the thousands (see my one and only blog entry here).

By moving to the next tier up 3dn/1up, everything improved across the board, but latency can still be an issue from time to time (unrelated to anything else going on in the house).

Like Goose said... Latency is the key. 100mbps @ $200/mo is ridiculous though unless you're running a web cafe (Authentic may want this) or DL'ing bloozrays quality films from torrents and/or usenet.

If you're talking about some killer low-latency fiber, or trough, or whatever, and you're main interest is gaming... Then (in my opinion) Goose said it best. At this point I'm just typing b/c someone is waiting to talk to me, and I don't really want to listen to what they say. I'm hoping that someone calls my phone right now so I can wave them off...

...

...

Damn... :rant:
 
There definitely is hit detection issues in Bad Company 2. If I'm sniping and I actually see the bullet hit an opponent's head and he doesn't die, that isn't lag its poor game development.

Back to the original topic, what company do you have for internet Uproar? I'm curious cause I'm moving back in a couple weeks and I can't be without my interwebz for too long. I never knew that some companies have more than two levels of internet speed. Comcast just offers standard and premium speeds.
 
There definitely is hit detection issues in Bad Company 2. If I'm sniping and I actually see the bullet hit an opponent's head and he doesn't die, that isn't lag its poor game development.

Back to the original topic, what company do you have for internet Uproar? I'm curious cause I'm moving back in a couple weeks and I can't be without my interwebz for too long. I never knew that some companies have more than two levels of internet speed. Comcast just offers standard and premium speeds.

Cox for phone, internet, and TV.

They have at least 3, possibly up to 5 tiers of service.

For years I was @ 768k dn and .3 or so up. It worked fine for most games 'back then', but my latency was also never an issue. Funny enough, when I really started MP gaming, it was Halo 2 w/ a buddy... There was a circular map where the whole thing was like a balcony around a drop off w/ a few rooms scattered off the main walkway. Only snipers.

Horrible, horrible.... Did I mention HORRIBLE?!

I'd go 2/30 for K/D. Then I saw roughly the same thing w/ Gears and upgraded to the next lvl service which was 1.5dn/768k up and tried Halo2 again... went from 2/30'ish to 15/15'ish after a week or so of learning the curve.

With BC2 the 1.5dn wasn't great, but it wasn't good either. My game still suffered. With Reachez though, it was unplayable. Too much data, not enough pipe (twss). Moved to the 3dn tier and it was just amazing how much difference it made.

Latency never really changed (again, unless something else was being DL'd in the house), but the extra speed made all the difference in the world.

BC2 stats went up too... I went from .75 k/d to 1.4'ish
 
There definitely is hit detection issues in Bad Company 2. If I'm sniping and I actually see the bullet hit an opponent's head and he doesn't die, that isn't lag its poor game development...

Just a thought I had after hitting submit on the previous post...

With my example, I'd see the hits on the body of the enemy standing in front of me... Like I said, at least 1/2 a clip from a LMG, and I would see them hit.

Then the guy in front of me would skip across the screen and wind up next to me w/ a single point-blank shotgun blast.

I'm just not convinced that is hit detection. It seems more of a bridge in animation to compensate for lag and attempt to reduce the amount of jumping/skipping of players across the screen.

I'm no game developer though, otherwise I'd be building Scooter's Zombipocalypse game just to aggravate Der Widge.
 
Yeah mike, just because you saw it happen on your screen doesn't mean it actually happened to everyone. Thus, lag.
 
No, I don't think it matters for gaming. It matters for downloading.

Once you get like 3 down and 1.5 up, gaming will be fine, depending on your latency. The ping is more important once you get 3 and 1.5.

I recently upgraded from 1-3 MPS to 10-15 MPS ( my average download speed has been around 15). I have noticed a slight difference in gaming but not much. The major difference is downloading. That being said I would go with the 10 MPS for $29.00
 
Cox for phone, internet, and TV.

They have at least 3, possibly up to 5 tiers of service.

For years I was @ 768k dn and .3 or so up. It worked fine for most games 'back then', but my latency was also never an issue. Funny enough, when I really started MP gaming, it was Halo 2 w/ a buddy... There was a circular map where the whole thing was like a balcony around a drop off w/ a few rooms scattered off the main walkway. Only snipers.

Horrible, horrible.... Did I mention HORRIBLE?!

I'd go 2/30 for K/D. Then I saw roughly the same thing w/ Gears and upgraded to the next lvl service which was 1.5dn/768k up and tried Halo2 again... went from 2/30'ish to 15/15'ish after a week or so of learning the curve.

With BC2 the 1.5dn wasn't great, but it wasn't good either. My game still suffered. With Reachez though, it was unplayable. Too much data, not enough pipe (twss). Moved to the 3dn tier and it was just amazing how much difference it made.

Latency never really changed (again, unless something else was being DL'd in the house), but the extra speed made all the difference in the world.

BC2 stats went up too... I went from .75 k/d to 1.4'ish

Beat me to it. LOL

Comcast is really the only provider where I am now aside from Uverse, but I'll be back in good ol' Chalmette soon, and if Cox offers more than two choices for internet speed I'll be a happy man.
 
Gaming uses surprisingly little bandwidth. All of the heavy graphics rendering is done locally on your machine. Data transferred over the net is minimal. I use my cell phone as a wireless hotspot for Warcraft gaming 2 machines at once and it works fine.

Downloading and Netflix streaming multiple devices at once is when you run into issues with slow bandwidth. Not gaming.
 
Thanks, folks. I feel I should clarify. I have the 10 mbps service right now. I'm working on a project regarding the new media-intensive digital lifestyle we are now immersed in and importance/need for true broadband, high-speed internet. Online gaming is one example of broadband consumption along with streaming movies/video, streaming audio, file exchange, Skype, etc.

As online gaming goes, I'd be considered a relic from the leather helmet era. Hence I'm reaching out to this board get a better understanding of how it affects the online gamers' category. The last online gaming I did was in the mid '90s. Anyone recognize the image below? :covri: Again, thanks for the replies.
 

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As online gaming goes, I'd be considered a relic from the leather helmet era. Hence I'm reaching out to this board get a better understanding of how it affects the online gamers' category. The last online gaming I did was in the mid '90s. Anyone recognize the image below? :covri: Again, thanks for the replies.

There's a little bit of a misnomer here in that "high speed" in the context of internet, really means "lots of throughput" instead of "fast" as in latency. As has been noted already in the thread, latency is more important to game playing, because the data packets that are transferred have to be small enough that they can be processed efficiently by the game engine. There is definitely a point where the amount of bandwidth that you need to have a good gaming experience is sufficient - and as Mongoose noted, it's probably around the 3 down/1.5 up region.

HOWEVER, looking at the bigger picture, bandwidth does have a very significant effect on the gamers category in terms of distribution of electronic media. Today's demos alone are in the neighborhood of 1.5 gigs (that's 2 CDs or roughly 1/6th of a dual layer DVD). The installation for DC Universe Online required about a 10gig download and today's patch is 1.2 gigs. Services like Steam, Gamestop, and Direct2Drive are selling full computer games of several gigs via download.

Gamers (and this applies to video distribution, Netflix and other media content, too) are quickly becoming accustomed to on-demand content, and high-throughput connections are integral to that. Downloading a 1.5gig demo is fairly prohibitive on a 3Mb connection. It's easy on a 25Mb connection.
 

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