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Cable or ADSL? Am I fast enough?
pnKroK
Member Posts: 7
Hello there,
I've been a subscriber of the local cable/highspeed internet service for quite a while. I guess we all know that with cable, the more people that are on, the slower it gets. I've had my own connection for a while, but now i live in a busy part of the city, and there are 2 other people using the same connection in my house (we're using a d-link hub). So, i decided to check out ADSL. I've heard good things about it and I wanted to try it out. I've been trying out the free 15 day trial for AC2 and I haven't really had any connection problems with my cable conneciton. I figured tho...if i'm gonna sign up for a popular game like EQ2 or WoW, i'd better make sure that i have a good connection. AC2 like i said, was runing smoothly, other than a little video card choppiness. Now that i have the ADSL, i tried it out and it almost seemed choppier???!?!?! Due to lag??
The new ISP boasts that I can get 2.5 mbps downloads and whatnot. Well, with my cable connection when i d/l the trial for AC2 it took a while. When i re-tried it just to check my speed, it downloaded much faster on my ADSL connection?!?!?
Could it be that regular surfing and website type downloads are faster on ADSL, but actual online MMORPG gaming is faster/smoother on a cable connection?
Any comments? or Experiences?
Also, if my new ISP says i can get 2.5mbps downloads (which i don't realistically expect). Is there anything i can do to help speed up my connection (ie. a new network card?). Are all network cards the same? Don't they all cap out at a certain rate?
Thanks,
-rob C
Comments
Because the internet is a network composed of hundreds of thousands of hops/nodes/routers/switches, and each ISP has different routes/pipes/uplinks, accessing something from one ISP takes a different route than accessing the same thing from another ISP. So while the route to the game servers from one ISP may be good, the route to the same servers from a different ISP may not be so good.
You can go to www.toast.net/performance to benchmark your connection and see if its behaving appropriately. Alternatively you can test your connection at www.dslreports.com/stest
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Another thing to watch for is the size of your ISP. A small ISP may have 5Mbps or 10Mbps of bandwidth that they actually have to the rest of the Internet. A large ISP may have 50Mbps or more.
So, with DSL, even though you are not sharing bandwidth at your neighborhood you are still sharing bandwidth at your ISP.
I am not saying that makes your cable company better than your DSL provider though. You could ask them what their connection is to the Net and find out.
The best way is to find someone who has broadband in your area and go test their connection. Go do a speed test at dslreports or somewhere else and see how it fairs. I would accept nothing less than 300kb/sec down these days(por, err demos take a while to download on anything slower).
I think we are starting to reach a point though with the networks maturing that the bottleneck with mmorpgs is on the client machine with hardware rather than the data pipe to the game servers. Even on SoR I had practically no lag when I was even connected to servers in New York (im in San Diego).
"I wasnt gonna just ram it home. I was gonna lube it up and ease it in there inch by inch....like a gentleman." - Hank
"I wasnt gonna just ram it home. I was gonna lube it up and ease it in there inch by inch....like a gentleman." - Hank
All connections are NOT created equally. I have had mixed results with cable, from the slow-down at peak times to > 9000kbps all day long (on my current provider.) The best thing to do is run the benchmarks and check out what other people say on DSL Reports
Who was it that said all connections were created equal?
I was referring to a specific person with a broadband connection in your local area form the isp you are looking at getting. Yes, under those circumstances (asuming thres no problem with local line quality) the connection should be comparable. Its more of a test to make sure theres not a serious bottleneck on the ISP side.
"I wasnt gonna just ram it home. I was gonna lube it up and ease it in there inch by inch....like a gentleman." - Hank
"I wasnt gonna just ram it home. I was gonna lube it up and ease it in there inch by inch....like a gentleman." - Hank
I have tried both Cable and Adsl connections, and for me , ADSL is far better than Cable
my 2 cents
I'm not sure why in your game you are running choppier on DSL. Some things you might consider...DSL uses a phoneline which has a lot of static which could result in loss of packet quality. This could mean you d/l faster but when your sending tons of little packets you notice a difference. Make sure you have either a dedicated line for your DSL or a proper splitter that will clean the static on your line. Also try it w/o the hub just to confirm that it isn't your hub. Shouldn't be but you never know...going through another device can always cause problems.
"Feel free to hate me, but hate me for the right reasons."
"Your still ignorant if you believe the first thing you see when the blindfold is removed."
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I dont think there is a end to the cable vs DSL argument.
DSL is better in some areas than cable due to a lacking cable infrastructure unable to support the traffic, etc.
DSL can have more problems with line noise and distance from distribution point.
I used to have DSL when in lived in Dallas as the connection was better there. Here in North Dan Diego county, cable is far far better than DSL. Better network, superior speeds (24x7 from what ive seen).
Cable goes out easy in storms...but I live in San Diego so whats a storm?
"I wasnt gonna just ram it home. I was gonna lube it up and ease it in there inch by inch....like a gentleman." - Hank
"I wasnt gonna just ram it home. I was gonna lube it up and ease it in there inch by inch....like a gentleman." - Hank
Lets not turn this into a DSL vs Cable. :P
"Feel free to hate me, but hate me for the right reasons."
"Your still ignorant if you believe the first thing you see when the blindfold is removed."
"Be smart enough to know I'm smarter than you."
If you want to be the uber-fastest in the world you will need:
- To get a Fiber Optic line
- And not just any Fiber Optic line, but a Dedicated Line.
- This will cost you roughly 1,000.oo per month or more.
And you will still have some chance for lag, because the client/server side very likely does not have a Fiber Optic connection. Nor will it be a direct Fiber Optic connection from the Client/server to you. (Unless you actually live NEAR the game hq.)
Seriously, MMORPG game companies are still catering to the 56k consumer. For two reasons:
1. The majority of internet users use 56k.
2. No matter how rich any gamer is, 56k is the most widly available internet connection. Many cities, countries, towns, states, etc... do not have Internet installed in their infrastructure. Many do not have anything faster than 56k installed in their infrastructure. America lags behind Europe in implimenting the internet itself, and also the best possible internet connection into its infrastructure. The entire world lags behind Korea in internect access to the masses, and in including generally good internect connection in its infrastructure.
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