Online Gaming Aint All That Great

CounterPunch · Post by **CounterPunch** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 12:06 am

So a coupla days back I signed up to Xbox Live and have played a coupla games online and heres my decision.... it aint all that great, reasons? -

Pros -

Demos - Ive played a number of demos for games I never played before, and have found that some I've liked far more than I thought I would.

Game Updates - Loved some of the game updates Ive found from games, such as the motorbike update for Burnout Paradise.

Playin with your mates - Nothing funner than going online with a coupla mates who dont live anywhere near you.

Cons -

Getting connected (in terms of hardware)- Its either awkward or expensive, my Xbox is nowhere near the router and I cannot afford any existing ways of getting it connected, so I have it connected to my PC by ethernet, then am connecting via the PC wireless, now when connected this works fine but its alot of faffing round (which includes creating a bridge connection and deleting it every time i go on or turn off from xbox live, testing connection on xbox live every time i wanna go on before I can connect) and just generally is a pain in the arse.

Lag/Jumping - This is the biggest issue, of the 5 or 6 games Ive played online probably half of them have suffered from this stuff 70% of the time... Here are some examples.

So I'm playing Pro Evo Soccer 2009 online and I'm running in to the opponents penalty box, I go to kick, all of a sudden the ball teleports to my half of the pitch, at the feet of my opponent who scores

I'm running to a free ball, press shoot to smack it and all of a sudden everything is switched around and im slide tackling an opponent from behind, and I then get sent off

Generally switching around of player position on the pitches, meaning defense and offense is impossible when its more than likely your players wont be where you pass the ball (and in most cases, the ball wont be there either)

This seriously leads to the games it happens to being pretty much unplayable... And its not down to my internet.

I dont really know what I plan on getting this post... Just a mini rant I spose.

secretcode · Post by **secretcode** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 12:25 am

Your connection needs some tweaking. If you want an easy access point, do what I do and use a laptop as a wireless bridge. I'll find the XBOX Live preferred requirements.

secretcode · Post by **secretcode** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 12:34 am

1800kb download and 300kb upload is the standard requirement. You can check your connection at http://www.speedtest.net

Mine on Average:
Download Speed: 2580 kbps (322.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 318 kbps (39.8 KB/sec transfer rate)

CounterPunch · Post by **CounterPunch** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 11:07 am

secretcode wrote:1800kb download and 300kb upload is the standard requirement. You can check your connection at http://www.speedtest.net

Mine on Average:
Download Speed: 2580 kbps (322.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 318 kbps (39.8 KB/sec transfer rate)

See I'm running mine wirelessly through a PC bridge.

When clicking on the recommended server my results are

DL: 7780
UL: 716

So my speeds are very good, I've got all the correct ports and such open on my router, everything my end is set up perfect (as my brother is an xbox live player, he set it up) and these things didnt happen while we were both online.

secretcode · Post by **secretcode** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 1:08 pm

Yeah, odds are it's just the bridge connection. If you need a bunch of Ethernet cable for a direct router link-up, I got about 50 feet at NewEgg for about $7 w/shipping.

Plasmodium · Post by **Plasmodium** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 3:13 pm

Your cons arent really that strong. Find better games that have online?

Computron · Post by **Computron** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 6:49 pm

To be honest it sounds like a latency issue rather than a download issue. Games do't really need fast download speeds so much as a fast response time. This might sound confusing but some fast broadband connections have slow response times before the fast download occurs.

The best example (and most extreme) is satelite broadband where it may download content at 50MB/s but there might be a 3 second delay between you clicking a file and it beginning to download. Now for downloading a file this might be ok. Afterall if you get the file in 1 minute instead of 10 what difference does that 3 seconds make however with gams where very little data might be transfered butit will be constantly changing the lag delay makes it unplayable

Now this lag can occur in a number of places. The obvious one is with your ISP. Cheaper broadband providers tend to suffer from this and the old adage that you get what you pay for is sadly often true.

The next could be something faulty set up at your end.

If your using wireless try using a cable, This is more my own personal biastness but dropped packets can affect gaming and wireless drops so manypackets but in normal web browsing you never notice them

Next is to see hhow many hops your Xbox takes to get to the router. This probaly shouldn't be an issue but if you end up hopping from switch to switch before getting to the router you could find that a lag is caused by this.

Assuming you live in the UK try buying this device http://www.clarity.it/xcart/product.php ... 262&page=1 . I managed to boost my adsl connection from 700kb/sec to 3.8mb/sec by installing this as my cabling and filters were so cheap and nasty. For only £15 I cannot reccomend this enough

Hope all this helps, sorry I can't post more but I have to shoot off to the cinema now