gaming with dsl???'s

[radnur22]

i am currenty switching over to DSL from cable. cable is great during the day, but from 7pm-11pm, my pings suck. when gaming with DSL, my pings are great. but, when someone else is surfing and i'm gaming, pings are 60-700!!!!! what can be done to prevent this? will greater bandwidth help? i have an actiontec router and 256/128 dsl.

[zxc47]

radnur22 It would help if you give us more than just the problem. IT would be nice to know how your network is set up. You also said that you have 256/128 dsl that is very little bandwidth as far as dsl goes.more bandwidth is allway better like 1500/256

[YeOldeStonecat]

I agree with ZX...you have a very basic DSL package. As you notice, DSL can tend to be quite consistant and great for gaming, but when someone on your network starts download those MP3's or surfing away...they're cutting into your available bandwidth.

Now with DSL, what the ISP says your package is, it what you can "get up to"...but as often the case, you really bench out lower than that. I'll guess you're close to 128 down, 64 up, or something like that. Just enough free overhead for great online gaming, but once someone else logs on, they cut into your limited bandwidth, and you're skyrocketing ping is the result.

Now some routers also perform better than others when sharing loads...having concurrent bi-directional traffic. After all, routers have their own CPU and memory...and just like everything else, some are better than others. I'm not familiar at all with the Actiontec router. I've done some performance comparisons between Linksys, Netgear, Netopia, and Nexland routers...and found some do let multiple gaming clients have better performance (such as Netopia...very fast, and Nexlands).

If online gaming is important to you, I'd first look into seeing if you can up your DSL package....something like 512 or 1500 down. Not knowing what your budget is...hopefully at least one or two steps up wouldn't be much more $$$. Because as you see, only 256 down is adequate for just one computer.

[glc1]

256kbps down is probably enough, if the other person is only casually surfing. The 128kbps up is probably the culprit in your case since downloading requires some upstream bandwidth to send acknowledgment packets.

[BlackSword]

Originally posted by radnur22
my pings are great. but, when someone else is surfing and i'm gaming, pings are 60-700!!!!! what can be done to prevent this? will greater bandwidth help? i have an actiontec router and 256/128 dsl.

More info would be nice,,, but based on your above statement your download cap of 256 would be the problem. Since you stated 60 - 700 that to me means 60 if they are doing nothing and 700 if they change web pages, correct?, they would easily max out the download cap of 256. Prior to me upgrading my service to 3000/800, I was 1000/128,,, I could have Three RIGs gaming and One RIG general surfing and have no noticeable hit on gaming pings. Start uploading a file and BAG your pings go through the roof, or if the fourth rig Maxed out on my download cap same deal.

Now if your PING stays high for long periods of time and they are not changing pages all the time,,, then I would look for something running in the background or possibly some other setup issue,,, As they others have mentioned more info would be nice.

[radnur22]

if 1 or 2 systems are gaming, the pings are ok. but the moment someone tries to surfs, the pings are outrageous. it only happens when pages are downloading. i increased my bandwidth to the max avail in my area to 640/256. we'll see what happens.

i am trying to figure out QoS and networking. maybe i can limit the bandwidth on the systems that are surfing.

[zxc47]

Sound like Collisions - Ethernet uses a process called CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection) to communicate across the network. Under CSMA/CD, a node will not send out a packet unless the network is clear of traffic. If two nodes send out packets at the same time, a collision occurs and the packets are lost. Then both nodes wait a random amount of time and retransmit the packets. Any part of the network where there is a possibility that packets from two or more nodes will interfere with each other is considered to be part of the same collision domain. A network with a large number of nodes on the same segment will often have a lot of collisions and therefore a large collision domain.

[Respice]

It may be collisions. Or:

It's just a matter of bandwith. Ethernet is a contention based network. Meaning when one connection is talking on the channel everyone else is quiet (waiting to send packets). Once the channel is clear your traffic can move again. The latency is caused when one computer has packets to send but the channel is in use by another computer. So it stores those packets in a buffer. When it's your turn those packets go out.

Naturally the more computers you have using the same channel the more 'contention' there is for the network. So your wait times (ping) for the channel will increase.

I say this because it's a logical explanation for low pings spiking upward. It could be collisions, but they aren't as common with only a few nodes on a network. If it is you might do better with a different router. Otherwise, upping the bandwith will help. You may still notice an increase in pings when multiple users are online but it won't be as drastic.

[zxc47]

Now you know why a good fast router with built in switch with ram on each port is important.

[radnur22]

what router do you recommend?

[zxc47]

For people who play on line games with more than one computer you need to look at the nexland soho
http://www.nexland.com/products/index.cfm?p=1
For people who want two IP's so they can use two computers in the same server The nexland pro800 turbo
http://www.nexland.com/products/product.cfm?id=4

[radnur22]

zxc47, thanks. i was also looking at the Snapgear lite router.