Goblin Squad Member
|
... Would be enough for decent playing.
As a complete Noob when it comes to games of this type I fiddling with differend solutions to get a better connection ....
My current one jumps between 2/1 to 9/2 mbit (more often the former than the latter sadly). I usually have some lag but it could be the lousy laptop (thats going away sooon, I hope).
Any thoughts?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Since Christams I now have 2 identical computers - not counting keyboard, placement, monitor and most crucially connection.
My son was unable to play - despite having no issues to watch all day youtube on his iPad in his room.
Actually it is worse for Origin - Zombie Garden Warfare - he was dropped as soon as he tried to connect to a game. Interestingly browsing seems to work fine.
I remember I 'could play' but had a lot of desynch issues while I was on WiFi. I tried a lot of settings - in the end I took the long wire connected to my computer (I'm in a WiFi blackspot in the house) and both games work without any issues.
From my experience speed is not the issue - I have done a lot of speedtests since PFO let me bark up the wrong tree in regard to connection speed and I figured out that my provider was throttling my bandwidth.
It is lag and interuptions that kill you. It seems these games need a little bit of data all the time while streaming or browsing is a lot of data in bursts.
Try it wired and see if your problems go away. I know it is a pain for a laptop - the whole idea is you can carry it whereever you want. But at least it will tell you if any issues are due to wireless or other reasons (like bandwidth).
I think I once checked total data (when my provider disconnected me an I was running on the neighbours WiFi) and it was around 20 MB in a hour of game play or about that amount. This means speed is not an issue.
But a half second interuption that you might not notice otherwise might stop your play.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
Connection throughput isn't critical, but latency needs to be within bounds.
I almost posted instructions on how to test your latency to goblinworks.com, but in testing them it looks like they don't respond to ping requests.
If it is your wifi, then you should see high ping times for all outside servers. To test:
Assuming Windows: Get to a command line interface: open the start menu, type "cmd". At the CLI, type "ping 8.8.8.8". That will test your latency to Google's free DNS server, a common test address.
The relevant information will be time=XXXms. If you have two digits in those times, your wifi is not a problem. If you have four digits, you have a major problem that requires troubleshooting your connection. If you have a time under 250ms, you should be mostly adequate for PFO (making several unwarranted but simplifying assumptions); over 300ms and your connection is probably inadequate and further investigation is required.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
At a connection speed that I never saw actually go over 275kB/sec (streaming video was rough half the time) I never had a problem with Pathfinder Online up to at least 6-8 characters nearby. Frame rates dropped a little during escalation scrubbing but playing through it was nothing worse than what GW does on purpose.
I'm now at a theoretical 5MB/sec (more like 2-3MB in practice) and streaming is much better, haven't noticed a difference in the game.
My latency is also pretty low in both cases.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Interesting, I will test thatDecius. I'm pretty sure the wifi isnt the problem, but I have to use a mobile connection and I'm see that it shifts between 3G and 4G quite randomly. I'll have to decide if I should get ADSL but that will cost or if rigging an antenna will be enough. The 4G I'll expect to get better than the ADSL quite soon anyway.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I tried getting a bad latency to google by using a VPN. Worst I could come up with was 190ish from Romania. I was going on a resurection spree to get shrine locations for Harad's map. In less than thirty mintes, the issues I had were one rez with 0 hit points unable to move, and two not appearing on the map.
Up here in the mountains I'm currently on (really, really slow) satellite and I ping at around 650... 650, ouch, but still playable. I stay on steadily for long sessions. I wouldn't expect to be very competitive in PvP, but I haven't had many gameplay issues or extra disconnects.
Now, when there is heavy snow, like today, it can cause hiccups/lag in the signal and I can get thrown from PFO pretty easily. Also, I use a mobile based system for some remote broadcast stuff and find it can have similar "hiccups" when operating normally.
