I am sick and tired of this

[Ender[CotC]]

So I just measured my internet speed..... about for any server in the US 2000 kb/s.

Should this be enough to play games like css or what? I double checked the system requirement for the game and I kick it's ass on all counts. If the internet speed (above) is the thing that's chocking my game-play-ability, please let me know so i can figure out what steps i can take next. Or maybe if you have any ideas for what i could do, please let me know. I had to put my css video options on minimal... that's off of widescreen, all extras set to off.... etc.

I should be able to run this game to the max, right. you can check my comp stats on xfire i think.

[Neophyte]

That's the wrong speed to consider.

The 2,000 Kbps is the throughput speed. This is the total amount of DATA that you can take per second. This is more important when downloading a game.

What you need to measure is the total response time, also known as "latency", "delay", or "ping time". This is the time measured in mili seconds, such as 32 ms, that a server responds to you. A playable response time (IMHO) is any time smaller than 100 ms.

A congested network router can cause massive delay on your response times.

So, when you play a game, the server off-sets time or predicts locations of players and their shots based on your latency. You click your 'fire' button, and if the response time is good, the player gets hit. If it's awful (like if you had a satellite internet connection) the server rejects your shot because the player killed you before the it calculated your shot.

When you "ping" a server, you measure the time it takes your data to come back from the site.

Example:

Code: Select all

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6001]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Chuck>ping www.google.com

Pinging www.l.google.com [64.233.169.147] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 64.233.169.147: bytes=32 time=95ms TTL=245
Reply from 64.233.169.147: bytes=32 time=106ms TTL=245
Reply from 64.233.169.147: bytes=32 time=101ms TTL=245
Reply from 64.233.169.147: bytes=32 time=94ms TTL=245

Ping statistics for 64.233.169.147:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 94ms, Maximum = 106ms, Average = 99ms

C:\Users\Chuck>

Pretending that "www.google.com" had a game server, this response time would be acceptable.

[Ender[CotC]]

Right! Thanks for the correction. I didn't even think about that. I was thinking that my internet speed was the determining factor.

I know that the ping measured by css while in-game ranges from around 100 to 500 depending on how much it hates me on that day. Would that be an accurate number, or should i look somewhere else for it?

[Neophyte]

CSS isn't the most accurate, its more of an educated guess. But you can use it to quickly judge speeds and certainly to sort your server list to find some of the low ping servers. When you connect to the server, that would give you an accurate measurement of latency.

It kind of bothers me that 100 - 500 are your server ranges. I have to go through about 1500+ servers before I see ones start at 100. Heck, my first 100 servers are under 50 ms. Are you sure you don't have some kind of filter setup that's causing the servers to show in this range?

[Ender[CotC]]

It kind of bothers me that 100 - 500 are your server ranges.

Think of how I feel...

[KrAzYdAvE]

Probably asked you this before, but is it wifi?
Wireless has never been any good at gaming for me...

[Ender[CotC]]

yes, it 'tis

a wired connection is little better though. At least, from what i've tried so far here.

[D.A.R.K.[CotC]]

My internet is wireless and it works just fine.