ADSL - Not good for gaming?

[Juice]

I've been an ISDN user for well over two years now and I've been waiting for ADSL even longer, viewing my ISDN as a temporary solution until it arrives. However, since it has 'arrived', I've been undecided on whether or not I finally want to take the plunge.

After reading the minutes of the meeting RPM had with the Telkom executives, I've finally made up my mind. If Telkom states, in no uncertain terms, that "You cannot be expected to game with this (ADSL) service." I want no part of it. While I know many people who play games over ADSL without any issues, if this is Telkom's attitude towards my primary intended purpose, I think I'll just stick to ISDN.

I feel I should qualify my presence here, since I'm not an ADSL user. I'd just like to add my voice of dissent to those of the other MyADSL users in the hope that with an ever-increasing number of dissatisfied people we can get Telkom to change its attitude and to realise that not that many people are as happy with their offerring as they believe. I would be an ADSL user, if only ADSL was a service worth using.

Thanks, to MyADSL and RPM, for helping me make up my mind.

Juice

 

[Thimee]

Useless for international gaming of any sort.

Excellent for local gaming (I get a sustained ping rate of under 15ms to the SAIX servers).

I use a VPN that links to a 128K leased line (ahh, nice to have contacts) to solve the international gaming problem, however I still get in excess of 500ms international ping that way. The VPN adds between 30-50ms of overhead. So really nice for MMPORG's etc, but not so good for FPS.

2c

 

[Xyber]

I play Project Entropia (a MMOG) with ADSL and I can even get connection during the day. There is lag though but this game is known to lag, so it might be partly their servers too (the servers is in Europe). When I play the game from round 21h00 into the morning lag starts to disappear So I would say ADSL is ok, I don't know for Quake and CS type games though, didn't try those yet. Only thing that bothers be bout ADSL is the CAP and port prioritising <-- which prolly cause the game's connection speed to not be optimal seeing as it's not running on email and http ports Port prioritising is just stupid!!!

 

[sybawoods]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Juice</i>
<br />If Telkom states, in no uncertain terms, that "You cannot be expected to game with this (ADSL) service." I want no part of it. While I know many people who play games over ADSL without any issues, if this is Telkom's attitude towards my primary intended purpose, I think I'll just stick to ISDN.
Juice
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> Hey Juice, while I in no way want to be seen to be promoting ADSL, this does need some qualification... ADSL is without a doubt the best solution if you game <b>locally</b>. I've been using it since November last year and consistently get pings in the 20-30ms range from Cape Town (with ISDN 50-60ms). If you connect from Jhb/Pretoria you can expect sub-20ms pings to most servers because that's where the BRAS switches are located. For international gaming though, it's a lost cause. Many evenings, after about 1am you can expect sub 300ms pings to international servers, but these occasions are few and far between.

When I first got ADSL, it was the perfect solution even for internation gaming with international pings in the 200ms range. Some time earlier this year they institituted all this stupid "shaping" and "port prioritisation" - since then international pings have gone South.

Locally though, its unbeatable.

 

[Juice]

I know quite a few people who use ADSL for local gaming with great results. Heck, some people even invite their friends over and then everyone jumps on the ADSL connection and still get respectable pings. I just don't like the attitude. When Telkom themselves say that it's not good for gaming, without distinguishing between local and international, it tells me that they don't really care about gamers and they're leaving themselves a back-door just in case things start to get worse for gamers.

When more people started complaining about the cap and it received media attention, Telkom's answer was that the service was never intended for high-bandwidth users. What do you think the Telkom answer will be if ADSL pings start comparing with ISDN pings as a result of network congestion or service over-subscription?

By the way, what is the effect of capping on your local gaming pings?

Juice

 

[TheProven]

What concerns me is that the technition on 0800 375 375 said that ADSL is not for gaming, and refered me to www.telkom.co.za/adsl where he says it is stated as such (I havent found it yet). Thus whenever I try and solve te problem, I am forced to tell them that my BROWSING is not working correctly.

What should happen is that more PC's be placed at SAIX gaming in order to facilitate internet gaming locally, then no bandwidth is consumed.

And we need an attitude change from Telkom.

 

[sybawoods]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Juice</i>
<br />By the way, what is the effect of capping on your local gaming pings?
Juice
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Capping has no impact on local surfing or gaming - local pings and speed remain unchanged. However, the traffic generated from local gaming and surfing counts towards the 3 gig cap. Go figure...

In short, if all else fails and you're capped, you can game, download and surf locally as much as you want with no impediment.