so like, yeah, i'm fininally splurging and going with dsl... ok ok, so it's actually at the point where it'll save me 20 bucks a month over my 2nd phone line + isp charges.... go verizon online. all i can say is 'i'll be able to hear you now!'


anywho i've never actually even played on a box connected to dsl/cable, so i got a few questions:

-what do i want to set my datarate at?

-am i going to notice a difference in, say, raids? or is that type of lag usually going to be from my lax processor / vid?

alyn cross
forces unknown

Datarate - DSL and Broadband you'll be fine at anything around 9-14 (I forget the point at which it ignores the numbers). I sat at a setting of 9 and had no problems.

I had huge packetloss on raids regardless of connections, but the big difference seemed to be that I wouldn't go link dead while the dial up folks did. I'd just have that nice data lag where everyone would stop doing stuff and people would start disappearing. Then suddenly you'd catch up on 30 seconds worth of data in 2 seconds. That was only when there were noted problems on the EQ network though, most of the time the only lag was from my "all Luclin models, full clip, full particles, I'm insane" video setting. The packet thingie in the corner was always green.

-what do i want to set my datarate at?

I set it at 12.0.

-am i going to notice a difference in, say, raids? or is that type of lag usually going to be from my lax processor / vid?

If by "lag" you mean slow frame rate (things update on the screen slowly, like a slide show), it won't do a thing. Upgrade your computer and video card.

If by "lag" you mean delayed info from the server (like nothing seems to happen then all of a sudden you get a bunch of hit/spell updates), or you go linkdead when there is a lot going on, then yes it may help.

If you're unsure, look at your lag meter. The left number is ping time in ms, and will be 100-250 on a typical U.S. modem connection and 30-150 on a typical U.S. broadband connection, depending on your distance from Los Angeles. Lower ping time will make the game more responsive -- you'll notice you can target faster, cast spells faster, and things won't warp much.

The middle numbers are packet loss. These should be 0.0% at all times.

The thick line at the bottom has little tick marks, these are just visual representations of data. Normally it should show a nice even spacing of tick marks moving from the inside to the outside.

The right number is the bandwidth you're using (I'm guessing in bytes/sec, but I'm not certain). Normally, this will be under 1500. In raids or areas with a lot of things happening, this number can climb to 3000-5000 or even more. This is where a 28.8K modem connection can cause a clog in the data and make you go linkdead or cause hiccoughs in spell and melee updates. If that's the point where you are having problems, then a broadband connection may help you.

9.0 is the highest that matters. anything over that is the same as a 9.0.

Zyphyr says: 9.0 is the highest that matters. anything over that is the same as a 9.0.

Says who? I recall Gordon recommending ages ago not to use a number over 9.0, but he didn't say that anything over 9.0 doesn't matter -- on the contrary, the fact that he didn't recommend anything over 9.0 suggests that it still does something.

Do you have another source saying 9.0 is effective maximum?

Dont know much on DSL in US. But in Germany theres alot of debate on a DSL feature called "fastpath".

Afaik DSL is slightly slower than ISDN or Modem when it comes to pings in online gaming because of certain technical differences.

It is no issue for EQ addicts. But the FPS shooter fans are upset on this.

y provider charges a little extra for opening fastpath on ones DSL port. Maybe you ask yours about this, if you like to play shooter genre as well.

Maody says: Afaik DSL is slightly slower than ISDN or Modem when it comes to pings in online gaming because of certain technical differences.

That's really strange, the exact opposite is true with most U.S. setups. Even if you are in Los Angeles a modem won't get you much faster than 100ms due to inherent latencies, whereas a DSL, cable, or even ISDN setup can get you 10-15ms ping if you're nearby.

I used to live in San Diego. I got good ping times...but that didn't make my playing experience any better. Even just downloading things I commonly went to 1kb (yes that's a small b).

At least some it has to do with the area you live in, and your provider. I've heard good and bad about Verizon. Most of their business customers I have spoken with were at least fairly satisfied. The few home users I have spoken with were varied.

The main positive I noticed with DSL over modem and cable was stability. I would get extremely low speeds quite often, but in two years was only actually disconnected from the Internet two times.

I have to say, from personal experience, people that say they commonly get 500Mb speeds (or anything over 150-200Mb) do represent the whole. Cable does tend to be faster, but if you use Cox Cable (like I'm stuck with) your connection can be real unreliable as a home user. They say their doing things, but after a year, I have seen no difference.

Hmm, made me wonder and i googled for "fastpath dsl".

Seems to be a german only discussion. The german telco engineers in their neverending pursuit of perfectness implemented an unneccessary layer of error correction into their DSL lines and "fastpath" is the name for turning it of. Hehe.. welcome to the 21st century.