Alright so I currently have an internet connection that has 15 mbps download speed and 2 mbps upload speed. I plan on upgrading my service to a 50 mbps download and 8mbps upload speed but what Im wondering is will this upgrade I make to my internet connection make a vast improvement to matches that normally have lag for me? The reason I ask is because I never know exactly if its me lagging or my opponent and if its my opponent most of the time wouldn’t I be wasting money for this upgrade? 15 bucks isn’t that much on my end but I would like some reassurance from other gamers that play online.
More variables to consider than just that, but wouldn’t hurt.
Will most likely make no difference. Ask yourself, if the game you are playing online only needs to send 100kb per second (imaginary values here, mind you) and your upload throughput is 2000kb per second max, how will increasing it to 8000kb per second make a difference? Answer: It won’t, because both upload speeds are more than enough for the game.
What you should be contacting your ISP about is a way to reduce latency, if possible. The lag you are experiencing is from an excessive amount of time for the data to travel between two points, not because your data is building up at your computer/console due to an insufficient upload capacity.
Of course, there are exceptions to the above. If you are on a connection with other people who have torrents going, videos, etc, you might actually have an upload problem. Upload is not only used for sending data, but acknowledging that you have received data, so if you have enough people to completely saturate your entire upload capacity of 2000kbps, then yes increasing it to 8000kbps may help with the issue. Optionally you could configure QoS features in your router to leave you a portion of upload bandwidth available, but it may be easier to just fork out and not worry about it.
So my recommendation would be to examine your entire network traffic situation to see if you are saturating your upload or not. If you are, upgrade, if you aren’t then it is a waste of money. Contact your ISP regarding reducing latency, as some ISPs have methods to route your traffic in an alternate method so as to hopefully reduce latency.
Sounds like I gotta give Verizon a call!
I am also on Verizon, so if you have any luck let me know. From my past dealings with them though, I somehow doubt they’ll offer to do anything lol.
Some people just tunnel their connections to a server they have good access to (for instance, I have a very good connection to a linode.com virtual machine in Fremont, CA) using SSH or a VPN. I have verified it is possible to connect to a VPN and use Internet Connection Sharing to provide the same VPN connectivity to a console (Win7 only though, I believe). For people with especially bad connections, the route change + compression can make a huge difference. For instance, I have an Australian buddy who plays Aion regularly. A direct connection to the Aion server puts him at around a 1200ms ping (unplayable pretty much); however, tunneling the connection through the California based server I mentioned before, gets his ping down to 200ms. Of course, there’s also the possibility switching routes may make the problem WORSE, but it’s always worth a try.
That’s what I fear the most, haha. I know a great deal with computers/tech,etc but I do not fuck with my internet settings or the router lol. I’m always afraid that I can’t really undo something I did and I can’t live without the interweb. It does make sense theoretically since you put it into those terms. I’ll look into it further, from a theory stand-point and with Verizon. I just have a gut feeling like all this means opening ports for my PS3 which I still haven’t had a grasp of.
Well what sucks with the PS3 (at least from what I have gathered, I may be wrong), is that the PS3 has its own ports for PS3 functions, and games can use whatever ports they want. So even if you do open the PS3 ports, the ports for SSF4AE for instance may not be. The easiest fix for this is to make sure UPnP is on in both your PS3 and router settings. This will let the PS3 tell the router which ports to open as it wants them. It can get pretty wild if you have multiple routers, internet connection sharing, and VPN tunnels and such though. 
Im glad you guys are still conversing on this subject. Ive also realized that playing on wireless n with the xbox360 slim model doesn’t really help my situation. I don’t have the option of using wires because of the location of my room and router also the stubbornness of my parents(they’re no fool when it comes to the internet. they prefer being connected by wire.) Im just going to buy a 500mbps powerline network adapter because ive heard great things about it. Im doing the most just to get as close as possible to a super stable connection towards online games.
SupahRreem, I’d say investigate just a tad further before you make that conclusion. Reason being, just thinking about the overall subject today – even for my own practical uses, it doesn’t seem like it’d make a noticeable difference. Like, for instance, AE. Your current yellow connection matches will probably be a lesser latency yellow connection and/or a green – and the red ones might upgrade to a yellow. This is mere speculation, but I don’t think you’d see all green connections left and right. I have Verizon FiOs and it’s been pretty great for me so far. I’ve even tried red connections that were better than some green ones but it’s all a gamble nonetheless.
However, I do think being wired to the router would make a substantial amount of difference. Is there not a way to somehow convince to drill in the floors and run the cat5e down? If done right, they technically wouldn’t know (for the adventurous kind). All in all, unless you’re looking at really horrible matches left and right without a break, then you may not need it.
Mind you, that’s just what I’ve come up with. I’m going to try calling Verizon to see what they can do with Brigandier’s recommenation, but aside from that we can start a petition to have japanese internet hahaha.
EDIT: Or you can let the shitty quality of online matches spark the motivation to find casuals or local events to get that EXP instead!
Just a sidebar question considering I’m learning a whole lot about this stuff:
I’m looking to run two PS3’s on one internet connection for Battlefield 3. Being that they’re in the same exact game/server, probably damn near synchronous movements, do you guys think it’d be possible without a shit-ton of lag coming my way? I’ve heard some horror stories about stuff like this from the past and wondered if it ever really got any better or am I SOL.
Just DMZ your PS3.
???
Putting a specific IP on the DMZ in your router basically opens up all ports to it.
I hope I’m getting this correct but UPnP finds an open port, and this DMZ is similar in that the ports are already opened ergo less latency? I’m trying to get my head around internet and definitely router settings. I always feel like I’m gunna fuck up.
Yes, it’s something like that. Usually, we don’t recommend DMZ for PCs, but for the PS3, it’s fine.
You’ll have to speak to a supervisor most likely. This is something their low level support techs have no control over, and most of them probably won’t even have a clue what you’re talking about.
I know this because I used to work for them in tech support. They aren’t going to know. Just get on the phone, ask for a supervisor, and when they ask why (if they ask), just tell them you have a high-level question about latency, and they probably will just put you right through.
If your PS3 has UPnP on and your router has it on as well, there’s no real reason to DMZ the PS3’s IP. Also most routers only let you DMZ one IP at a time, so if you have more than one PS3 I’m sure you can see the issue with this. UPnP isn’t something that constantly lags the connection, it’s more like your PS3 says “Hey, I need ports X, Y, and Z opened”, and your router says “okay” and leaves them that way for quite some time. Also DMZ makes some routers act pretty funky by disabling other NAT rules you might have, etc. In general DMZ is for keeping everything isolated from the outside world except for a single client, which is usually a secondary router that has its own NAT/UPnP going on and managing exposed things like web servers.
As far as wired vs wireless, I did some googling around. We already know that Wireless-G and N have throughputs exceeding most people’s internet connections, so there’s no bottleneck there; however, just like my first post, there is latency. I was only able to find one test online comparing the two in terms of latency, and the wired connection scored around 0.3ms latency vs 3ms latency for wireless. The wireless was also prone to small spikes of latency due to microwaves, radio interference, etc. So yes a wired connection would be optimal, but I don’t think it’s going to suddenly give you a godlike connection. Then again, all of it should be tested on a router by router basis.
tl;dr the total latency between you and the player is the #1 contributing factor to lag, everything else mentioned is pretty negligible. If you were having firewall/port issues, you’d probably not be getting into any matches.
I don’t know if it was a coincidence or not but, I had my router dmz’d and completely open. Both ps3’s were set with a static ip and dns, want to say I used googles dns. It seemed that 4/5 games that had shit tons of lag, were games that I was the host. I know because I would rage quit and watch my brothers ps3 say, “changing hosts”. So unless it was just an absurd amount of coincidence, opening up the router might not be so good for shooters. Since (I’m guessing here) the net code thinks I had the “best” connection, and would make me(or my bro) the host. I want to say it’s fine for fighters since there is only 2 people to sync up, but i could be completely wrong. I’m no net expert so correct me if I’m wrong.
I think you may be onto something. Your exact situation however is why I’m fearful. No use dishing out $$$ for a second setup when they can’t play together on the same network.
Do you think two wired PS3’s with UPnP on the router may help?
I always ask for the Lvl 3 HNIC whenever I call customer support for anything. More efficient and less waiting music between transfers.
I wish I could use the backdoor support number for Verizon we use here at my job.