It’s probably not going to affect as much as you think. Your internet connection is already ridiculously fast, and I doubt it getting a speed boost will show any improvement.
Why? Ping. Ping is the time it takes for a connection to be made between two points, in this case from you to your opponent. Most people attribute gameplay quality to speed. This is incorrect. The best indicator of gameplay quality will be your ping rate to the server or player, where the lower the number, the better. Several factors affect ping.
Skip this section if you don’t want an explanation of how all this works:
[spoiler=]
For starters, you have wireless connections vs wired ones. Wireless connections have inherent signal loss. Signal loss affects ping rates. Even wireless connections with a stable ping still suck, because (again) it has inherent signal loss. Think of it like a water spray bottle, with the water being the data you’re dealing with. Even a straight stream has stray water being sprayed around. Same with a wireless connection, except that water bottle is set to mist with the target generally wafting it towards it. It’s not perfect. The easy solution is to use a wired connection, but there are still some people too ignorant of what makes a good connection to realize this (or some physically unable to use wired, like some I know of in here).
So let’s say both players are using wired. Well, you still have to make sure your routers are set up correctly. A router routes traffic to devices. Think of a traffic cop on a eight-lane four-way stop. He’s got to make sure that each car gets to the proper lane without any kind of direction, and cars kind of drive around aimlessly until they realize where they’re headed. Setting up port forwarding lets that cop say “Hey, you go to this lane” so the cars get to where they should be faster and no cars get lost. Lost cars equal (you guessed it) signal loss, and signal loss means a higher ping.
Okay, so you’ve got your router set up and you’re using wired, but you’re still not good to go, and unfortunately that’s about all you can control at that point. The information you’re getting and receiving still has to travel several miles, possibly hundreds or thousands of miles, traveling through relay stations, ISP hubs, and all sorts of other complicated stuff before it gets to where it needs to go… and each section of this has to be working immaculately. We’re talking miles of cable that must be undamaged, equipment that must be properly spaced (because signals are electricity, and that degrades over a set distance unless it’s refreshed by passing through a relay), and all kinds of other crap that has to be just right so it can reach your ISP and go to wherever it needs to go where, finally making a connection to the server or your opponent. Once that connection is made, then you start transferring information.
Now what does all this mean to you? It means that even if your internet speed is fast, it’s still going to have to jump through those hoops before it can even get or receive what it needs. It doesn’t mean squat if you have a fast car but you’re stuck at red lights all the time, and the ping rate indicates how long it has to wait at the stop light before you can get to transferring the information at those higher speeds.[/spoiler]
Don’t get me wrong… it WILL have some effect on your matches. You’ll probably find matches with better ping rates, but connecting to a person with a crappy ping is going to be just the same as it was, regardless of your speed. Look at it this way: I had a 10up, 1.5 down connection that had lag-free matches with a good ping (usually 60 or below).
