1. What is Online Gaming?
A: When you play a game through Internet, it's called online gaming. Players in different countries can play against each other as long as they are connected to the Internet and have the same game software.
2. What do I need to play online?
You need the game software, a system (PC?) to play it on, and a connection to the Internet. Some examples of systems that support online gaming are Personal Computers (PCs and laptops), PlayStation 2 and Xbox, Nintendo DS etc.
Your computer must be connected to the Internet for you to play online games. The internet connection affects how well you play against other players. A broadband connection usually gives better performance although some games can be played on a regular 56Kbps dial-up connection
We use the term 'bandwidth' to refer to the capacity of a network to carry information. High bandwidth (ADSL connection) allows the speedy transfer of large amounts of information, whereas low bandwidth (56k connection) would mean that we have to wait relatively longer for the same amount of information. You can think of bandwidth as a highway with cars travelling on it. The highway is the network connection and the cars are the data. The wider the highway, the more cars can travel on it at one time. Therefore more cars can get to their destinations faster. It's the same principle with computer data -- the more bandwidth, the more information that can be transferred at one time. However other factors will also affect your performance. They are shared below.
Look out for the Minimum System Requirements of each game. It's wise to have a system that meets or exceeds a game's Recommended System Requirements so you can perform better in the game.
3. Latency? Ping? Lag? What does all this mean?
Online gamers often discuss "latency". This is the time it takes for data to travel from one point on the Internet to another. You may hear gamers refer to latency as "ping" or "lag." Your "ping rate" is a measure of the time (in milliseconds) it takes for a little packet of data to travel from your computer to your opponent computer (or game server) and back.
In the gaming world, if you are "laggy", you will get choppy or jerky game play. In addition, you'll be helpless against the attacks of your opponent if he or she has lower latency than you. To avoid getting trounced, you can take steps to ensure a good online gaming experience and equal footing with your opponent when you go into battle.
4. Why do I have high latency?
The most basic concept that people have on this is that if you have a slow connection to the Internet, or if one of the Internet gateways or servers between you and your opponent is especially busy, you'll experience high latency, and you may see delays or disruption in your game.
This is not the only reason for gamers to experience high latency:
- Network equipment is programmed to place low priority on ping and trace route packet.
o This means that they do not process them immediately upon receiving them, so that they have more capacity to perform other more important functions such as routing of data packets. Hence, even when the network is healthy, sometimes, you might see poor ping results.
- Latency can be caused by server latency.
o That is, the amount of time used by the server to process the request and reply. Therefore, if the server is very busy with other gamers, this slow server response will also impact the latency.
- The game's network traffic is exceeding the modem's rate cap, and the modem itself is therefore causing network packets to be delayed or lost
o This means that the modem you are using cannot support your connection speed. As a result, the modem just "throws away" extra data that is coming in. For example, this may happen if you are using a ADSL modem on a ADSL2+ connection.
- The game's network traffic is exceeding the game server's per-user rate cap - a mechanism:
o This means that the server administrators are limiting the natural advantage that broadband users have over slow modem users.
o This means that the administrator is setting a maximum rate on each game player, so as to ensure that slow modem users are not disadvantaged when playing against broadband users.
5. So is there any way for me to know which part of my connection is wrong?
Any data from your computer is sent through a series on pathways ("roads") to get to its destination (opponent, or game server)
Congestion can occur in any one or more of the "roads". From the Client Computer to the Internet Server, there can be many different routing points and within each point there may be congestion.
To identify roughly where, a traceroute might be able to help you. By looking at the traceroute results, you can roughly tell which is the "road" that is causing delay. However, do note that the results are not totally conclusive, due to reason given above.
To know more on traceroutes, do check out
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/T/traceroute.html
http://networking.ringofsaturn.com/IP/traceroutedoc.php
http://www.exit109.com/~jeremy/news/providers/traceroute.html
6. I can't complete the traceroute! Why?
A lot of game servers are protected by a firewall, and ICMP/ping packets cannot reach the servers themselves. That is the reason why sometimes the traceroute cannot even complete.
However, you can still gain some information by looking at the half complete results. If all the hops look fine but you experience high latency, then perhaps it is a problem with the game servers' internal network (which is protected by the firewall and not visible to you).
Remember that traceroutes are only a guide to the possible cause of laggy gameplay. Jerky gameplay coupled with poor traceroute results indicate possible network problems only when the traceroute results are normal the rest of the time.
Thus, please do not get alarmed when you obtain poor ping or traceroute results. As long as your gameplay or net surfing experience is not suffering, the network is healthy.
As a rough guide, latency to United States of about 300ms is OK.
7a. My gameplay is jerky but my ping/traceroute results are ok. What's going on?
If your gameplay is still jerky even though your traceroute results are healthy, the problem might lie with the client or server applications. We advise that you try on a different game server and, if the problem persists, contact the game administrator.
7b. My gameplay is fine but I'm getting poor ping/traceroute results. Should I be worried?
No. As mentioned above, most network equipment place "ping" and "traceroute" packets on low priority. If you are not experiencing slowness in your gameplay or net surfing, your data packets are still being processed with the highest priority.
8. My friends who are on another ISP connection have better gaming experience and not laggy, does this mean that the ISP connection is better than SingNet?
The internet is not a hard science; it is rather unpredictable, with paths going up and down. Therefore, from time to time, there may be occasions where some ISPs might have better performance at certain points in time, but there are certain times when SingNet might be better as well.
Please be rest assured that we are always monitoring the situation to keep latency within reasonable limits in SingTel network.
9. Any other tips?
Other things that you can do:
- Background applications in your PC putting traffic on the network without your knowledge. For instance, P2P applications can generate traffic even when they are just sitting in the system tray, and spyware might be totally invisible but using up your system resource and bandwidth!
- Try installing microfilters for non-ADSL equipment such as telephone sockets, and even empty sockets that are not in use in order to reduce noise and improve the quality of your service. Do also remember that the direction in which you plug the microfilter is very important!
- Professional gamers choose to connect to internet directly with an ethernet modem and avoid routers, especially wireless ones. This is because routers are able to forward packets to more than 1 computer. To do that, they have to run routing algorithms to see where to send each packet. This extra processing may therefore add delays in packet transport, prolonging your latency.
10. Where can I get help?
Latency on SingNet: If latency appears to be from SingNet and you are a SingNet Customer, you can contact helpdesk with details on the game name, game server address, which realm you were in, the date and time you experienced lag and the traceroute results and we will do our best to address the issue. The information is available on www.singtel.com
Latency elsewhere: If latency appears to be from elsewhere (in US sites etc), please contact the administrators of the destination or try alternate game servers with better pings.
11. Tips for World of Warcraft gamers
These observations on lag problems can be seen:
- Besides gamers worldwide, US gamers are also having lag problems (sometimes over 1000 ms)
- US gamers with very good/new computers also have lag, although having a lot of RAM might help slightly
The minimum PC hardware requirements as recommended by World of Warcraft are:
Intel Pentium® IV 1.5 GHz or AMD XP 1500+ MHz
1024 MB RAM
64 MB 3D graphics card with Hardware Transform and Lighting, such as
NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX 5700 class card or above
Broadband Internet connection
Two-button scroll-wheel mouse
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