Widescreen Gaming Forum

Contemplating getting a 512kbps ‘broadband’ connection at home.

My question is whether that connection speed would be generally too slow for an acceptable online gaming experience. I intend to try out that little WOW game everyone is talking about and as I understand it 512K should be ok for MMORPG’s. But I am also fond of twitch shooters, when playing at internet cafes I tend to go for Quake 4, Unreal Tournment, HL2 deatmatch rather than the Battlefield games, COD etc. Would I be getting huge amounts of lag when playing a modern fps online at 512K ?

I also have an Xbox360 and while I could wade through the xbox site to answer the next ques…. Does anyone know the min connection speed for playing on xbox live ;) I’m assuming that voice chat while playing would be out of the question, be it over xbox live or xfire.

I understand that internet speeds are hugely variable and everyone has a diff perception of what is acceptable performance. Still I’d be interested in hearing the opinion of anyone who has played online at 512K, 1MB or what they think is a good connection speed for online gaming.

(Note in case it matters I have a pretty good PC; AMD X2 4200, X1900XT, 2GB RAM, 2 x 74GB Raptors in Raid 0).

MMOs would play fairly well with 512k, shooters probably not so.

Xbox Live would probably also be not the smoothest experience either.

Whats the upload?

I have a 512K connection (128K upload). I have no real complaints. What will potentially annoy you is if other people are using the same connection and start downloading stuff while you're playing, which will affect twitch games but didn't really do much for the less bandwidth-hungry stuff. Latency/lag isn't an issue, as that has more to do with the latency of the connection rather than the bandwidth.

Really you have nothing to worry about.

I have a 512K connection too. I have no problems with PC-Gaming with games like bf2, css, fear aso, but with the old XBOX I had sometimes problems with xbox live but it wasn't often.

Why would it be such a slow connection? Cable or fiber not available in your area?

Why would it be such a slow connection? Cable or fiber not available in your area?

You'd be surprised just how crappy broadband plans are in supposedly developed and rich countries (eg. Australia).

It’s 512K download, 128K upload and a 40:1 contention ratio.

I’m pretty limited in terms of choices thanks to the house I’m living in having no phoneline and being three stories high.

The 512K service is attractive because it’s cheap (duh), you receive it through a portable indoor antenna / modem, which the provider just posts out to you i.e. no hassle with installation or moving house (my current abode is a bit of a dump) and it has a 6 month contract (you can also return it within a month if you don’t like it).

My only other choice is a 3MB connection with our cable tv provider. A major con for me with this option is that it has a 12 month contract. I’m renting without a contract or set lease so if my landlord decides a friend or relative needs my room there’s not much I can do about it. I’m also continually looking for another place for the reason stated above. Paying for broadband you can’t access for up to 12 months would just plain suck. I also really dislike taking time off work for a guy to come and do an installation and perhaps that guy ringing back to reschedule (it’s happened to me before, GRRRR)

Anyway just made this thread to see if it was a completely ludicrous notion to expect an enjoyable online gaming experience with 512K. Responses in this thread and other sites seem to indicate it wouldn’t be a total waste of time.

512k is fine for gaming.

I started on 512k and have been up to 10mb, and my pings online never shifted.

Because of the slow upload though, you'll want to be making sure you've got nothing else taking up bandwidth while you're playing.

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You should be fine but a little question, How are you posting this without interweb?

Personally i found it hard to play with 4Mb :/

You should be fine but a little question, How are you posting this without interweb?

Personally i found it hard to play with 4Mb :/

Combination of work and internet cafe, naturally! I'm actually posting this using the 512K connection right now. They posted it out to me in 3 working days (which is pretty good compared to other stuff I've had delivered). The antenna/modem is tiny, around 8 inches high, which is nice.

The internet browsing experience is pretty good, although it's a bit hit and miss, this site is fine but sites with loads of links like ign take around 20 seconds to load fully. Downloading is pretty bad, steady at 15-25 kB/sec (at peak times though).

I'll try gaming later tonight, I'm thinking I'll try Quake 4 first, just the type of no-brainer twitch shooter I like.