Dying due to lack of speed?

[AndyM]

I'm new to on-line gaming experience, and so far I'm really a sitting duck. My pings are running 350 to 400 in games where others with 56K modems are getting 200. What can I do to increase speed? USR 56K INT Modem, PIII 700, 256K RAM.
Thanks, AndyM

[was_smart]

Get a cable modem

[etLux]

Either that, or switch ISP's... Sounds like yours is suffering from terminal crappiness.

[courto]

I have read that you could actually get a better ping by limiting your connect speed. That might be worth a try. You haven't mentioned what speed you are connecting at now.

[AndyM]

49333bps...how does that sound? If that's good, it means my ISP is good...right? Then I have to think I have something wrong in PC modem department. Please, someone let me know if I'm on the right track here. Thanks, AndyM

[wedor]

Try this site,

http://www.3dspotlight.com/tweaks/modem/index.shtml

[Omletteboy]

49333 is very good for 56k connection although that number can be deceiving. Go to http://www.modemhelp.org or http://www.speedguide.net and check if there are any tweaks for your modem.

[chacmool]

It's kinda hard to find the Dial-Up Modem tweaks @ speedguide.net because there are not any (it's a pure xDSL & Cable Modem site).

However, here is another link for Dial-Up Modem tweaks.

http://www.speedcorp.net/guides/dialup.shtml

[Xayd]

Your mileage may vary on dialup Andy. You can probably get that ping down to 225ish, but you'll still be at a big disadvantage to those of us on cable/xDSL with sub-100 pings. First person shooters are made for broadband.

Xayd

[AndyM]

I am checking into cable modems at this time...but still confused when trying to play on dialup. I ping the pcmech server and get a value of 250 or so. If I only get 350 to 400 on game servers is that expected? What determines the ping time or interval?
Also, after tweaking modem last night, I am now getting a lot of "failure to connect after 4 tries" in counterstrike. But I reached pcmech with no problem and a ping of 250. This is frustrating.

[SARGE]

Using tracert, I ping from 99-160 to pcmech, using 56k. This applies to all of my modems.




Microsoft(R) Windows 98
(C)Copyright Microsoft Corp 1981-1999.

C:\WINDOWS\Desktop>tracert pcmech.com

Tracing route to pcmech.com [209.68.45.231]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 119 ms 117 ms 114 ms nas8.dal1.Level3.net [209.244.42.232]
2 118 ms 101 ms 114 ms 63.215.11.3
3 107 ms 114 ms 110 ms 209.245.240.138
4 112 ms 110 ms 114 ms 140.at-6-0-0.XR1.DFW9.ALTER.NET [152.63.98.126]

5 112 ms 105 ms 99 ms 185.at-1-0-0.TR1.DFW9.ALTER.NET [152.63.98.26]
6 152 ms 144 ms 148 ms 128.at-5-1-0.TR1.DCA6.ALTER.NET [152.63.2.133]
7 142 ms 138 ms 138 ms 187.at-6-0-0.XR1.TCO1.ALTER.NET [152.63.34.17]
8 146 ms 139 ms 145 ms 193.ATM6-0.GW3.PIT1.ALTER.NET [152.63.37.1]
9 154 ms 158 ms 156 ms pair-gw.customer.alter.net [157.130.48.162]
10 163 ms 158 ms 161 ms 192.168.1.4
11 164 ms 168 ms 162 ms pcmech.com [209.68.45.231]

Trace complete.

[Xayd]

Real-time shooter games are very processor intensive, seeing as your Winmodem has to fight with your game over processor cycles, something has to give.

Xayd

[AndyM]

Thanks for all the responses. I don't know how I could have solved this without your help. Much appreciated...