What mobile broadband service is good for online gaming???

ligerleo

O2
Vodafone
Meteor
3
E mobile

theteal

none can be described as good for online gaming

skregs

none of them

naughto

vodafone land line is not that much more that there mobile broadband i get mine at 38a month

Raze_them_all

my mate is using the meteor broadband hotspot thing and he says it's class

TheMooseInNam

I'm afraid all the other posters are right. Mobile broadband isn't "good" for gaming. Only a very small percentage of users experience what might be described as adequate performance. It depends on your location to the base station and how many other users are accessing it too.

What location are you in? You might be able to get a fixed wireless network like permaNET or DigiWeb.

TheMooseInNam

Raze_them_all wrote: »

my mate is using the meteor broadband hotspot thing and he says it's class

Has he tested to ping times and jitter? Most likely he just happens to be in a good spot. If he used it at a different location, it might be a very different story.

theteal

Raze_them_all wrote: »

my mate is using the meteor broadband hotspot thing and he says it's class

my friend uses meteor too, it's the best mobile option available (chapelizod) but it would still never be described as "good", it's adequate at best as mentioned above

Vicxas

Mobile Broadband is horrible for online gaming. But the best of a bad bunch would be the Meteor one. althought you've to run it through a laptop.

siblers

I have 3 and for the most part it works as well as when I had eircom broadband but for whatever reasons fifa 11 online is a bit of a nightmare. It depends on you're location and the weather as well.

Suspiria79

I use O2 for the PS3 and the Xbox. Never have much problems. During 7pm till 9pm ya might get lag but hey, not that annoying.

tipperaryboy

I sometimes use 3 MiFi most of the time the connection is good, at certain times the connection may be weak during daytime but thats just a small minor complaint overall its good could be because of base station being nearby and not as many users as other networks.

l3m0n5

I us a O2 usb stick and on COD I normally get 3 bars. But the lag can be noticable at time (guys running past you killing you all before you even noticed) Found the best times were late evening after 11pm and any time week days before 3:30.

o1s1n

I barely found Meteor mobile broadband any use for browsing the internet, nevermind gaming Piece of garbage.

dunworth1

mobile broadband is very location dependent your best bet is to get a trial and see if it works and if not return it and try a different provider.

as just because one provider is crap in your area dosent mean they all are.
it really depends on how many people are using the service in your area and your distance from the mast

beardo81

Have Meteor broadband and no complaints here. Far better than the Eircom connection I used to have, congestion made that unusable most evenings! Most providers have a return guarantee if your not happy within a week or two so I'd try them all if you can and stick with the best if there's a half decent one. Location is key here!

O-Deazy

Yea I also use Meteor and it can be a bit temperamental however 90% of the time its great.. Moved house recently and the new location has made it even better. I used to use 3 but it was unplayable! I'd say if you have to use mobile broadband Meteor would be the best. But as the previous posters said, try a trial run first!

-=al=-

as mentioned, there is waaaaay to many viaribales, i used 3 and meteor and have no issues with it at all

mobile broadband should only be as a last resort really,fixed and actual proper broadband is always recommended

mobile boradband isn't even technically broadband, it's midband... and if it's great one day, it might not work the next


But I have used meteor and 3 and it worked fine... meteor was better than 3 for me..


you could just ask friends or family on different networks how their signal is on their 3g phone, same technology for the mobile sticks... other than that there is at least a 7 day cooling off period and three has a 2 week money back gaurantee!

Saaron

I used meteor Dongle for a few months until i got upc. I thought it was really good after most people said they were fairly s**te at times. but have to say i never really had a problem with it and had a solid connection for most games.

DUB777

None, you need broadband. You'll be lagging all the time, wasting your money with any of them.

siblers

DUB777 wrote: »

None, you need broadband. You'll be lagging all the time, wasting your money with any of them.

Bollocks, it totally depends on his location.

Duckytech

siblers wrote: »

Bollocks, it totally depends on his location.

Yea +1

I have played online with the old type vodafone dongle via a wireless connection with a dovado router for last 18 months and its only been unplayable on a handfull of occasions. I wasn't expecting it to work but it has and continues to run smooth.

I cant find any fault with it in general. Only for it, id be playing boardgames!

I have actually just got a new vodafone 'hi speed' dongle, must try it out for a while and see if its any better.

leemurta

I have 3 broadband I have the little dongle plugged into a netgear router and the signal is shared between a few computers, I have pretty much lag free matches in every game except when theres 3 or 4 of the computers on. I live out in the country near Dundalk where theres not a great internet service so its pretty good.

Dunny

Used Meteor through the laptop and had no problems playing online.

Suspiria79

Doing fine on Modern Warfare 2 with O2. An hour long session only uses up about 20MB on xbox live.

sean1141

have a 3 wireless router. im on the national broadband scheme (joys of living in the back of nowhere) its pretty good. can be a bit of lag sometimes but 90% of the time its great. often be playing the ps3 while my nephew would bbe on his xbox in the other room

GTR63

What is the mobile broadband like downloading patches,DLC & XBLA Games.

Scorpion venom

think ill stick to my 30Mb UPC line lol but if it works for you happy days i guess

siblers

GTR63 wrote: »

What is the mobile broadband like downloading patches,DLC & XBLA Games.

Grand, I have three and get average download speeds of about 3-4 mb and upload of 0.5 to 1.0 mb. Bit slower around 5 or so and when it's stormy out it's pretty much usless (biggest drawback)

evolutionqy7

Its pretty much shoot and miss with mobile broadband.

Ive three broadband in the middle of nowhere and it does the job most of the time. Only get lag the odd time and mostly only during the day

Trevor451

siblers wrote: »

Bollocks, it totally depends on his location.

Mobile internet is not suitable for on-line gaming. OP get a proper ISP like UPC or if that's not available in your area try eircom.

sean1141

Trevor451 wrote: »

Mobile internet is not suitable for on-line gaming. OP get a proper ISP like UPC or if that's not available in your area try eircom.

i use mobile internet for online gaming with very little problems. i have no other options do:(

beardo81

Trevor451 wrote: »

Mobile internet is not suitable for on-line gaming. OP get a proper ISP like UPC or if that's not available in your area try eircom.

Yes, in certain areas mobile internet is suitable for online gaming. Here's a speedtest I did today with Meteor dongle;



Sometimes I get a better ping too and its always fairly solid. Some people would rather pay €20 for a months access than €40+ to Eircom. So yes, mobile internet can be suitable for online gaming. Bleedin' fixed line nazi's....

TheMooseInNam

beardo81 wrote: »

Yes, in certain areas mobile internet is suitable for online gaming. Here's a speedtest I did today with Meteor dongle;



Sometimes I get a better ping too and its always fairly solid. Some people would rather pay €20 for a months access than €40+ to Eircom. So yes, mobile internet can be suitable for online gaming. Bleedin' fixed line nazi's....

Hi breado,

"fixed line Nazi's!" I love that, you made me laugh while drinking my morning coffee... my keyboard and screen are now covered in coffee! Thanks buddy!

In an effort to resolve this thread once and for all and actually get some solid info on the subject, I'm going to perform an analysis of both of our connections so everyone can see the exact difference between mobile broadband and a half decent alternative. I've a fixed wireless broadband from permaNET. I've the same upload and download speeds as you but to be honest, upload and download speeds are pretty much irrelevant when it comes to online gaming. If you connect to a server you require no more that 0.1Mb/s both up and down, if you plan on hosting a server then you'll require more, obviously.

The most important details about your connection when gaming are your packet loss, ping (latency) and jitter.

Packet loss is fairly self explanatory, how many packets of information get lost in transit on the inbound and out bound journeys.

Ping is how long it takes for your information to hit the selected server and return. Make sure you're pinging the same location as the game server you're connecting to. So, if you plan on playing on a server hosted in the UK, ping a UK site for your ping, like-wise for the US.

Jitter is how solid the connection is. You'll want a very low jitter, otherwise you'll have intermittent or inconsistent quality of a connection.

So, taking all that into consideration, lets compare your "mobile broadband" with my "fixed wireless broadband." To do this I've used www.pingtest.net, can you do the same?



So, let's assume we're both playing on an Irish hosted server who's located an equal distance from both of us.

Until I see your ping test, I can only compare our ping times. We have a difference of 100ms. That means I have a 100ms advantage on every action I take against you. That's 10th of a second. The average human reaction time is 215ms, let's assume we're both normal (although it's highly likely that due to being gamers we've trained our muscle memory to be far more responsive than Joe average). In any in-game situation, I'll react at around 245ms and you'll react at 345ms.

I'm no mathematician but the difference looks about 30% of an increase in reaction time for you. I don't know about you but I think me having a 30% of an advantage over your reactions times puts me at a distinct advantage in every confrontation.

As a gamer, some would say "hardcore gamer", I certainly wouldn't be happy with that disadvantage, I'd be interested to hear your views on the subject.

Now all we need is your packet loss data and jitter figures to access the rest of your connection. Then we can have a true comparison.

beardo81

TheMooseInNam wrote: »

Hi breado,

"fixed line Nazi's!" I love that, you made me laugh while drinking my morning coffee... my keyboard and screen are now covered in coffee! Thanks buddy!

In an effort to resolve this thread once and for all and actually get some solid info on the subject, I'm going to perform an analysis of both of our connections so everyone can see the exact difference between mobile broadband and a half decent alternative. I've a fixed wireless broadband from permaNET. I've the same upload and download speeds as you but to be honest, upload and download speeds are pretty much irrelevant when it comes to online gaming. If you connect to a server you require no more that 0.1Mb/s both up and down, if you plan on hosting a server then you'll require more, obviously.

The most important details about your connection when gaming are your packet loss, ping (latency) and jitter.

Packet loss is fairly self explanatory, how many packets of information get lost in transit on the inbound and out bound journeys.

Ping is how long it takes for your information to hit the selected server and return. Make sure you're pinging the same location as the game server you're connecting to. So, if you plan on playing on a server hosted in the UK, ping a UK site for your ping, like-wise for the US.

Jitter is how solid the connection is. You'll want a very low jitter, otherwise you'll have intermittent or inconsistent quality of a connection.

So, taking all that into consideration, lets compare your "mobile broadband" with my "fixed wireless broadband." To do this I've used www.pingtest.net, can you do the same?



So, let's assume we're both playing on an Irish hosted server who's located an equal distance from both of us.

Until I see your ping test, I can only compare our ping times. We have a difference of 100ms. That means I have a 100ms advantage on every action I take against you. That's 10th of a second. The average human reaction time is 215ms, let's assume we're both normal (although it's highly likely that due to being gamers we've trained our muscle memory to be far more responsive than Joe average). In any in-game situation, I'll react at around 245ms and you'll react at 345ms.

I'm no mathematician but the difference looks about 30% of an increase in reaction time for you. I don't know about you but I think me having a 30% of an advantage over your reactions times puts me at a distinct advantage in every confrontation.

As a gamer, some would say "hardcore gamer", I certainly wouldn't be happy with that disadvantage, I'd be interested to hear your views on the subject.

Now all we need is your packet loss data and jitter figures to access the rest of your connection. Then we can have a true comparison.

Haha the fixed-line nazi comment was tongue-in cheek, hope your keyboard dried off ok!!

Here's my ping-test;



Now it's not as good as yours obviously, but considering the probable price differences I think thats pretty respectful. Now I know I may be lucky with regards location, chances are I am, but I think it's a very respectful alterative for people who don't want a long eircom contract, the bloody bills and the wife running up a big phone bill too!! (or maybe that's just mine )

I enjoy my gaming, not hardcore I guess and don't know if I can blame my FPS skills (or lack of) on 100ms difference in ping times.

All I can do is tell the OP to try before you buy, most providers will give 7 days grace or so to hand it back, I know quite a few people with fixed-line and they dont have as good a connection as me.

TheMooseInNam

Wow, I'm stunned that it's actually that good. I assume it varies at peak times though. I have a feeling that you are the exception to the rule, ya lucky git

Now make sure to tell everyone else in your area that it's terrible and hope nobody else joins your cell

Where should I send the the invoice for the new keyboard?

beardo81

I know I probably am one of the exceptions, had 3 dongle before that and performance was pretty bad, it really is all area dependant. But sometimes it's a viable and cost effective alternative. Need to think of a new excuse why I'm crap at online MP games now though!!

siblers

I had eircom before but for 40 euros a week it was hardly worth all that money, am with three for 26 a month and get much fater DL speeds, ping is higher though but for the most part it plays the same as when I had eircom. If I was seriously into online gaming I'd go back to Eircom but Three seems to work quite fine.

DoctorStrange

Best to get the 7 day trial but any of them can be hit and miss. I've tried O2, meteor and 3. Found 3 the 'best'.




This is my record:

Test Date: Jun 29, 2010 15:07
Connection Type: WiFi
Server: Dublin
Download: 2.04 Mbps
Upload: 0.14 Mbps
Ping: 3026 ms

-=al=-

i find 3 fine for online gaming, but my meteor dongle with the laptop tethered to the xbox was the best... but in saying that 3 works perfectly fine for it... its all a bunch of variables but it works fine alrite, it's not ideal, but sure it works.

evolutionqy7

DoctorStrange wrote: »

Best to get the 7 day trial but any of them can be hit and miss. I've tried O2, meteor and 3. Found 3 the 'best'.

Thats pointless. Just take it out on contract and you wont have to pay the high deposit fee. You will have 14 days to return it. So if it works grand you keep it. If not just return it.

hobbit stomper

I wouldn't even use Local WiFI on my Xbox. Lan cable all the way!
You'd be surprised how much of a difference it can make.

-=al=-

hobbit stomper wrote: »

I wouldn't even use Local WiFI on my Xbox. Lan cable all the way!
You'd be surprised how much of a difference it can make.

this is true

i considered getting those homeplug cables to solve this issue

evolutionqy7

hobbit stomper wrote: »

I wouldn't even use Local WiFI on my Xbox. Lan cable all the way!
You'd be surprised how much of a difference it can make.

Not all of us can have that luxury :S

The best way is obviously through a lan cable. Min lag and speed consistency. Let hope the 100m deal with BT Ireland will bring some better solutions to three to reduce the Ping and to up the speed with 4G and LTE technology.