Xbox Live Doubts

Stormfox1020

As ill be gettings broadband in the next weeks or so, Ive been looking into getting Xbox Live. Surfing around different forums ive heard of really bad lag issues, mainly due to Europes inferior Upload speeds compared to the US and that its getting to the point of not having a lag free game. I just wanted to get feedback on your experiences with Live and is it possible to find lag free games?

flogen

I only really play Halo and Crimson Skies at the moment but yes, lag free games are possible it just depends really.
I'd recommend that you play as early in the day as you can if you want to avoid lag as the Americans tend to flood the servers later on and you'll have trouble finding european players and so increasing the chance of lag. Besides that it's hit and miss, I have my BB hooked up to my pc and xb so I can use both at once, but try not to go nuts with downloading while I'm playing for obvious reasons.
You could go game after game without a hint of lag, and you could play 10 in a row that are impossible to enjoy. Sometimes the blame can be laid on the live service which can have its off days too

Sparky

Ive noticed no lag with halo 2 but when playing games like NFS underground 2 and motogp, the cars and bikes seem to leap all over the place.
Someone told me over the communicator to switch off voice and the speed is better

RapierX

I only play pes4 on xbox live myself but the lag is nearly always noticeable. You've a long wait if you want someone to join your game. You've a major advantage if playing 'at home'.

I was playing one whiney little kid a few days ago who enjoyed taunting on the mic (i dont have one nor want one), lag wasnt a big issue but when i scored 2 and then 3 then the abuse really started and the ball did a few disappearing acts and playing stuttering along.

If you use comms playing a pc game your ping does often spike for a few seconds, all depends on your connection really 13k/sec upload is fairly ****e.

flogen

RapierX wrote:

I only play pes4 on xbox live myself but the lag is nearly always noticeable. You've a long wait if you want someone to join your game. You've a major advantage if playing 'at home'.

I was playing one whiney little kid a few days ago who enjoyed taunting on the mic (i dont have one nor want one), lag wasnt a big issue but when i scored 2 and then 3 then the abuse really started and the ball did a few disappearing acts and playing stuttering along.

If you use comms playing a pc game your ping does often spike for a few seconds, all depends on your connection really 13k/sec upload is fairly ****e.

tbh my experience of pes4 online has been quite poor, which is why I rarely use it (that and my not-very-goodness ). It can be nearly impossible to organise an optimatch, it seems as though there are only a handful of other players online, so the chances of finding someone to match are slim.
I can't say I've seen big difference with or without the headset, I think its more to do with your connection and the other players than if you talk or not

Jammer

i generally only play against my friends online, and find it very playable. PGR2 is savage online, never had lag in it. PES4 is lag-free 98% of the time!

ShiverinEskimo

The comms makes a helluva difference, especially on a big team closeby with lots of chatter. think about 32kbps of speech being coded and fed down a wire, then time that by the number of members in your team - all that on top of the standard game messaging . For every ounce of bandwidth you use during speech, your taking it from gameplay. The more you talk the worse it is. DirectPlay should however use a different codec depending on upload bandwidth availability - anything from 1.2 to 32kbps but it all still matters.

omb0wyn5ehpij9

I have live. Ive got a few games for live but the only one i can really comment on its pro evo 4. Ever since they upgraded the pro evo online....making people lose automatically if they quit etc, they also sorted out a lot of lag and i find that it is very playable now. There is still a small bit of lag from time to time, but that is expected. I would recommend live!

Speaking of pro evo, think i'll go play it now!

evad_lhorg

i have noticed a bit of lag in halo 2 sometimes. like today i was playing and i was goin at a warthog in a ghost and i was blasting it and then it suddenly dissapeared only then to notice it had gone a fair bit away from me. i have also noticed myself being jumpy from time to time where i would be standing in one place and end up in another nearby place all of a sudden.


had one laggy match of pro ev 4 but quit because i really couldnt play like that. never had any lag on burnout 3 though

iregk

The live servers are coming offline for a week prior to xbox2 launch for a complete revamp anyway. Problem was there was a much larger take up of live than expected so now the servers are being overloaded.

Also the next evolution of live will contain regional areas...

evad_lhorg

i assume we keep the same accounts yea?

iregk

Oh yeah its basically just updating it. Increasing the size of the server farm to 3x its current capacity (thats what they are expecting from xbox2 due to the fact every game on xbox2 will have a live requirement) and put in some further updates for regional play, i.e. a european region, irish region etc... so all accounts will remain intact.

The original Xbox Live was designed to be the worlds largest games room, and it worked but the major flaw and complaint about it was the lack of a regional aspect but that is coming folks.

ThaMasta

If you play with your friends in Ireland or Europe, there will be feck all / none lag. As soon as Americans come into the picture there may be lag sometimes. Same as any online gaming really.

Ive had Live for 6 months now, and I'd recomend it.

If you dont wanna get Live, try Xbox Connect (www.xbconnect.com), which I use for Halo 2, this allows you to join European servers with good pings. Its FREE, but its mainly all Halo 2.

wolfman

http://www.xbconnect.com

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