5mbps

Generally download bandwidth is not the limiting factor these days for a "broad band" type connection. Some broad band services though may have terrible upload speeds despite high download speeds, or latency (eg satelitte) despite high up/down speeds.

However if you plan on purchasing everything digitally, you may or may not find more download speed helpful in actually getting the game to your hard drive.
 
Way more than enough. I don't think there's really any online game that relies on bandwidth. They rely on ping, which is not a problem even with very slow connections (something like 1Mb/s I'm guessing will give you the same ping as 50 Mb/s assuming everything else equal)
 
1.5 mbps but 384 kbps upload is what we currently have for internet speed offered in a package by our phone/internet provider.
Currently in this part of Canada, we don't have cable, we just get our TV stations (2) through air waves. By the end of August Canada is going full digital, no more analog TV signal so were looking at pricing options for TV. One option is the heck with TV and just get netflix but I would need a decent speed package, next one offered is 5 mbps instead of 1.5.

Just would like to note, we buy our movies (dvd blueray discs), I don't bother with downloading/burning movies so that would not be a general issue.
 
Since you are in Canada, one thing to keep in mind is monthly bandwidth limits (total transfer) and not just the speed, especially if you plan on going full (or heavily) digital for entertainment.

But strictly from a multiplayer gaming perspective 384/1.5 is enough. The 5mb down however would help with getting actual digital content to your hard drive if you choose to make purchases that way.
 
5mbps!? I get a lowly 300 KB/s from my DSL, tops. I play a lot of TF2 on populated servers. My typical ping is between 30 and 50, maybe 60. I've yet to see any lag from my network as it's usually due to the limitations of my 4 year old laptop's hardware. You will be more than fine.
 
The raw speed means complete shit in terms of gaming. Its all about your ISP and how it routes your traffic and how far away the server you wanna play on is. Download speeds only matter for downloading large files in a quick manner but most games won't use more than say 10-30kbps. If you wanna host however both bandwidth and routing come into play.

For instance if your ISP offers a 512k download / 256k upload speed package the ping will be no different than buying the much , much faster 50mbps download / 10 mbps upload package. So think of it like that.
 
Have been mostly happy with Road Runner here, its still over priced crap compared to the stuff in Europe.

You should be fine, as long as its not a satellite connection, that's what my mom has, all she can get atm, my nephew tried to play L4D and was getting 900+ ms ping, it was rather laughable.

One thing to watch is if you have others using the internet while your gaming, someone YouTubeing, Netflixing, downloading something or even virus software and system updates on a slower connection can really fuck up your game for awhile. I have my router QOS (quality of service) setting set to give my main gaming rig (MAC Address) full priority so no one else can interfere with my bandwidth. Wife watching Netflix upstairs, no problem, won't affect a thing for my PC.

Like was already stated, with most "broadband", its the ping or latency that is more important for online gaming than the bits per second. Now downloading games from Steam and such is where a big fat pipe is really appreciated. At 384 Kbps, it will take about ten hours to DL a 5 GB game.

Best Case

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Say New Zealand 8450 Miles away...

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Also something to note , since bandwidth caps are now common place ..lower speed packages will almost always have lower bandwidth caps. Make sure you check with your ISP , you would be surprised how fast you can hit a low end cap. These caps tend to be quite low on DSL versus cable (say 150GB or less for DSL while 250GB is the average for most cable non-business).

Sadly most of the connections in the states have caps now and only by using a business level connection (which can cost quite a bit more) is the only way to bypass this.
 
Even on the other side of a wireless router, I got sub-20ms pings on a 512k connection.

I think you'll be fine.
 
My general rule for net these days is 1 mbps is "enough." I've never found anything that really prevents you from doing. Gaming is fine, web surfing can be a little pokey but it is fine, streaming video will buffer a bit and you aren't streaming HD but it works fine and so on. As long as you are at 1 mbps or more, you are good.

15-20 mbps is the cutoff I find past which it really stops mattering much. Up to that point, you'll notice some gains in things, websites will load a little faster, you can start streaming some quite hi-def video from places like Vudu, and it starts fast and so on. However you reach a breakpoint around there where you just don't notice more. Pages don't load any faster, video is already streaming instantly, there just isn't a gain. Only gain you notice is large downloads take less time.

So using those two markers, you can kinda figure out how a connection is going to do. 5 mbps is going to be ok. Large, flash heavy websites will be a bit pokey and you will find some HD video content that is off limits for streaming but you will in general find it to be a pretty acceptable connection.
 
Way more than enough. I don't think there's really any online game that relies on bandwidth. They rely on ping, which is not a problem even with very slow connections (something like 1Mb/s I'm guessing will give you the same ping as 50 Mb/s assuming everything else equal)

crysis version of the MWLL mod :p that game required a minimum connection of 5mbit down 2mbit up, was friggin nuts.

but yeah with pretty much all games the key thing is latency, actual bandwidth doesn't matter since most games use packet's to transfer data back and forth.
 
as the title says, is 5 mbps enough for general gaming?

Yep, I'm on 4 and it's fine. Ping is the important factor. Ping in Battlefield is normally - 25 - 50 and to local internet sites around 14ms
 
Yep, I'm on 4 and it's fine. Ping is the important factor. Ping in Battlefield is normally - 25 - 50 and to local internet sites around 14ms

Pretty much this. As far as gaming goes, you'd be surprised at how little data is sent. Maybe you might send a location vector, direction vector, and a few pieces of information as far as what you're actually doing. This easily falls into just a few kilobytes. On the recieving end, you might get a bit more information due to extra players, but you're still talking at most under 100kB, which a 1 Mbps connection can easily accomplish. It's when you get video streaming do you really need larger bandwidth considerations.
 
Bandwidth past 20-30KB sustained Download/Upload is fairly meaningless for games. So yes, 5MB is more than enough.

The only thing I recommend is that if you use your connection a lot (as in, you share it with others or like to leech/seed torrents 24/7) is to use a traffic shaping program like http://www.cfos.de/en/cfosspeed/cfosspeed.htm or have QoS enabled and set up properly with your router.
 
5mbps!? I get a lowly 300 KB/s from my DSL, tops. I play a lot of TF2 on populated servers. My typical ping is between 30 and 50, maybe 60. I've yet to see any lag from my network as it's usually due to the limitations of my 4 year old laptop's hardware. You will be more than fine.

Based on what you said you're around 2-3Mbps, divide the bits by 8 to get bytes. 300kB/s is good enough for playing games online today :)
 
I've played on everything from a 512kb connection, to a 30mb connection that im running now. Honestly, I can't tell the difference in game as long as my ping is good.

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as the title says, is 5 mbps enough for general gaming?

That is the capacity of the internet connection, not the speed. The speed is the ping time. The amount of data sent between game servers and clients is VERY small. The incentive to make this data as small as possible is extremely high, because each server needs to be able to deal with dozens or hundreds of clients.

A 128k connection would probably be enough for gaming, as long as the ping time is good. Satellite connections may have capacities over 1mpbs, but they are absolutely unacceptable for gaming with ping times around a full second due to the distance of the satellite from Earth.
 
you need about about 1Mbps up/down for heavy traffic game. Obviously you can play counter-strike on a 56K connection Ping for any decent game should be under 200 preferably 100
 
5mbps!? I get a lowly 300 KB/s from my DSL, tops. I play a lot of TF2 on populated servers. My typical ping is between 30 and 50, maybe 60. I've yet to see any lag from my network as it's usually due to the limitations of my 4 year old laptop's hardware. You will be more than fine.

I have the feeling you're mistaking bytes for bits.
 
Ping is key, not speed once you get above 376kbps data rate......

we have 12 in 2 out (MB) and not many times of lag especially when I replaced comcast dsn with google and ms
 
5mb/s is enough. I play on a 5mx640k connection. The wife can watch netflix downstairs on the TV while I play APB:R... works fine. AND I don't have to watch that Glee horseshit.
 
My ATT Uverse 7mb down feels/performs slow at times....

I had U-verse for over 3 years and I can tell you why. U-Verse requires the usage of "Interleaving" which allows more throughput but increases Ping times. By increasing Ping times you basically handicap your ability to respond online. However certain U-verse deployments offer fiber to the address instead of last 3,000 feet or so of copper. If you get U-verse via full fiber you'll have lower pings , if you get with the last 3,000 feet being copper you'll have increased latency (since most of U-verse is deployed this way I assume thats what you have). If your ping is consistent then it could be an issue with your 2WIRE gateway , you need to access it and check the advanced status page for uncorrected blocks , if the number is into the thousands you might have some noise on your line giving you inconsistent speeds/ping.

With Interleaving there is no way to "turn it off" so basically you either accept it or you get regular DSL or Cable. Its one of the many downsides with having U-Verse service.

The only reason I stuck with U-verse was that they had no data caps , once they announced them I left for good.
 
Omg, are you serious? I used to play Ultima Online on a 26K connection. Counter-Strike on a 56K connection. Back when ping under 200 was considered optimal. Be satisfied with whatever you have, just make sure your opponents are on the same boat. LOL.
 
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