Cable or DSL for on-line gaming ?

M

Mindoculus

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 2, 2003
Messages
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looking to to play a couple of first person shooters. dsl is less expensive than
cable here although the FIOS option for dsl makes it a financial toss-up.

i'm looking to save some money and i'm wondering if there would be any perceivable dfference in performance for on-line shooters between dsl and cable service ? i live in nyc and among my options are verizon, time warner (roadruner), and a couple others. thank you.
 
I had verizon DSL before I moved for several years. I noticed very little if any lag that was not due more to my aging comp at the time. I now have cable, though FIOS is coming soon to my neighborhood as they are wiring it up and putting the repeater box thingies on the poles. They have to put some battery pack thing on your house that needs to be changed every few years from what I understand (my friend works for Verizon...the stories he tells will make you wet your pants). I lived far from the CO too, with my DSL, so I got kinda crappy speeds, but it was fine for gaming if that's your main goal. Downloads were a bitch though, and cable has been a joy in that regard...though I notice bandwidth issues during some peak times when I'm playing SWG occasionally. Never experienced that with DSL. I am assuming its because cable is a shared connection. Gets annoying sometimes.
 
I've had both over the years and I have never noticed a difference playing games like Q3 or BF2. I currently have DSL because of the promo they were offering, but I wouldn't hesitate to go back to cable if it were cheaper.
 
thanks for the replies.

but if there was no difference between the two in terms of gaming, why the preference for cable ?

speedwise, for other taskes, i'm not too particular. dsl is respectable and adequate for most if not all private residential needs. video and audio streaming between the two is a toss-up.
 
The preference is for cable is speed. With DSL, the further you are from the central office, the slower your speeds are going to be since they cannot put repeaters on the poles to pass the DSL signal (forgot the technical reason why, the DSL signal somehow does not pass through the devices, though I have to figure there's something goofey with that). For gaming, DSL will be fine, but I also build/repair a lot of comps from my house and Cable will save me boat loads of time doing a clean install of windows and patching it up. That's the only preference....and of cours retarded large patch files for MMO's, SWG being the one I am playing at the moment.
 
I too have had both and just recently switched to Cable. I will most likely never go back to DSL. Cable is about 4 times faster for me and about $15 cheaper. I havent tried it out yet on games online but I can download files at about 400Kb a sec.
 
For me it depends on the modem/router the DSL provider gives. Most of the time they give a modem/router in one. Some of the routers are really gay and can't be configured by the end user. Some just suck balls and are a pain to work with, while others are pretty decent.

Cable providers never[1] give anything but a regular modem. That's why I'll never get DSL if I can help it.

Then there's also the limitation on DSL where the further away from the ISP you are the slower the connection. That is pretty lame. However, if you have cable and you have a few major bandwidth hogs (like me :D) on your node, that can decrease your speed too.


[1] Never = I haven't seen one in over 2 years of internet support for clients located all over the country.
 
I have had both, and have had no problems with either.

I have cable now and it is faster, however I will switch once my term is up to get a better deal on DSL.

Anything over 1MB down is fine for me. (Although I have 4 now).
 
I got dsl and it sucks hardcore. We are so far away from that damn box i dl at like 40kb a second. When we lived on the other side of town it was awesome cause the box was right downt he road and we dled at like 200kb/s. It all depends were you live.
 
I have had both, and have 4M adelphia right now. As long as DLS speeds arent to bad , the main thing is ping time or latency from your ISP. I can honestly say I have more latency now than when I had Verizon DSL. My pings are usually in the 80's right now. With DSL my ping was always at 40-50,never more. Bad part is your not oing to know how bad your ping is until you buy, unless you have a neighbor who has an ISP your going to get,then you can maybe check it out first.
 
hands down cable, might be more pricier than dsl, but its better in the long run, you will get lowest ping, or should at least, i had dslextreme, my ping was 100 in any game, 2 years later i switched to cable, now my ping is 30, pretty sweet :p ...
 
Cable would be my choice. Howver if FIOS is ready in your neighborhood, get that as it is better and same costs as cable.
 
comcast cable right here, except it's kinda expensive but i also have digital cable, which is a good offer as it will save you money.

cable = greatness

example, for pinging.

friend lives 2 blocks away from me, yahoo dsl

we go to same server, a uk server for bfv

my ping = 80ish
his ping = 150ish
 
In my area (Oregon coast) both cable and DSL are terrible. For example the cable provider here Millennium Digital Media will not troubleshoot their issues, for the last 3 weeks I have regularly lost my connection every 5-15 minutes, have had to call multiple times, had a tech out, recieved a new modem and if anything the issue has gotten worse. Latency is usually sub 50ms to the destination hop though so when it works it's great. My younger brother had Verizon DSL and his latency was 60ms to the second hop and would lose his connection every time someone tried to call in. So I guess area has all to do with quality as well. I'm moving to the bay area within a few months so hopefully I will never have to deal with these small town providers ever again.

BTW I pay 59.99 a month for this cable service and it's only 1.5/256. Last time I was in the bay area the dsl I was using was up to 4mbs download and only cost 15.99 a month, pings were extremely nice as well. I find it funny how well organized an ISP can be in a massive city like SF while in a small town where it's just a single string of cable running between a few widespread homes they have all these problems. So if you're ever in the Pacific NorthWest avoid Millennium Digital Media at all costs
 
Its easier to get free bandwidth upgrades on cable, to.



DSL, you have to wait for them to put fiber optic in...if they ever do.


Cable, Once your ISP feels the need to be more competitive, can just send a new config file to the modem and speeds are increased.


Roadrunner, in the span of about a year, increased my speeds from 3mbit, to 5mbit, for no additional charge. And I believe they are going to do another service upgrade in the next year.
 
Komataguri said:
Its easier to get free bandwidth upgrades on cable, to.



DSL, you have to wait for them to put fiber optic in...if they ever do.


Cable, Once your ISP feels the need to be more competitive, can just send a new config file to the modem and speeds are increased.


Roadrunner, in the span of about a year, increased my speeds from 3mbit, to 5mbit, for no additional charge. And I believe they are going to do another service upgrade in the next year.
Click to expand...

Yup, I agree here, shared connections haven't been a problem for me since roadrunner and the other cable providers started shutting off the zombies once they are detected. I just recently moved and turned on my cable service and am getting 650kb/s download speeds compared to 350kb/s before I moved. At my g/f house, she has dsl, and I can't stand doing anything at 60kb/s anymore.
 
Cox Communications here, with Digital Cable and High Speed internet. The internets a 5Mb down/don't know what up, for $35/month. From most big websites, my DL speed is usually 750k/s +. It's pretty damn nice.
 
I would say DSL unless you live in a rural area. Cable can provide more bandwidth now, but it's really a moot point as it will slow to a crawl once a lot of subscribers get on the same local node (and that will happen sooner or later in a populated area). DSL is much more secure as well.
 
I found that when we have lans at a friend who has dsl, say like 4 people, it is quite slow for bf2 and downloading/transfering. When ihave them at my house (comcast) cable internet, i never have a problem.
 
I hate my dsl! Roadrunner is charging $10 a mb and are letting home users get upto 8mb here. But 8mb should be the default pretty soon. I pay $25 a month, well I dont pay the bill and get 60kb/s download and 15kb/s upload but if im uploading at say 15kb/s I can only download at 30kb/s or if im uploading at 5kb/s I can only download at 40kb/s. O well im not the one paying. :D And my pings are never below 90. Anywhere at anytime.
 
This infamous question.

Anyhow, Cable can be good, DSL can be good.

I have DSL. 7mb down, 1mb up. I generally can download files at 500-640Kbps. Ping times are pretty low. Within the LA/OC area 32ms seems to be the norm. Only cable available to me is Adapehia and after some negative run ins with them in the past I promised never to give them another penny of mine.

I have a simiar DSL line at work through the same ISP but the phone company is Verizon instead of SBC like at home. SBC seems to be much cheaper. I pay 51.50 at home, and the same line is 94.50 at work.

Personally I want to move withen a few blocks of my ISP. They offer a direct LAN connection for pretty cheap. 100mb up and down. Setup fee is a little steep, but they provide you a free Cisco router (forgot the model now).
 
S0m30n3 said:
I pay $25 a month, well I dont pay the bill and get 60kb/s download and 15kb/s upload but if im uploading at say 15kb/s I can only download at 30kb/s or if im uploading at 5kb/s I can only download at 40kb/s. O well im not the one paying. :D And my pings are never below 90. Anywhere at anytime.
Click to expand...

You should call your provider and 1) bitch about the speeds 2) ascertain the distance from your home to the closest routing office. People get triple those speeds on 1.5MB DSL plans. Either you're quite a distance from the telco, or your DSL provider is lousy.
 
For downloading stuff cable is faster but as for pings, I have noticed little if any difference. I don't really need to download stuff at 300k a sec so for me dsl is the better option. I get about 150k a sec download and 25k a sec upload.
 
I have Charter cable. I have 3mb down/ 256kbit up. I'm sick of it because everyone else is upping the speeds. I hope Verizon FIOS or even SBC fiber comes to St. Louis by early 2006 or so.
 
Voidz said:
Yup, I agree here, shared connections haven't been a problem for me since roadrunner and the other cable providers started shutting off the zombies once they are detected. I just recently moved and turned on my cable service and am getting 650kb/s download speeds compared to 350kb/s before I moved. At my g/f house, she has dsl, and I can't stand doing anything at 60kb/s anymore.
Click to expand...

Forgive my lack of knowledge, but what's a zombie? I hope those aren't the ones setting their PC's to automatically download stuff 24hrs a day.
 
I think It really depends. In my area, Adelphia HSI has really gone down hill. I am with verizon and love it. Speeds may be some what slower, but latceys, DSL is gonna be better. I get 8MS on my first hop :D

I only pay 29$ for my DSL 3/768 and my cable was 5/384 and that was 49$. With cable you will not get mas speeds if the area is over sold.
 
Nobody get sprint dsl. I just asked why I dont get free upgrades and they said its because I dont have enough phone features. Then I asked why the people with more money to afford that crap get benefits and not me and they said they cant answer that question there sorry and then switched who I was talking to without even telling me.
 
I have DSL at home and have been using cable at my apartment for the summer.

Cable has a higher maximum speed, but you'll rarely hit that speed. If your neighborhood also has cable, they'll just slow you down, especially if they're a bunch of jackasses running BT downloads all the time.

DSL isn't as fast. (My cable is 3Mbit, DSL is 1.5Mbit.) However, that speed is pretty much constant. If you're close to the CO, you're golden, and if you have a phone line, you can get a decent package deal if you have stuff like caller id.

Just go with whatever's cheaper, as long as it's fast enough. The only reason you'd need anything like an 8Mbit connection is if you're always downloading movies and stuff, and we all know you shouldn't do that, right? ;) (Although I do love my 10Mbit University connection... only costs me $20k a year, and I get a free degree with it after 4 years. That's a nice package deal. :p )
 
Here is what you need to do: Find out how far you are away from the DSLAM. Call the DSL provider you are looking for, and have them run a line test, they will tell you the quality of the line and how far away you are. Some companies use something that can make their service reach farther, bu it also increases the latency. If you are more than 12,000 feet away from the DSLAM, go with Cable, if not... DSL is great.

DSL is'nt exactly 1.5mb , Where i live you can go up to 5mb for the same price as 1.5, depending on your line quality. All you have to do is call them and ask them for it.
 
It depends on your exact area.

My DSL is 3MB down, 512KB up for $25 a month, and I'm close enough I get about 90% of that in actual performance. I could get cable thats 6MB down and 384KB up for $15 more a month, but really I'm generally capped by the server I'm downloading from as is, and I don't do a ton of simultaneous downloading, and there are times I actually make use of the extra upload. I could also get half speed DSL for $10 off and game just as well but I like the extra headroom and do use it at times.

And really I have found more reliable performance from DSL, though I'd go with the cable if all they offered here was the 1.5/256.
 
Sly said:
Forgive my lack of knowledge, but what's a zombie? I hope those aren't the ones setting their PC's to automatically download stuff 24hrs a day.
Click to expand...


Its when an asshole hijacks your PC for his own use, Such as illegal downloading, or DDoS attacks.
 
it all depends where ya live. one is not better than the other. school is out!
 
zoobaby said:
Cable would be my choice. Howver if FIOS is ready in your neighborhood, get that as it is better and same costs as cable.
Click to expand...

get FIOS if its offered in your area. I had cable, then switched to FIOS(15Mbps/2Mbps) when it was available. sooooo much faster, my ping when Im gaming is in single digits :D.
 
I have cable and I regularly ping 5 or 6 in cs:source. Most other games everage 20-30.
 
Comcast here is fine(4mb down 300kbps+ up)... I hope I can buy or upgrade my upload speed for gaming but I think comcast doesnt offer ne....
 
Cable for sure in my area. Cox provides 512/4000 service for 49 a month. DSL can't even come close....

To a clean site I typically see anywhere from 450kb/sec to 600kb/sec download speeds...very useful when working on customer rigs, updating, etc.
 
They are both good.
DSL is slower than cable but you will always have a constant speed. For cable, the more people that subscibe to it in your area, the slower your cable will be- that is when they are on using it the same time you are.
 
Komataguri said:
Its when an asshole hijacks your PC for his own use, Such as illegal downloading, or DDoS attacks.
Click to expand...

*blink* *blink*

...

*grin*

Gonna have to look this one up :D
 
For my city, Cable rules supreme. While it does slow down a tad when everyone comes home from work, speeds are so crazy it doesn't matter. My 10MBps service at US$12.5 regularly downloads at 1.2MB per second (that's megabytes), and anywhere from 0.7 - 1.0MBps during peak.

And then my ISP goes a step further, and released a 1Gbps service for a ridiculous US$215 per month. I'll probably just get the 100Mbps service for $34 :rolleyes:.
 
I have found that that I get better ping times with my 2mb DSL than a friend's 5mb Cable connection. Proabably 35 vs 50 or something like that. But needless to say, he destroys me in download speeds :p More like 600kps vs 200kps.
 
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