Gaming on Mobile Broadband

[radderfire]

Can anyone tell me if you can have a good online gaming experience on mobile broadband?

Also, can anyone explain what aspects of the broadband connection are important for online gaming? I have heard of ping rate, would someone care to explain that.

Thanks.

 

[Mr.Stu]

Ping aka delay aka response-time all refer to the time taken for information to get from your PC, to the gaming server, back to your PC.

Depending on the game you will need a delay of 100-500ms (generally speaking) for acceptable game play. First person shooters tend to be more suceptable to poor delay than MMO's for example.

Typical delay on a mobile broadband (3g/umts/3.5g/hsdpa) connection can very between 100ms and ~seconds, it varies wildly depending on conditions.

FYI I played World of Warcraft successfully on a 3g modem for an extended period of time last year.

Other important stats include packet loss and jitter, but they tend to go hand in hand with delay when it comes to a bad or good connection.

 

[radderfire]

Thanks for your reply, that's very helpful

 

[spicypixel]

Yeah my tmobile 3g connection can get to sub 100ms ping on a good day, but the slightest cloud cover and down to 500ms or higher still. Its too variable for gaming tbh.