Network Ping Question (ISP etc) FPS Games

[GoggleZ]

Hello Guys,

I have recently heard that Sky are buying out BE Broadband and i'm thinking about changing ISP.

I have been very happy with BE and when playing Counter Strike:GO i'm receiving around 10-25 ping on UK Servers with only a 4MB/s ADSL BB Connection - which is excellent.

My question is, if I was to change ISP to BT Infinity (Fibre 50M/B) would my ping only ever be better or is there a chance that it may be higher?

As most of you probably know, high ping and loss of packets are the two factors in which Counter Strike performs badly.

 

[GoggleZ]

Thankyou for the fast responses guys - it certainly seems to be a case of "Suck it and See" however, have looked into this "Interleaving" feature which is apparently applied on all fibre connections (BT Inphinity)... see below a quote from BT:

Interleaving involves the use of powerful error-correction algorithms to improve broadband speed and stability on long or noisy phone lines. We use it as a matter of course on our broadband lines including BT Infinity lines where the connection between the street cabinet and your home is over copper cable.
While interleaving helps make your broadband faster and more stable, it can also increase the delay (latency) of your connection by up to 40ms (milliseconds). While most people wouldn't normally notice this, it can adversely affect some delay-sensitive applications such as certain online games.
Interleaving can't be switched off for BT Infinity (fibre-based broadband) lines. But you can ask for it to be switched off on ADSL broadband lines - although we don't recommend it.
If you want us to switch off interleaving on your ADSL broadband line, please contact us. It'll take up to five working days. If you then find the performance of your line gets worse, contact us again to get interleaving switched back on.

This makes me think that maybe BT's fibre is a bad idea for gaming so will think of any other ideas or services that I can switch to.

Really gutted about Sky buying BE.

 

[GoggleZ]

There is a difference between sub 10 msec pings and 30 ping. Depends on the game but it can be felt in quite a few games.

Sky LLU used to be fairly decent but if you look around online you'll see that it has gone downhill massively in the past 6 or so months. If I was still on Be I would be very worried about being moved to Sky and suffering from far worse CS and capacity problems.

Thankyou for the "Backup" FrenchTart, not even going to bother arguing as I know what i'm talking about unlike some! lol

My BT Line from my house to the Exchange is only a couple of years old so I would have thought that the line would be in a fairly reasonable condition to warrant the interleaving being turned off - probably a good idea for me to contact BT and see what they suggest but if im honest I appreciate this forum members opinions than that of BT's "Technical Support".

 

[GoggleZ]

OP - my ping improved when I went to BT Infinity, it was on 40-50 before and now I'm getting 15-25. I've had it now for just over 2 months and the ping has been the same since installation.

Also, I don't blame you for wanting to avoid Sky broadband. Yes, they're fine all the time you don't have a problem, but when you do it is a right pain getting it sorted. I try to steer friends and family away from using their broadband service personally.

Thankyou for your feedback, I have decided to bite the bullet and purchase Infinity2 - upon the line optimisation being completed, I will post my results here for all to see!

 

[GoggleZ]

I don't think you can.
A 20ms difference is 0.02 seconds, or 1 single frame delay at 60fps. Bearing in mind the game also compensates for lag it should be impossible to tell.
Maybe you're dropping packets?

Anything up to 100ms ping is absolutely fine for fps games unless you are playing competitively, I don't see why people are so worried about it when they hit over 50ms.

I currently have 0 packet loss and 0 fps choke on the game in question (CS:GO).

I play this competitively at a semi-high level, therefore I obviously want the best possible connection and gaming experiance (almost LAN-Like would be perfect lol).