Online gaming via 4g?

Ian13 · 10 Nov 2016 at 18:29

Hi folks,

I am currently using a shared adsl wi-fi router, have a very frustrating problem in that the game ping will spike to anywhere from 150 to 999 without warning, which I'm pretty sure is whenever anyone else in the flat starts to use it.

Broadband cable isn't available, but I've found a deal a company here (Barcelona) which offers 40GB of 4G generally at better than adsl speeds & possibly on a par with broadband. Cost is 30 euros a month, plus a one off 60 for the router, but it's all on a 14 day trial return it for your money back guarantee.

I'd plan to use the 4G just for games, & the normal adsl wi-fi for everyday browsing/downloading, so 40GB should be plenty - I think.

Does anyone use 4G for internet gaming, what's your experience of it?

Rozzy85 · 10 Nov 2016 at 20:00

Latency is okay for gaming with averages around 50ms but it will all depend on your personal circumstances (your distance from the cell tower and area congestion). Only way you're going to be sure is to test it out and see if you have any connection stability issues.

KIA · 11 Nov 2016 at 18:31

a66as · 11 Nov 2016 at 18:43

I do, games generally don't use a lot of data so you should be fine, but the downloads and youtube videos will eat your data up so you need an alternative sources to download game updates and etc

Battery! · 14 Nov 2016 at 18:20

I used 4g for about 6 months. I had great speedservice, around 100mb and no issues at all online.

blueacid · 17 Nov 2016 at 17:16

You could investigate getting a router with Quality of Service? I've got one running the Gargoyle custom firmware and you can write QOS rules for traffic based on all kinds of criteria.

You might like to prioritise packets of under 120 bytes in size; should be good for most gaming traffic but larger downloads (streaming etc) will probably be using 1400-1500 byte packets thus join the queue.

Usefully that'll also prioritise TCP ACK packets, so the net should feel snappier for everyone when large files are being uploaded.

Rroff · 17 Nov 2016 at 17:23

4G for gaming is very hit and miss - at home I've actually got it reasonably decent - solid 38ms latency with hardly any variation and hardly ever drops the connection - its kind of like playing via WIFI on ADSL but other places though not such a happy story one place it spikes to 150ms or so for around 5 seconds every 20-30 seconds and another place its rarely under 80-100ms with spikes to a second more more quite frequently and sometimes drops out entirely for 5 minutes at a time.