Playing with mobile broadband (dongle)

[robbiminator]

Hi all,
Is this a workable option? I've got a dongle for the laptop with six gig monthly usage allowance at a speed of upto 7.2MB. Doable?

[kommodore]

7.2MB (probably mean 7.2Mbps) is fine, faster than DSL, and six gigs im guessing would be enough but I really have no idea how much information a game would send back and forth. Im glad most plans are unlimited in US, otherwise I'd be paying out the ass for the amount I download.

[Mannerheim]

speed doesn't matter since mobile connections usually have high latency values and more packet loss (bad for gaming)

[lance81]

The 6 gig allowance per month is more than enough.

[ECHpanzerACE]

are you kidding !! my bandwith limit is 55 gb on peak and vice versa for off peak and i still use up all of my bandwith !!! anyway back on topic, relics p2p system will let you play with an otherwise slow connection without too much lag so you should be fine. ive played with no lag when my internet was at 64kbps max download rate

[TsaosChicken]

Yes but I think upload speed would have more of an effect on the game lagging. Most ISPs are asynchronus, meaning the dl speed is usually faster than the upload speed. My connection is 20/5 MB/sec. If your d/l speed was 64 what was your upload? And if it was considerably slower then you would be causing lag (possibly). The only real way to know is to play and find out.

[bhmalek]

my connection is 256/128k, yes Kilo bit !
and guess what, I've managed to play 2v2 AT with a team mate using the same connection , and more than 90% of games there is no lag.
What I really like about COH, is when 2 people from the same lan, connect to an online game, COH correctly detect and use their lan connection in the game with a very low ping. (I'm not using the beta)

but, I get often connection errors when trying to join a game.

Otherwise, it's great

[delly]

I first played COH on dial-up without too much problems, unless the players were outside the EU. When you think about it, replays are usually less than a meg, so the data they send out must be tiny.

[Deionarra]

This should really have been asked in the CoH tech forum so I've moved it there.

[Dazz]

Gamers on average use 20GB a month i know this working for the UK's largest ISP and option 1 is a no go for gamers which has 10GB/Month I guess if you limit yourself to 1 2hr game ever 2-3 days it should be fine. However latency will be high in games do not substaute wireless as being better then a cable. You can expect latency to be around 200ms compaired to Fibera optics of 50ms. 3G is designed for mobility not gaming, remember that.

Just web sufing for about an hour uses 40MB. With a wireless network more data will be passed from the slave and the host in just keeping the 3G connection alive.

[SubZero]

Dedicated wireless routers are rarely 100% reliable and you will often, sometimes inexplicably, lose connection all of a sudden.

The mobile network is going to be worse than wireless since the distances, objects, atmospherics and weather will all alter the signal strength. Signal strength aside, packet loss will be very high unless you are close to the transmitter/receiver which means for regular 'Sync Error Detected' and intermittant lag.

By all means give it a go, and you may be pleasantly surprised, but definitely avoid peak time (try at night time).

With reference to transfer limit, you will need alot of spare data transfer cap here (and then some more!) due to idle time (waiting for games is still using up cap) as is the general functions of the PC/Laptop which generally occur without you knowing - virus updates, windows update, MSN refresh etc.

[robbiminator]

Thanks for all your input, guys. Looks like I'll just have to wait until I get into more permanent accommodation. I wasn't aware just how much of the download allowance prolonged gaming uses-dazz has saved me from signing up to too low a broadband package. Cheers!