[lug] OT: Wake On Lan

[D. Stimits]

Mr Viggy wrote:
> Actually, depending on the game, speed is not an issue.  Latency is!

Definitely, I am a bit of a picky person when it comes to networking; 
I'm the guy that can't stand wireless for this reason (add to it 
security). But I made a rather big discovery: Latency on cable is far 
better than 56k. This should not be quite so true, because cable uses 
the equivalent of "multiple parallel roads" in places, rather than 
"faster speed limit" on a "single road". For latency to improve, one 
would believe that individual paths along the route must be faster, and 
that putting parallel/latent paths together would not help. It appears 
that buffers for these cable routes are bigger, and that if one of them 
is slow, the other gets through...so latency looks like it can be the 
same on both, but the variation on cable is far more solid. [the above 
is mostly guessing, I know it does not hold any authority]

> 
> :-)
> 
> Games like Unreal Tournament, Quake, etc., send very little information 
> over the conenction.  However, you want that information to get there 
> and back as fast as possible.  Otherwise, other players in the game 
> appear to "jump" around the screen.

You should see how bad FreeSpace 2 is. FreeSpace 2 is a vast improvement 
in networking over the original FreeSpace, but a 56k is unplayable even 
on the improved part (now if it would just stop crashing on Win2k the 
cable would be useful for FreeSpace 2).

> 
> The problem with analog modems (56k) is that there is about a 100ms 
> latency just to get through all the hardware!  So, when I was on a 
> modem, 180-190ms pings were the best I could get.  Now, on DSL, I get 
> pings at 100ms or less.  OTOH, Sprint BBD (wireless) has speedy transfer 
> rates, but really bad latency.  A friend told me he can't play at all 
> from home.   When he does want to play from home, he uses his old 56k 
> modem and dial's in!

56k is actually a hybrid of digital/analog. The ISP end has the 
equivalent of ISDN digital connect for feeding downloaded data to the 
user, but not for user uploading (this is why download is faster than 
upload on a 56k). But I can say that when connecting and pinging the 
remote side of the 56k connect, I got quite good ping times, far less 
than the 180-200 ms to other locations. Much of the latency seems to be 
added under heavier load, I suspect that less buffer space (relative to 
faster types of communications) is a small part of the problem. With a 
56k, the slightest "bunching" of data in a burst can kill latency 
quality in a hurry. Bursts of larger amounts of data do not seem to 
bother cable latency. Wireless (and especially encrypted wireless) has 
the most horrific reputation for game play latency.

D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi.com

> 
> Viggy
> 
> D. Stimits wrote:
> 
>> John Dollison wrote:
>>
>>> It used to be 3+ MBit downloads, until AT&T sphinctered it down to 
>>> 1.5 MBit
>>> so they could sell us our own surplus for an ADDITIONAL $40/month!  
>>> (This
>>> change took place a few months ago, I've already spoken to 2 ATT 
>>> engineers
>>> about it.)
>>
>>
>>
>> It is still an outstanding deal. Part of the change is an improvement 
>> that most people won't notice: In various locations with new cable 
>> service, upload is no longer 256k, but 512k. My understanding is that 
>> upload speeds will go from 256k to 512k in other locations (slowly, 
>> over time, perhaps over years). The upload speed is very nice for 
>> people who play games over the network (still, a 56k modem uploads at 
>> half the speed it downloads, so on a connect that gets 50k download, 
>> compare 25k upload to 512k upload...it is astounding, even at worst 
>> performance moments).
>>  :)
>>
>> D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi.com