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Kaos Theory

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 9, 2008
55
0
I've been playing COD2 online via my AirPort card on my iMac, and many people have been commenting on how I look laggy. Someone on the server recommended an ethernet cable for me. Would this speed up my internet connection? I have a 2.5 MB p/s download time, and a 468 KB p/s upload time, so I'm not exactly running ultra high-speeds here. Sorry if I appear ignorant about ethernet; 'cause I am. Thanks for the help!
 
I doubt it would help because your connection is not very fast so your wireless network probably has enough through output to fully support your connection, although it could be the latency of wireless, so it doesn't hurt to try using Ethernet to see if it gets any better. My bet is that it's your internet connection which is a bit slow though.
 
I've been playing COD2 online via my AirPort card on my iMac, and many people have been commenting on how I look laggy. Someone on the server recommended an ethernet cable for me. Would this speed up my internet connection? I have a 2.5 MB p/s download time, and a 468 KB p/s upload time, so I'm not exactly running ultra high-speeds here. Sorry if I appear ignorant about ethernet; 'cause I am. Thanks for the help!

it won't be speeding up your internet speeds at all, that's for sure. your airport cards transfers at either 54 Mb /s or more, depending on your router. An ethernet cable could be more reliable though, that's just the way it is. What's you router?
 
All that being said, some Airport cards just seem to perform better. I have an iMac I bought about 2 months after my brother bought one, and my Airport works way better than his. Long story short, ethernet is going to be more reliable either way.
 
Quick question, I'm getting a new MBP soon and since my room is 2 floors and across the house from my router will I still be able to play an FPS online well?

ChrisN
 
If you appear jumpy/laggy to the other players, you may need to enter the multiplayer options and adjust your internet connection setting. Doing this will optimise your games settings to work best with your connection.

The thing with wireless vs wired gaming is that wireless has a tendency to fluctuate pings and possibly spike. If you are a causal gamer you probably wouldn't give a rats anyway. The only advantage for wired is that it is consistent and not subject to interference.
 
First off let me go though and explain some thing that some of the earily posters mess up.

yes your wireless infomation and move total amount of data faster than your internet connection.

But remember that is total data. It does not account for time it takes for request for data to be taken care of which increase ping time.

In FPS or any real time game ping time is what matter not connection speed. Wireless connection speeds increase you ping time. The super laggy part has more to do with your connection to the server since wireless general only increases 10-15ms. But I will say that 10-15 ms effects the fine tuning more than anything else. Most of hte time the best connections are around 100ms or less.

So yeah it should help some.
 
Thanks for the Replies!

Wow, thanks for all the suggestions. Sorry moslayne, my upstairs neighbor is letting me use her wireless, so I don't really know what type of router it is. I shall be moving to Texas soon, where I will have a connection of about 5 MB/ ps, so I think I'll wait to get an ethernet cable until then. Again, thanks for all the help! :D

P. S. My PING is around 50-90 on a Dallas-based server, and I live in AK.
 
I have a 2.5 MB p/s download time, and a 468 KB p/s upload time, so I'm not exactly running ultra high-speeds here. Sorry if I appear ignorant about ethernet; 'cause I am. Thanks for the help!

what the bloody hell? Where do you people live?
Not ultra high?
The highest ive EVER got is 1.0Mb a sec, mostly download at 200-300Kbs, which is quick for me!
And upload is 60Kbs max.

Stupid England :mad:
 
what the bloody hell? Where do you people live?
Not ultra high?
The highest ive EVER got is 1.0Mb a sec, mostly download at 200-300Kbs, which is quick for me!
And upload is 60Kbs max.

Stupid England :mad:

Lol, sorry, I live in AK, as I mentioned in my post. People on the server I play on say they have 11 Mb/s internet, but 1 MB/s isn't THAT bad. ;)
 
My PING is around 50-90 on a Dallas-based server, and I live in AK.
That doesn't seem bad to me, but then I haven't played a modern FPS online (just WoW, where I got about 30-40ms, and there's no lag with that). The router might add a little bit, but not a ton.

People on the server I play on say they have 11 Mb/s internet, but 1 MB/s isn't THAT bad. ;)
bits or Bytes? 6-8Mb is typical for high speed in my area. 11Mb internet seems normal enough, but remember that 1 or 2.5MB would be a lot faster. 11MB would be shockingly fast (for U.S. internet anyway :rolleyes: )
 
Just to clarify, internet speeds are often quoted in terms of megabits rather than megabytes, probably because using megabits results in higher numbers (8 bits = 1 byte) which will sound better to consumers who don't know the difference. This is often confusing because the speeds that people actually see while they're using their connections are generally given in terms of megabytes.
 
Bits, not Bytes

Yeah, sorry, I was rather confused about this myself (hard to determine what size speeds are being reported in on the site I used). I am fairly confident, however, that my speeds are in BITS. I think that BYTES would be a little fast for my service provider, GCI. :apple:

P. S. I noticed that I have used Mb/s and MB/s interchangeably, and that is my bad. Sorry. Like I said, I don't really know much about this internet speed rubbish.
 
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