Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

Hi guys,im hoping there is someone here that is slightly more tech minded bout this stuff than me,i need a little help.

Im a hardcore gamer,and im looking always for the best connection to servers that i will be playing in,im currently on 10 meg from virgin,which i must say is good,but a freind of mines has recently got adsl2+ and is getting better ping times than me on my cable connection,

If i were to switch to say for instance be.broadband services and go for the 24 meg deal,and i stay as the crow flys .5km away from the exchange,
would i then be expecting my ping times to be better than my cable,and i know that the area i stay in is only a new build like 5 years old,so i would be hoping that the cabling would be all good quality in this area.

I would be willing to take less than the stated download i will be expecting from my xl broadband from virgin next month(20)meg,as long as my connection speed was increased,ie ping times were reduced,if i will be expecting better ping times how much of a difference should i c in comparison to cable.
If you can help me clear up this conflict in my head before it's to late ,please do,thanks.

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

As long as your line can have fast path enabled, then yes, ADSL2+ could possibly have better ping times.

Although in all honesty, why would you want to beat 15ms? I doubt it would make much of a difference. My ping:

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

thanks for the reply m8,but what im getting at is this,i play games on pc and consoles,mostly pc tbh these days,say im playing in a italian server with 60 ping,it's on the edge of being unplayable,well not quite,depends on how picky you are,but to play at 45 ping like my freind,where that 15 ping less to a distant server can make all the difference for you,thats what i want to have that faster speed for,when playing further afeild than a uk server,cause between 10-50 ping i dont really have much difference,it's only when i start to hit the 60+ i start to feel the difference and thats when having that little bit extra would be handy,(damm rifle games)

anyways do you think i should be expecting to get an decreace of my ping similar to this if all the major factors to getting the connection great are in place,is it just a rumour that adsl2+ can be that much faster,or is my m8 just playing with my head and he knows something i dont hehe.
thanks for your help im just gonna be gutted if i give up my broadband and get a crap result from my new isp.

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

Can anyone help me plz, Should i be expecting better ping times to servers in comparison to cable with a new adsl2+ connection if all the right elements are in place??????is adsl2+ faster if you live close to the exchange??and i mean faster ping not download ?? :dunce:

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

Cable should generally give better ping times due to the fibre-optic cabling. BUT, like Druchii says...ADSL can give better results.

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

And it does according to me...

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

Thanks for your responses guys,i was and am just very curious to c what sort of difference it could make for me,
im guessing most of the line to the exchange will be of good quality,and im in new build so heres hoping ,and i stay 0.5km away from the exchange so i guess if i want to find out whats better,im gonna have to get in adsl2+ and compare them.i know for downloading,my telewest xl pack when it gets activated will most likely be better for downloading than be.broadband for instance but for me giving up a litttle download for a better connection time(PING)is worth it.
What is the highest download yous have heard of with adsl2+,anyone able to get over 20 meg from the service??

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

Yeah, if you're .5km away you could quite possibly get 20+meg download from be. I'm sure those who've had experience with be will be able to help you out even more :)

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

Cheers sirpingalot,ive heard about this fast path thing halfing your ping or sumit like it, and having heard such good things about be. i thought it could be worth it for me since im a mad keen gamer,phoned up be. today to question line attenuation and overall line lenght,but they put me on to a guy in a indian call centre,who couldnt talk english very well,i wasnt being very well understood,guess i need to think long and hard about this one,can anyone tell me what this fast path acctually does technically,how much better does it make your connection speed.???

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

FastPath allows the DSLAM to pass the data received from you to the first hop router without performing any error correction. As a result, marginal lines could experience an increase in packet loss and decrease in sync stability (i.e. frequent sync loss). However, FastPath has lower ping times, especially to the first hop router.

Interleaving effectively reduces packetloss. This is usually implemented on noisy lines. It corrects errors in the data stream beforwe passing any data onto the gateway/router. This will generally increase ping times.

Don't get these two confused. You want FastPath for gaming :)

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

About the same from my ADSL (NOT ADSL2+) line which is on fastpath.

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

Umm, If i change my proxy server To A Low ping place like Yours, will that make my ping go down? Because my ping is 174 :/I SUCK ON MY GAME PLEASE HELP

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

I have found that "ping" times are not as much required nowadays as they were, say, 9 yrs ago when people were just getting onto cable connections from the dial up.
I've been playing PC games online for 12 years and to be honest the quality is much more important than a few miliseconds in connection speed. A lot depends on your area and contention ratio, even with cable and ADSL it can slow down to a crawl.
The best ping for me was on the old UK Online fastpath LLU, I could get 13ms to my favourite servers, some peeps were down to 9 but I don't see that nowadays.
A lot of developers have made a big effort to try and even the playing field in terms of trying to equal out uneven pinging players by having a complicated lag adjuster if you like, this makes having a low ping not such a great advantage.
At the moment I am on BT Infinity, the first 2 nights were amazingly good, it was like night and day difference to my Virgin 20 meg. Even that hasn't stayed consistently good and can be very poor at times.

TLDR
Don't bother too much about 5 ms quicker connection.

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

Moved from Sky to Virgin due to the lack of fastpath enablement with Sky, they only reduce interleave on with depth of 8 and was getting average of 35ms.

Virgin is 14ms and I host most games (Mw2 Xbox Live)

Re: Best ping times, ADSL2+ Vs Cable
 

Please stop talking about fibre optic when you talk about Virgin Media. The final path on Virgin Media is coaxial. I don't know where any fibre optic terminates, if it terminates locally at all. :erm:

FTTC terminates at a local cabinet and then over copper pair to the home.

I see no real difference, it's the internet itself that makes a difference, i.e. the link between you and other gamers/the gaming server.

In my experience, VM is a big consumer provider and they're not going to be great on their backhaul due to their scale. Be would be the best ADSL bet.