300K to 750K stupid question but will I see a difference?

Originally Posted by pop80_uk

Thanks for the replies everyone!
I sometimes download programs like AVG and windows updates, ive been told you can down load MP3 and movies from the net! But no one ever seems to know the URL of the site!
Im not sure if my basic surfing warrents and extra £84 a year, suppose I could cancel my sky protection plan and upgrade instead! hmmmm.

Thanks again,

I appreciate having 750k when it comes to major security updates and the like, gets it all over with quickly. As has already been said, the jump from 56k to 512k was a huge one, as you're taking out the dial-up as well as the general slowness of downloads. I maintain an online family photo album, so 128k upload is very useful for me - is the 300k service still stuck with 64k up? That'd kill me now, so slooooowww....

As for downloading ripped movies and CDs from the 'net - you obviously aren't trying hard enough, I've just installed a BitTorrent client and am in the middle of downloading a very recent Hollywood blockbuster. (NB research purposes only - I do not believe in this kind of theft-of-copyright and will be erasing the whole lot presently). Downloading the client, Googling for a 'torrent' file of the film I wanted and commencing the download took less than 10 minutes. It's all there if you really want it. And no, I'm not going to post any URLs.

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by Matth

300k and 750k both have the same UPSTREAM limit of 128k,

64k upstream on the 300k option

[cookie_365]

300 bps should be fine for surfing and occassional downloads.

I went for 600 (now 750 of course) because I was used to pretty fast net access at work, and figured 600 wouldn't be as good, but tolerable. In fact, 600 turned out to be much quicker than I was used to at work.

Indeed, right now I've got about 580 bps downloading leaving me with just 170 for surfing, and pages aren't exactly instant; taking a couple of seconds to appear, but speed's certainly tolerable.

As other posters have suggested, if you're not a heavy online games player, downloader, or uploader, 300 may well suit you.

You can always upgrade if it turns out not too.

Hope that helps.

[Stop It]

Originally Posted by Rone

Ive been gaming online over 4 yrs, you can spot an NTL gamer as he\she usually has the worst ping on most servers.
Ive stopped playing for a while, i,m waiting for ntl to decide to fix my connection, or if they want to, or maybe this is the best it gets.
But ive had one meg almost 2yrs and gamings not much fun anymore.
You can have a 10mbit connection, but if your pings bad, forget it.
In fact an NTL employee told me last week on the phone, i would be better off on 750, he said the ping would be probably be as bad, but i would save money.
Fair comment.

Complete rubbish, I am a NTL'er (1.5Meg ..finally :p) and I ping 15-30 on all the CS, UT2k4, Halo, and in fact any UK server I go on, As paulyoung666, its down to personal experience, and frankly, my NTL couldnt be any more perfect for me, 100% dl speed, all of the time, stable pings, very decent browsng speed, it's all good. Of course not everyone has such luck, but not everyone has it bad either, I have the oppertunity to change in december (BT BB enable my exchange) But I dont see the need any more.

Back on topic, 750K would feel a lot faster for you MR pop80_uk, especially for downloading, btw, if you are looking for downloads, (LEGALLY :P) look no further than Broadband Plus, either £3.99 (or £9.95 with napster, which incidentally is the same price as napsters' sub price itself), and has many downloads of games, music, as well as music videos, educational stuff, and more (No I am not an NTL salesman, But I do like a decent deal hehehe), however, it only works on 600/750k or above.

I would say, that if you are want to use the internet to download, and to get some music, or games from the web, then 750K is for you, If you only browse, then 300K is well enough, tbh £7 pm more is nothing though, couple of pints, or over 100% of your internet speed?

[Rone]

How would you know its complete rubbish? You actually played me on a server or seen my pings?
To make such a sweeping statements you should have some basic facts.
I,m telling you what my connection is like, and the peeps i know.
And then next you say its down to personal experience?
Well which is it?
The rest of what you say is probably an accurate view.

[Graham M]

It depends very much on the game you are playing, for instance, Counter Strike only takes about 2kb/s up and down stream simultaneously when you are playing, this is game specific, CS:Source based on a new game and server engine takes about 1 each way. Enemy Territory takes about 5up/down. As you can see the bandwidth requirement varies from game to game. It isn't that important and while playing games, the only real difference between 300-750-1.5 is that you get more leeway for Downloading while you are playing without too much lag (depending on the speed of the download of course) The real important think when playing games is the latency between your modem and the server, IE your ping, because of the intricacies of IP Routing, your Packets can make anything between 3 and 30 hops before they reach the server you are playing on, just look at a trace route to find out if even one of these hops is bad then it will cause your whole game to jerk and lag. If you are getting lag all the time a trace route is a good way to go to find out where the problem lies.


Hmmm Essay over for now.

[Stop It]

Originally Posted by Rone

How would you know its complete rubbish? You actually played me on a server or seen my pings?
To make such a sweeping statements you should have some basic facts.
I,m telling you what my connection is like, and the peeps i know.
And then next you say its down to personal experience?
Well which is it?
The rest of what you say is probably an accurate view.

You said...

Originally Posted by Rone

Ive been gaming online over 4 yrs, you can spot an NTL gamer as he\she usually has the worst ping on most servers.

Which is a sweeping statement, I refuted THAT, not your personal issues, I know many people on NTL (on irc mostly) and none have any worse pings than anyone else.

[Graham M]

It depends how NTL peers to the network on which the game server is hosted.

[Rone]

Fair enough now you have made it clearer.

But i,m talking about UT players i know personally,and people i have met.
For instance Choppa whos a member here will vouch for what i,m saying. Even tho we are all in different clans, we know straight away whos on what connection.
I didnt want to give up 4yrs of online play just for fun, that i can assure you.

[andrew_wallasey]

Originally Posted by Rone

"online gaming is improved"

I doubt that.
I did better on 512adsl than i ever could on 1.5 cable [at no extra cost bar the money].
But if you live in an area with a good connection things should move faster.

Sorry mate but your talking absolutely CRAP! Speed has nothing to do with online gaming it is to do with the latency/delay between you and the server. NTLââ‚Âà ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢s network has a much less delay than BT with almost 1/2 the latency.



I had ADSL with about 5 different providers and used probably one of the fastest networks in the UK for ADSL (Mistral.co.uk) with a 2mbps line and the best I got was about 30ms. With NTL cable I get a latency of around 10-15ms.

[andrew_wallasey]

Originally Posted by Rone

Ive been gaming online over 4 yrs, you can spot an NTL gamer as he\she usually has the worst ping on most servers.
Ive stopped playing for a while, i,m waiting for ntl to decide to fix my connection, or if they want to, or maybe this is the best it gets.
But ive had one meg almost 2yrs and gamings not much fun anymore.
You can have a 10mbit connection, but if your pings bad, forget it.
In fact an NTL employee told me last week on the phone, i would be better off on 750, he said the ping would be probably be as bad, but i would save money.
Fair comment.

Every post I have read by you so far has been absolutely rubbish. I suggest using your brain before you make any more posts.

[andrew_wallasey]

Originally Posted by Rone

How would you know its complete rubbish? You actually played me on a server or seen my pings?
To make such a sweeping statements you should have some basic facts.
I,m telling you what my connection is like, and the peeps i know.
And then next you say its down to personal experience?
Well which is it?
The rest of what you say is probably an accurate view.

Well I must say I have used both Ex C&W platform and Bromley platform and both delivered a solid 15(ish)ms...

Pinging clarity.jolt.co.uk [195.149.21.11] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 195.149.21.11: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=53
Reply from 195.149.21.11: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=53
Reply from 195.149.21.11: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=53
Reply from 195.149.21.11: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=53
Ping statistics for 195.149.21.11:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 16ms, Maximum = 19ms, Average = 17ms

I am using ex C&W in Wallasey / Merseyside (CH45)

People, I'm struggling to see the need for a discussion about ping times to get so heated. Could you all calm down a little please.

[pop80_uk]

Sorry didnt mean to cause a fight, I dont know what a ping is. So not to worry with that.
I thank everyone who has answered my question, I think I will be upgrading soon to the faster speed!
Thnaks

[Nutty]

I've been gaming years on my ntl 600k (now 750k) connex, and had no problems with pings. I often have the lowest on CS servers.. When broadband 1st appeared in our area, I used to get as low as 10ms pings, but it averages around 20 to 30 now.

I'm using STB also.
Nothing wrong with ntl connections for gaming, provided the cabling in your area is ok.