Improving Your Grasp On Technology

Posted on: 26 January 2017

Does the idea of adventuring through a world full of other real players in an painstakingly deep gaming experience sound good to you? There are many different online games to experience, from World War II and modern conflict First Person Shooters (FPS) to fantasy and science fiction adventure games like World of Warcraft and Defiance, but you need a decent Internet connection to both enjoy and excel at these online worlds. If you don't know what Internet quality means aside from "needs to be fast," here are a few details to get you on the right track. 

What's Wrong With Fast? What Really Matters?

Many Internet advertisements promote fast Internet because it's what people need and what sounds the best. Consistency is very important, but it doesn't roll off the tongue as well for advertising purposes and is only an issue when a customer has reason to suspect quality issues.

Online games are one of the most reliable ways to test the real-time response and consistency levels of Internet aside from programs dedicated to Internet quality measurement. Everything you do on an online game from shooting a rifle at an enemy to running out of a dragon's fire is sent via small Internet packets, and a delay (lag) in these packets can ruin your experience. To understand the issue better, consider how most Internet traffic is handled.

When you visit a website, your computer sends a request for the website content—the images, words, embedded videos, or anything that the website is made of. The information is sent to your computer at a rate that is fair for the website's server or storage area of files, as well as fast enough for you to see the website quickly.

What you don't see is that these files can fail. Two people with the same Internet speed may have one that loads slowly because one connection may be losing packets more often. The files are actually being sent repeatedly if they fail, and instead of showing blank spaces forever or failing to show the website at all, the website seems to load slower as the missed files are resent.

Poor Internet Consistency Ruins Online Gaming

Online gamers can't deal with that delay. If you see an enemy in front of you, you have to shoot and be on time. There is some built-in delay time within a few milliseconds, but if your connection is slow by a few hundred milliseconds or entire seconds, your bullet won't fire until well after the image of an enemy is gone. What's worse is that your enemy can keep playing unaffected and can either shoot you while your character sits still due to delayed responses or just get out of the way.

With Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPG) like Rift, World of Warcraft, or Final Fantasy XIV, there are other ways to see the delay in action. These games are played by using abilities or spells. You press a button to strike a sword or cast an instant spell and there's a delay that shouldn't be there or you fire an arrow and your character simply stretches their bowstring for seconds at a time.

There are some spells and abilities that have a cast time as shown in the game's spell description, but instant spells are literally instant. Most players on a decent connection will show an attack as soon as the button is pressed.

If you've never seen that kind of speed or have been dealing with too many delays, contact an Internet service provider, such as Solarus, and describe your gaming for quality Internet offers.