Playing games on-line.

[Vaskez]

Originally posted by /)eathKiller: I play online games all the time and use Dial-up. The fact is to play games that dont have slow-down or possible loss in gameplay due to your having a slower connection. Phantasy Star Online is one such game, though its a console game, a PC version was released, and its absolutley wonderfull because though you may be 5 seconds behind someone you may still both kill the same monster and receive the same ammount of XP. everything worked out quite nicely with that. Other games i've had alot of luck with are Myth The fallen lords, Warcraft III. The only games that dont work well are FPS games and some RPGs with a high-refresh rate like Seiken Densusetsu 3 and Ice Wind Dale. Though Ice wind dale does work out to a certain extent. And NWN doesnt seem to have any slow down when it really has tons [img]tongue.gif[/img] So the choice is yours, I say go for it, as long as your not trying to play Unreal Tourney 2003. I alway shave to use cable to play that online. I also had sucess with the mech warrior series but you usually have a 5 second window in which you can be killed 20 times before you even get to see your oponent, same for Rainbow six and the whole tom clancey game series, just ignore all that and go with the RTS and RPGs [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Phantasy Star Online????!??!!? Is that like the Phantasy Star games for the Megadrive (Genesis) years ago? THese were the best RPGs for ages!! You're telling me there's a PC version! *note to self: calm down* phew! hehe.
Also you play Seiken Densetsu online? I thought that was the japanese name for Secret of Mana 2 for the SNES? What do you play it on?

[Vaskez]

Originally posted by homer: I do not much care for fist person shooters, so that is not a concern for me. I did not consider the turn-based games. It makes sense that there would not a problem with those. I guess I will give a few a try. I am currently playing Never Winter Nights, but I assume there will be the “lag” problem with that one. quote: And NWN doesnt seem to have any slow down when it really has tons

I do not understand what you are saying. Dose this refer to the “refresh rate” you mentioned? If you do not mind me asking, what is that exactly?

Incidentally, what dose the word “ping” stand for? Please excuse my ignorance I am sort of new to the Internet and it’s language. [/QUOTE]The refresh rate is the wrong terminology to use here: it means how fast your monitor redraws the screen. I think he probably means there's loads of lag but you don't notice it so the game is well coded to delay everything until the slower connections have caught up.

I don;t know what ping stands for but I can tell you what it means: it's the time in milliseconds for your computer to send a data packet to another computer and to get a reply. So for first person shooters you really need a ping of less than 80ms between you and the server for it to be seamless. High pings are not really a factor in turn-based games. I tried Baldur's Gate 2 when I was still on dial-up and that was a bit laggy but playable. Laggy in case you are wondering means that your computer is not in sync with the server or other computers, i.e. it's lagging behind because it cannot receive the data fast enough due to a slow connection.

[Horatio]

Yeah, Vaskez, same game, but play online to really appreciate it.

[Vaskez]

Originally posted by Horatio: Yeah, Vaskez, same game, but play online to really appreciate it.

Are you referring to Phantasy Star or Secret of Mana?

[Grungi]

counterstrike is eminently playable on a 56k modem, because there are lots of modem only servers, they kick people with low pings so your playing the same advantage, quake3 is also playable on a modem if the server is close, its playable up to a ping of about 250 and modems normally on country servers hit lower than that. So it is possible but will put you at a disadvantage on servers where other people have fast connections, plus will take longer to load etc, but if your into counterstrike then its worth a go.

[Horatio]

@ Vaskez: Phantasy Star. I've only got the Dreamcast version though, so I don't know how the PC version runs

[Lavindathar]

I only have 56k.

Half Life and Age of Empires ran fine without any lag. Counterstrike Struggle.

Also Plane sims online worked with no lag.



Give it a try.

Also, all Commander & Conquer series including the latest Red Alert worked fine.

[Sir Krustin]

Originally posted by Paladin2000: I agree with kakero. Online games are designed for fast cable/DSL connections. I have a slow DSL connection at home (about 300kbps) and I don't even dare to think about online games.

With a 300kb/sec connection, you shouldn't have a problem at all - in fact that is fast for ADSL up here. (Typically capped at 128kb/sec) Many people play FPS multiplayer with those connections.

[/)eathKiller]

Originally posted by Vaskez: Phantasy Star Online????!??!!? Is that like the Phantasy Star games for the Megadrive (Genesis) years ago? THese were the best RPGs for ages!! You're telling me there's a PC version! *note to self: calm down* phew! hehe. Also you play Seiken Densetsu online? I thought that was the japanese name for Secret of Mana 2 for the SNES? What do you play it on?[/QB]

1: Phantasy Star Online came out for the Sega Dreamcast in 1998, It came out for the PC in 2002, and out for the X box and Gamecube in the same year (2002) and has no plans to launch on the PS2...

I played PSO on the Dreamcast for a very long while and reached level 200 and collected every rare item that existed in the game. all-in-all it required me to play for 80,000 + hours. I am an expert on the series if you have any questions.

The PC version is Found Here
More Info and Info In English

The fighting system is turn based but feels like Zelda [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Happy hunting...

2: Seiken Densusetsu 3 is Secret of Mana 2, and I played it online Via the Znes emulator, which is kind of against Ironworks policy to talk about directly as it's an Emulator...

Hope that Helps!

[Kakero]

strange how everybody can play with 56k modem, I got a 56k modem too but couldn't play anything online.