dsl vs cable

ouroboro · Post by **ouroboro** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 4:22 am

sorry if this is too far OT but this is a heavily trafficked forum of knowledgeable people, so...

can anyone who has experience with BOTH cable and DSL compare them in regards to gaming please (i.e is it true that dsl has better latency)?

danke.

gotenks · Post by **gotenks** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 5:22 am

i hate my dsl, the one i have i lag when i get a phone call (and again when i hang up)

i know we've had this discussion before, i think it was here... but anyway...
DSL has a bit smaller pipeline, BUT you don't share it with anyone
Cable has a larger pipeline, BUT you share it with everyone on your node
Cable speeds will be a little faster, but if you have a lot of network traffic you'll notice the difference, where as DSL is less (still effected but not as much) by the amount of trafic in your area.

ouroboro · Post by **ouroboro** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 5:53 am

hrm interesting about phone calls. i wonder how common that is. the reason i ask is that i'm considering going from cable to dsl since i'm not much of a warez pirate these days (kidding, i never was really) so i can accept a reduction of overall bandwidth/speed if it means better pings for gaming. that's mostly what i do on the pc nowadays, and cable pings tend to be all over the place, whereas all sources seem to suggest that latency/ping is much better with dsl.

i'm on 3000/256 cable now, but i could certainly live with, say half, or even 1/4 that speed if i can get steady sub-50 pings. as of now i normally play at about 80-120 and when i get to play a rare 50-ish game i really notice the difference (in other words i can hit stuff

). i see people with 25 or less and i want to kill them, both in game and out

dsl is also cheaper and i was thinking about taking the difference and renting an ET server if the price is right and if dsl turns out better than cable for gaming. anyway i've got a one month trial ordered so i can compare the two and see how it works out. i just wanted some info from others while i wait to see for myself

>>steven! · Post by **>>steven!** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 6:39 am

i have reported ping 30-40 (in game) and in command prompt always <20 with 1024/128 cable.

typical download speed is about 120kb/sec

ps. i cant say ive seen much better price for this connection (i know upload sux a bit but its alright for me)

Spoofeh · Post by **Spoofeh** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 6:40 am

gotenks wrote:DSL has a bit smaller pipeline

DSL comes in a lot of flavours, like VDSL (up to 26/26 Mbps*) and ADSL2 (up to 100/1 Mbps*).

--

Latency can also vary between ISPs because of different routing. As an example my ping to the Netherlands went from 60 to 35 when my ISP did some changes last week.

* = Highest speeds I've seen offered.

deej · Post by **deej** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 6:42 am

Pings are not dependant of the medium but of the number of hops and the performance of those hops (routers) that a packet has to travel to get to the server you want to play on.

It's the backbone of your provider and his peerings with other ISP's that will determine your ping.

ADSL is in fact a shared medium since once your traffic reaches the telephone central it all goes on the same network of your provider. Difference is that the number of people hooked up in your street won't make a difference, whereas with cable it does.

gotenks · Post by **gotenks** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 7:27 am

yes, the ping is all about the fastest path... but you'll get a better performance for the price out of cable (generally), overall you can get better via dsl but it'll cost ya

Threshold · Post by **Threshold** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 12:58 pm

I would say go with the one that has no contract. Get some ip's of you fav server's and test ping's

128k upload is fine for any current game.

Like other's said it all depends on what ISP Layer 2 and 3 hops are.

ReyalP · Post by **ReyalP** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 3:32 pm

gotenks wrote:i hate my dsl, the one i have i lag when i get a phone call (and again when i hang up)

That means there is a problem with your DSL. Bad filters or some other muck at the copper level. I had a similar problem once, caused by some obsolete hardware in the phone company box on the outside of the house. Unfortunately, the first two techs sent to diagnose our problem didn't figure that out

In general it isn't that one is better than the other. Functioning properly, either can be fine. Not functioning properly, either one can suck. In other words, what matters is what is good in your area, not which medium you choose. All else being equal, I would choose DSL, since DSL ISPs tend to be more geek oriented, and there tends to be more options. However, that doesn't mean cable can't perform as well or better in a given area. DSL also tends to have a lot of bureaucracy if something goes wrong. The ISP, the DSL provider, and the telco all like to pass the buck, whether they are distinct entities or departments of the same one.

Cheap ISPs tend to buy cheap bandwidth, making for slower connections. The last time I switched DSL providers, my pings increased 10-30 to almost every server, despite having increased bandwidth. Number of hops isn't especially important. The latency added by a typical backbone router is negligible, unless it is malfunctioning or overloaded. Of course, the more you have, the more chance there is that one is overloaded or messed up along the way.

websites like http://www.dslreports.com/ can give you reviews of various ISPs in specific areas (not just DSL, despite the name). Of course, like most online ranting, they shoudln't be taken as the one truth.

ouroboro · Post by **ouroboro** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 3:52 pm

interesting points, thank you. i think because of where i live, cable gives me trouble. likely dsl will also. i'm in the extreme corner of the usa (maine), surrounded mostly by canada, which means internet has to basically be piped up her intentionally - it's not like i'm sitting on a major line already. with visualroute, i can watch my shit hop all over the country and back just to reach a box "right next door". my cable provider is adelphia, which has had financial/legal troubles, but the speeds never suffered - they're blazing, and i'll probably miss downloading 700 mb game demos as fast as i do. in fact we got free upgrades a while back. but latency seems to suck.

the dsl provider is verizon, which is my phone company, so it's all on one bill, from a major usa provider, and half the price of cable. dslreports reviews seem to be generally favorable, with the bad ones seeming to come from newbies who can't walk and chew gum.

i'm really hoping it's good

ReyalP · Post by **ReyalP** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 4:02 pm

Note that most of the tools that claim to show the where you packets physically go don't work very well. Since IPs are actually completely independent of geographic location, they can only guess based on things the address of the entity which owns the IP, or the name of the router (which often use airport codes, city names, or similar abbreviations, but not always, and not with any completely consistent convention). I've seen these tools produce output which would have required faster-than-light communication to be true.

ouroboro · Post by **ouroboro** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 10:56 am

update, bwahaha! (not that anyone cares, but...)

i just got hooked up, and whereas on cable i could find maybe a dozen "good servers" (and we all know what that means) that were 80-100 ping at BEST, now i have that many that are sub-50, and even a handfull of sub 40's

speeds are rated at 1500/384 and my first test showed ~13XX/36X

prepare to get fragged by a virgin LPB

/me calls cable company to cancel service.