Latency Qustions

[whitt]

What exactly is latency? How is it measured? When I play cs it shows my latency after so many rounds. I realize the lower the better. I have cable internet but my latency seems to be higher than most of the other players. How can this be improved? Thanks everyone.

[glc1]

Latency is the amount of time (in ms) it takes a packet to travel from point A to point B.

The man factor is the number of hops between you and a destination (in your case game server) and the quality of the route. There really isn't anything the customer can do about latency and most ISPs don't pay any attention to the low latency needs of gamers.

To get the best game play, try and find a server in your region. What are your pings typically like in CS?

[whitt]

The last time I played I think it showed a latency of 160. Is that the time in ms? I havent played it enough to really get an idea of an average. How would I find a local server? Just asking around I suppose, or is there a way to check it?

Another crazy qustion...(I love this site because I can ask the dumbest questions without feeling dumb and looking smart later :p ) Are these servers that people like myself just setup? I would think that with the caps on the speed this would cause problems.

[glc1]

Originally posted by whitt
The last time I played I think it showed a latency of 160. Is that the time in ms?I presume so. If it is, it would be a bit high. Most first person shooters show pings in real time (or near real time) during game play upon hitting TAB.

Originally posted by whitt
How would I find a local server? Just asking around I suppose, or is there a way to check it?Most in game and third party server browsers have sections/buttons that show this kind of info, assuming the server has provided it.

Originally posted by whitt
Are these servers that people like myself just setup? I would think that with the caps on the speed this would cause problems.Some are run on DSL or cable. Others are run by clans on shared T1s/T3s. Since caps vary from cable provider to cable provider, it's very conceivable for some users to host servers.

[BlackSword]

Originally posted by whitt
The last time I played I think it showed a latency of 160. Is that the time in ms? I havent played it enough to really get an idea of an average. How would I find a local server? Just asking around I suppose, or is there a way to check it?

Another crazy qustion...(I love this site because I can ask the dumbest questions without feeling dumb and looking smart later :p ) Are these servers that people like myself just setup? I would think that with the caps on the speed this would cause problems. 160 is ms,,, FYI 1000ms = 1 second.

The good thing about CS is 160 is still very playable. You will just have to keep trying different servers to find out what ones are the best for you. Additionally you can do some tracert to the IP address and that will show you how many HOPs there are to get to the game server, typically the fewer the hops the better. The good thing with the tracert is it will show you if ONE HOP is causing you lag,, if so you need to find a different server to play on.

[Otto]

There is some ways to fix Latency Problems. #1 what is your percentage of your system resources. what do you have and how much items do you have in you network stack. and how many programs do you have starting up during boot up. these and some other things could and may be the problem to bad Latency.

[O0ofoulo0O]

runescape :D tribes II :sleep: