Upgrading from dial-up to dsl or cable?

[Von Theron]

I play multiplayer games and i have a bad connection because i use aol = dial up and it sucks i pay 21$ monthly for it and i wane upgrade. So now what should i get dsl or cable modem money is not an issue because they cost almost the same and what are the speed differences if someone can point out please and im not talking about the download speeds only but connection and stuff cause like the game servers are located in germany so please help. Thank you!!

 

[Demalii]

well in my experience,
DSL = 250kb/sec download
16kb/sec upload
Average ping to server = 60ms
Phone line plus subscription = $40/mo

Cable = 350kb/sec download
45kb/sec upload
Average ping to server = 30ms
subscription $50/mo

I like cable =)

 

[Von Theron]

ty that was helpful and the 10$ difference is like nothin cable is definetly the way to go but im not sure. Maybe the lag and back connection coule be my old video card as u can see i have a on board video with like 32mb which is really bad and i dont have a agp slot but only pci slot any opinion maybe it is the video- the games i play are 2d though~!

 

[uchiha]

where do you live? there might be cheap optical service that might be in your area!

likewise, speed depends on where you live. before choosing, I would go to dslreports.com for a prerequisite test of your area.

 

[ReverseFluxx]

Generally for gaming, cable has less latency than DSL.

 

[beedubaya]

I sure wish I could get cable or DSL in my area. WildBlue satellite comes next summer, hopefully I will be able to get that.

 

[ReverseFluxx]

I got a free upgrade from 256k DSL to 900k because I work at my ISP

 

[neversleeps]

hook me up with some free internet

 

[Capricorn]

Generally for gaming, cable has less latency than DSL.

Gee, I was just about to post the opposite. Latency is generally better for DSL than cable. I did a Google search using "network latency cable versus dsl" as the search term. It wasn't as conclusive as I expected, but seemed to favor DSL over cable. I suspect that much of this has to do with one particular DSL provider over another particular cable provider in one particular area. I've only used DSL, myself. My latency (measured in round trip pings) to the fastest game servers listed (Unreal Tournament 2004) is often under 20 ms and almost never over 50. It gets worse the farther the servers are away from my geographic location of course.

 

[ReverseFluxx]

Hmm... then I have no idea what's going on. I have quite fast DSL and the lowest ping i can ever get is 20, but usually it's around 30 or so. This is usually more than people are getting on a significantly slower cable connection. I remember when I had a 256k connection, my pings were always around 45 or something. This may be because I usually live quite far from the servers I'm playing on.