Connection for large multiplayer games

[Flynn]

Just been in a 6v6, been told my connection is too slow. I have a 2Mbit connection with .5 Mbit upload. During the game we suffered terrible lag, so I did the right thing and quitted. The question is, what connection speed should I be looking at for large scale multiplayer games?

[prodromos]

As far as I know, your internet speed should not be a problem(the quality of your connection or that of the other players may very well be, but this is not what you 're asking).
Consider this: the minimum requirements originaly published for supcom were 56.6 kbps!

[Ze_PilOt]

For 1v1...

[AwarE]

If it makes you feel better ...you were asked to leave for the wrong reason. I bet the game speed not not improve much when after you left. Your connection is fine ...your computer may have been the issue or it may have been that everyone needed to calm down and play with the presence of some lag and chill.

Keep in mind that SupCom was only designed for 8 players ...that game was 150% above spec.

Other considerations are map size and unit count.

12 Player maps that are larger than 10x10 are too big for net play. If you load up a 12 player 20x20 with 1000 units it is bound to fail unless your on a LAN. Just one slow computer or connection will kill the game for all and you have a high chance with 12.

roj
PS this is another example of where scripted build restrictions are sometimes used ....by restricting say Air or Navy the 12 player map may not lag as bad.

[ZaphodX]

I think supcom runs on a p2p system so perhaps you did not have sufficient upload speed?

[lextoc]

Just been in a 6v6, been told my connection is too slow. I have a 2Mbit connection with .5 Mbit upload. During the game we suffered terrible lag, so I did the right thing and quitted. The question is, what connection speed should I be looking at for large scale multiplayer games?

Theoretical it should be more than enough. Maybe you've a wireless connection with 10 walls between the router... You can easily check this with torrents or speed tests (google).

It's highly unlikely your connection is too slow tho, so it's probably just bad luck

[Flynn]

I forgot to add, I am running via ethernet on Powerline adaptors, maybe that has something to do with it? They are rated to 500mbps though but they do seem to cause disconnects, I have seen upto 100 a day before. I have a small program that monitors my connection you see. I have connected the laptop directly to the router overnight and it hasn't registered any disconnects overnight so...

[eXcalibur]

you need about 25 kbit/s UPLOAD speed and DOWNLOAD speed per person you play with. in a 6v6 game this is about 300 kbit/s (and you have a 2000 kbit/s connection with 500 kbit/s upload).
to show your connection to all other players, play a game and press F11 ingame. then you see the pings to all other players. when the ping is below 500 to all players all the time (just watch it for 30 seconds), then your connection is fine. this may change during a game (especially when a lot of units are on the field). just check again in late game.
when the ping to all other players is not stable, but jumps from 100 to 999 (which is above 500, therefore the game gets slown down), then your connection is unstable. when this only happens to one other person, that persons internet connection is the cause of lag (a stutter in the flow of the game - everything stands still for a little bit and then moves on again).

the slowdown of game is another problem. you have to look at the CPU score of other players before the game gets started.

[ZaphodX]

you need about 25 kbit/s UPLOAD speed and DOWNLOAD speed per person you play with.

This cannot be accurate, I have 1mb upload (125kB/s) and I can play 4v4's no problem.

[discoverer2k4]

Zaphod...

... 25 kBIT/s!
you have ~1200 kBIT/s (125 kBYTE/s = 1 Mbit)