In reply to a post by ironman12345:

Whoever the OP moves to [ISP] ping or "latency" depends on 4 main variables speed is not really an important factor for online gaming.
1) The server that is hosting the game needs to be setup correctly
2)There is no such thing as no latency as everything takes time in the case of latency 10ms is for the round trip to and from the server. So about 10-35ms is ok for online gaming.
3)As has been already stated your location and the consistency of your connection matter.
4)These days online gaming is a hit or miss affair due to congestion.

Point 4 is spot on with the current condition of the UK's infrastructure.

There is one thing that can be done , but that is at the server end.
A setting in most gaming servers allows the host or server guy to restrict the max amount of speed [bandwidth] for all players no matter if they have a faster connection.
There is also a way to boot any player who can`t keep below a certain level [about 130ms] as they can disrupt the whole session.130ms is over 1/8th of a second which imo is way to high for online gaming.?
I used to run an online racing server and to get more drivers [clients] connected they all got the same.
It helped with consistency but lag and jitter was still a problem because of the different setups of each PC and graphics cards.
But a console connection should be ok I guess.
I agree latency can be ok even up to about 80+ms but obviously lower is better.
To Bartman1967, yeah the UK needs a shake up.

Edited by deleted (Sat 17-Sep-16 17:41:39)

I wouldn't go anywhere near Plusnet at the moment for gaming. They have been having horrendous packet loss and latency issues with people who have been moved to their new network. As a new user it's likely you'd be put on the new network.

See this topic on their community forums https://community.plus.net/t5/Fibre-Broadband/High-p... (fast approaching 1000 posts). There's many other topics about this issue on there.

Its interesting as have had some moans about PlusNet not been shamed in the news over this, but every time I look at any data things look pretty much the same as normal when taking a wider view.

In reply to a post by bernado:

To be honest if you're hoping a reduced ping will bring an improved gaming experience I feel you're totally wasting your time. Your current ping is totally adequate for online gaming and I doubt you would notice any difference with a reduced level, in fact I would go as far as saying even a higher ping of around 70ms wouldn't feel much different in practice as there are so many other factors involved as stated above.

With a game running at 60 fps there's a fair amount of difference between a ping that's lower than the frame refresh rate and one that's higher for those who are really hard core about it.

You haven't been looking in the right place!

Just take a look at many of your broadband quality monitors posted in this monster topic!

https://community.plus.net/t5/Fibre-Broadband/High-p...

There's many pingtest.net results in there showing shocking jitter and "ping -t" showing horrible lost packets.

It's been picked up by ISPReview and other sites - it has puzzled me why you've said nothing.

Why? Because am well used to PlusNet customers throwing toys out of the pram and the overall set of data did not support a major incident.

Yes can see individuals with issues, but looks to be a small sample.

Reactions such as "Just had a word with Think Broadband on their lack of news on our situations with Plusnet, they tell me their figures from their tests and survey reports used by broadband users do not show these problems and all appears well at Plusnet." when I had told them that looking at a wider PlusNet population there is not a widespread problem has been interepreted as me saying there is no problem.

I have never said there is no problems at PlusNet but in a desire to have positive proof and be sure its not just 0.1% of the customer base affected, but maybe 10 to 20% then it is difficult. Have been stung in the past by issues affecting a handful of customers.

So yes packet loss for the individuals is not good, but is PlusNet in meltdown?

How sure are you on the 30-40% of PlusNet users being on the new network?

Plus is the new network using an easily identifiable IP block that is different to the old network, i.e. so I can sift out the BQM from old/new networks.

I've sent you a PM.

I think it is possible to partially identify from the IP blocks but I don't know what they are and they will be continuing to add blocks as they move more users across. There's also the complication that users on fixed IPs will be tunnelled via the new network to the old gateways and hence on the fixed IP blocks there will be a mixture of users on the old and new networks.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Why? Because am well used to PlusNet customers throwing toys out of the pram and the overall set of data did not support a major incident.

Well I'm not a toy thrower, and my Plusnet connection is unusable for multiplayer gaming at present. The de-sync due to packet loss is a joke, warping and rubber-banding all over the place, regardless of which EU servers I connect to. Plusnet themselves have admitted there is a problem but scant information is being given to customers of its cause or ETA of a fix. The problem is not a new one, and given that the default router provided is locked not to respond to ping queries I'd suggest that it is your data acquisition methods that should be in question here, not the userbase.

Despite skipping gateways the packet loss persists for me. I'm 200 yards from the main exchange and have enjoyed a very good fibre connection from Plusnet until 2 weeks ago when the problems started. I've been patient, not rushed into complaining, but I think 2 weeks is long enough don't you MrSaffron?