FPS gaming via phone tether?

I apologize if this question has been raised recently, but I wonder if anyone here has had experience gaming by means of a tethered internet connection from their smartphone.

I am thinking of getting a Samsung Fascinate or Droid X from Verizon, and was wondering if it would allow me to play COD4. My fear is that the latency would be too high, or unreliable.

 

Would be almost impossible.

 

I've read studies of latency tests for mobile networks which show an average of 250-450 ms. Way too slow.

 

250-500ms is average for 3g. Now if you got 4g that will work. its wimax like home internet. As long as you have good signal. If your thinking of using 3g dont bother.

 

I personally think wifi is too slow, just my 2 cents though.

 

I get almost 2mb download and 1mb upload at work, it still felt to slow for some reason.

 

If it's 3g hsdpa then you could possibly game.

I was playing most fps games, but my ping was always over 200ms, thought that could be just because I'm in australia.

 

Thanks, guys. I will have to look into 4g and whether that is available where I will be living...

My internet connection is wireless already (I live in the middle of nowhere, but on top of a hill), and via a wireless router, and I have no issues with latency at the moment, so I am not terribly particular--I just don't want a ping over about 150, or one that jumps around too much.

Have fun at Camp Lejeune, DCMAKER, I have a buddy down there right now.

 

Wifi is plenty fast enough. If you have problems with wifi thats because you have a bad router or signal. If you have a functioning router your ping should be no more than 5-30ms high...if you have a good signal. Now your jitter will be also fairly higher as well(5-30ms). Jitter is the amount of fluctuation in your ping. The jitter is the most affected. 30ms is on the high side...like one wall in the way or a good fair distance away from AP. I bought a trendnet AP and the thing was defective....had a 500 ping and jitter...sometimes went to 3000!!!! Never again will i buy trendnet. Use smallnetbuilders.com or whatever to pick a good router. I got the netgear one which is awesome....just wish it had external antennas to upgrade.



Also you only need a 144kbps/144kbps to play online. Only thing is affected by slow speed is d/ling maps and such. The only game i have seen that maxes 16KBps/16KBps was planet-side the first successful FPS MMO. Now that ONLY maxed my old 144kbps SDSL connection when we had literally 300 people attacking a single base!!! It was the biggest most uber shootout ever lol. Also maybe the newer FPS that hold 64-120 people in server might have the ability to max 16KBps but that's debatable.



EDIT:also my 3g gives me a 350ping...now that because the damn thing routes my signal to the middle of the US when i am on the east coast so my signal litteral has to go from me to middle of US to East coast server back to middle of US than back to me.....thats like 4k miles so if your 3g service has very close access to the internet and doesn't route you half way around the world than maybe it'll work if you are playing in a local server. Go to www.pingtest.net and see if its playable first. Best luck to you man!

P.S. Marine Corps sucks ^^ 10 months and some change left WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

fascinate won't be able to use pingtest.net

 

what??????

 

no 2.2 android yet aka no flash

 

oh ok i get yea...but he was talking about tethering.....he can run the test from the laptop.

 

Oh yah that should work.

 

I'm able to play Crysis Wars on some servers with 0 lag over 3g tethered connection. If the server is too far though, it can become a bit laggy.

 

i guess for 3g it'll be a hit or miss if it'll work. For me AT and T has a retarded set up....doesn't mean ATand T is messed up everywhere but it must be tested. 4g will definitely work though

 

What sort of ping are you getting?

 

last time i tried i had over 300 lol...i am in NC and when i did a ping tst it says my location is in the middle of thee US so for me to do anything it had to travel 1000 milees to the center of the US and than go from there than back than to me...so anything i do already has to travel 2k miles round trip...plus where ever else it has to go. I'll post screenshots after i run a test tonight....maybe he will have better luck. I have no idea how AT&T has their network set up but from camp lejeune NC it says my location is in the middle of US so anything i do has horrible ping lol.

 

Hmm well maybe I have just got stunted gameplay with my ps3 on wifi. I havent tried the pc yet on wifi, but I have optimal placement and im on sdsl. I just found that when hooked up to cat5 I got way quicker response, less dropped games to. I have a Brand New Dlink router with double antenna.

 

Pingtest.net actually uses a Java widget to run packet loss testing. It still won't run completely on Android 2.2 (I have a Nexus One, and just verified )

Further edit: on a Nexus One, running native on AT&T's network, I get 324ms ping, with a jitter of only 35ms. It'll get pretty close to the same if it's USB tethered to a computer

 

Who knows you could be getting interference or wireless router is bad or maybe the ps3 has a slow wifi adapter....now dont get me wrong. I prefer to be on ethernet anytime of the day but if you got a good wifi card and good adapter and good signal the differance should be minimal. But trust me there are plunty of crappy wifi crads and APs out there. I have wasted my money on like 2-3 of them. I will forever use smallnetbuilders for all my wifi buys. The market is filled with crappy models. Anyways the difference should not be more than 5-30ms assume there is no other variables interfering.(also that 5-30ms is from my personal experiance. I am no wifi expert. Guy named Download in wifi section knows alot more than me.) Walls and addition wifi sources/signals and whatever else can cause it to be worse. I live in a crappy barracks and i got like 15 wifi signals coming into my room plus on top of that the walls are cinder block so everything bounces everywhere. Blows big time....to add on top of that....i am stuck in the marine corps....but there is light at the end of the tunnel! I got just over 10 months left until I AM FREEE!!!! FREEE!!!!! FREEDOM!!!!!!.....sorry that's my rant for the day ^^

 

Just use a wifi scanner, check what channels the other APs are using (they're probably almost all on 6, 11 or 1), and choose a channel for your AP that isn't used much or at all. You'll get a fair bit better performance.

 

I got the netgear 3700 or whatever. the newest best one with 5ghz....just need to get off my but and buy an ultimate n 6300....i got a 1000 bgn :/

EDIT:thx for the channel advice i'll look into that. Also whats a scanner and where can i get one?

 

Just a program like this: inSSIDer Wi-Fi Scanner | MetaGeek

It tells you about the wifi networks your computer's wireless adapter can see, telling you what channels all the networks are running on and so on.

 

awesome thx man this is great. Also adding this to my guide ^^. Also pm me tomorrow to +rep you....i am maxed out today :/

 

np. Don't worry about rep, I have it coming out of my ears Just hope it helps

 

Just Tested all of my connections, All test were conducted using speedtest.net and pingtest.net on the same servers. As Close in timing as a could manage.


Verizon Fios
Ping:16
DL: 9.94MBPS ( I have seen this pull 30+Mbps down)
UL: 5.70MBPS
Jitter: 1ms

Verizon Wireless 3G
Ping: 142ms
DL: .81MBPS
UL: .55MBPS
Jitter:9ms

Sprint PCS 4G
Ping: 110ms
DL: 4.38MBPS
UL:1.64MBPS
Jitter: 63ms

Sprint PCS 3G
Ping: 123ms
DL: 1.41MBPS
UL: .41MBPS
Jitter: 49ms

I hope this helps. During AIT I did play some FPS on the verizon coverage, It worked but got frustrating at times.

I hope this helps you decide if its an option for you.

 

i'll test my AT&T wireless later....i am sick as a dog....so sick

 

Thanks, ImportJunky! That's a pretty cool list of ping and bandwidth stats.