Gaming Using Smartphone Connectivity - How Much Data ?

I'll be going on a trip via bus, which is about 6 hours one way. Since the bus has power sockets, I was going to connect my laptop to it.

My question is, since my smartphone can provide internet to my laptop, how much data will gaming on its connection take? I'd be playing an MMORPG during the trip (probably leveling/questing).

Has anyone tested 1 hour of MMORPG'ing using a smartphone to see the data/per hour it takes?

 

Depends entirely on the MMO and what you're doing.

Running around/ teleporting in runescape? Gonna lose a lot of data. Standing in one spot and killing monsters or whatever, yeah, not nearly as much.

Can't give you specifics, sorry. Just keep in mind.

 

I found this from a WoW forum.

 

Depending on what type of phone you have you could download an application to check how much data is being used (I just downloaded one for my android because I'm having a ton of phantom data usage recently). Then you could tether your laptop via WiFi (so you don't actually kill your data) and then test it yourself. The biggest problem you'll probably run into will be the download/upload speeds that the mobile network will be able to provide you.

 

edit.


oopps

 

Just what I was looking for! Thanks!

So 250MB should be enough for the round trip (6hrs x2) if I'm just questing.

@notyou
Good idea, I'll do that

 

I would imagine,

I don't use Wow or the likes but from what I found on Google most people are saying roughly the same sort of figures for data. I would ring up and ask if the data on your tariff includes uploaded data?

If not then you are laughing.

 

The 400 ms ping is going to be the real issue. Everyone will be warping around.

 

Depends who the provider is. I've had Sprint/Virgin Mobile and their latency is really bad. Unplayable. I've switched to Verizon and I get constant 100-200 MS (which is good) when I play SC2/HoN. I did try playing Warhawk on my PS3 and didn't experience lag issues, but I only tried it out for a little bit.

 

Mastershroom uses 3G for his wireless, maybe he'll pipe in here. I'll go poke him.

 

My Samsung Galaxy S with HSDPA (or "turbo" 3g) does serve enough bandwidth and speed for casual gaming, but suffers from high latency so FPS games are a no go for me.

 

i use my cell for gaming and i dont have any issues with latency (avg 200) i mean its not ideal or as good as wifi with an actual in home net but it is very playable. i unfortunately cannot use it with my ps3 since i get nat issues and cant really connect to others (dont have the patience to wait either)

im not sure how much bandwidth it uses though as ive never had to measure it since my plan is unlimited. If you know of somethin that measures the bandwidth let me know and ill give it a whirl. I dont have much in the mmo category but i can test other online games for yah.

 

Stop poking me >:|

This is my 3G connection from my Android phone tethered to my PC. I use Virgin Mobile, which is a subsidiary of Sprint. These are pretty average numbers for me. Sometimes the ping drops to around 400 later in the evenings around 2 or 3AM when the network isn't so busy, but that's about it.



(I like how that's a B+ haha)

Online gaming of any sort is basically impossible. If I play TF2 or Counter-Strike, I just warp around the map every few seconds, unable to aim or shoot. MMO's are similar; I tried Runescape on this for the lulz, and after taking about 10 minutes to log in, I would only be able to walk to a point about 15 seconds after clicking it. League of Legends didn't fare any better.

Pretty much the only thing I can play online is Minecraft, which is generally not as dependent on good latency.

So, unless you have some seriously fast 4G on your phone, I wouldn't expect it to go very well.

 

This sounds about right.

I used to work for a telecommunications company, right when data caps were being imposed, and was surprised by how little data is actually used.

I would recommend that if you feel data usage for the month might be higher than usual to look into your plan - you'll find that the cost for an extra gig of data probably isn't that high if you go over your limit. Likewise, you can also increase your data for the week or month and pay a small fee for the difference from what you usually pay.

 

No.

RUSE, Civilization games, Sins of a Solar Empire should all do well with multiplayer.