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    gaming with mobile broadband

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by lankymo, Mar 13, 2008.

  1. lankymo

    lankymo Notebook Enthusiast

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    hello, i want to be able to connect and play wow and other online games with a broadband card from sprint or at&t. Is gaming viable using these cards?
    If so what card or carrier do you reccomend.

    Thanks

    Mark
     
    lankymo, Mar 13, 2008
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  2. shima

    shima Notebook Consultant

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    Although not a broadband card per se, I do game using a Sprint Mogul phone tethered to my laptop. The Mogul recently received an EVDO Rev A update, and speeds are quite awesome. I can't tell the difference browsing the net with my phone vs home cable connection over wifi. Latency improved with the Rev A update, and I do play WoW on it as my secondary internet connection. WoW is seamless using the EVDO connection.
     
    shima, Mar 13, 2008
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  3. f4ding

    f4ding Laptop Owner

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    But it also depends on your location. If Sprint or ATT have implement the highest speed in your area, then it would be good enough (7.2mbit/s for ATT, not sure for Sprint). Otherwise it's only OK. For example, I'm in OKC and I'm getting max 1.8mbit/s. That's OK for browsing and watching you tube, but not so good for gaming.

    It might also depends on the game. First person shoot won't do it for me. But age of empire might.
     
    f4ding, Mar 13, 2008
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  4. jcovelli

    jcovelli Notebook Deity

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    SPRINT... and evdo is MAX 1.2Mbit's ... i use it for 360 online playing all the time.. works perfect

    check out www.evdoinfo.com for more
     
    jcovelli, Mar 13, 2008
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  5. lankymo

    lankymo Notebook Enthusiast

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    thanks for the info!
     
    lankymo, Mar 13, 2008
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  6. Peter Bazooka

    Peter Bazooka Notebook Evangelist

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    I use Sprint Mobile Broadband to play everything from WOW to COD4 on xbox live. If you have a good connection then latency from a good game server is usually 150-300ms. Sometimes for me it jumps to 400-600 (where I live I only get 2-3bars out of 5) but WOW still works really well since its slow paced but I do notice some lag when throwing grenades in COD. I would choose Sprint over At&t since the Edge network is supposedly slower assuming there is a tower near you.

    And as jcovelli said check out evdoinfo.com it has alot of good information about modems, routers, antennas etc...
     
    Peter Bazooka, Mar 13, 2008
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  7. f4ding

    f4ding Laptop Owner

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    My AT&T 3G is giving me 1.8Mbit/s. EDGE is the previous 2G version. AT&T upgraded their broadband to 3G HSDPA.
     
    f4ding, Mar 14, 2008
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  8. Peter Bazooka

    Peter Bazooka Notebook Evangelist

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    I didn't know that At&t had upgraded, when I was looking about a year ago they were still using the Edge network while Sprint and Verizon had moved to Evdo Rev A. 1.8mbits/s is very impressive, I just ran speedtest with approxiamately half signal and using a KR1 router results below.

    [​IMG]
     
    Peter Bazooka, Mar 14, 2008
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  9. f4ding

    f4ding Laptop Owner

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    They've for quite a while, the problem remains that only certain cities received it first, whereas for SPrint, almost every cities get Rev.A at the same time.
     
    f4ding, Mar 14, 2008
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  10. Wu Jen

    Wu Jen Some old nobody

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    Pipesize does not = latency

    Just because the pipe is bigger, doesn't mean that your ping will be better. With WOW you can still play even with a ping of 600 ms. Not pretty but doable. For FPS you really need a lower ping in the 60-150 range, imo.
     
    Wu Jen, Mar 14, 2008
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  11. StormEffect

    StormEffect Lazer. *pew pew*

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    MMO type games work best on mobile internet. FPS games are generally tough with latency above 200ms.

    I've done WoW with a tethered AT&T phone.
     
    StormEffect, Mar 14, 2008
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