#1 : : January 26, 2015. @ 08:31 AM GMT Post Rating: Neutral

CFLion

Magnavox Odyssey

Joined: January 2015

Internet connection speed?

We're looking to host our first LAN, and are looking to rent online servers to keep some costs down.  We're going to have 50 +/- computers; so the question is what speed does the connection have to be to ensure smooth gaming?  T1, or fractional  is out.  35?  50? 100?  Just need to make sure I have happy campers.

CFLion

Magnavox Odyssey

Joined: January 2015

Re: Internet connection speed?

Wow, I stumped everybody.  Not even a best closest guess?

Frag God

Coleco Gemini

Joined: February 2012

Re: Internet connection speed?

If you're in North America, upload is likely your limiting factor, unless you're in a university or have a big pipe.

Anyways... assuming 50 guests.

35 Mbit for download would be about minimum nowadays for reasonable internet connectivity (assuming most guests come with games pre-installed). About 88 KBps per person fully saturated, should handle game updates, web surfing, and some downloading. The sky is the limit here, more bandwidth is always merrier.

Upload is a bit more of a hard requirement in your case since you're using internet-based game servers, you'll want at least 5 Mbit at minimum, 10 Mbit upload would be more comfortable. If you intend on live streaming your LAN, budget an additional 5 Mbit upload per stream.

Example

Lets say you're playing a big game of Quake and each guest is sending a 500 byte packet to the internet server 20 times a second.

500 bytes x 20 per second x 50 guests = 500,000 bytes aka 4 Mbit per second upload requirement just for a basic multiplayer game (can vary based on tick rate, game type, number of players in the game, etc.)

Of course, large downloads, youtube, game streaming, seeding etc. can blow these numbers entirely out of the water if enough people do it.

Last edited February 11, 2015. @ 01:27 PM GMT

Playing a game for the graphics is like watching porn for the story.