I have a 130 ping on dial up , it took me about a year of trying different isp's before i found my current one. I've found that the local isp's are usually the best for ping , and variance . Variance is more important than ping , I'd rather have a 200ms ping with little variance , than a 100 ping that jumps to 200 and back .
There are things that you can do to help playing on dial up. Check your phone lines , make sure that your not ganging a bunch of device's before your modem connection . You can find the AT commands for your modem chipset and look at the Signal to noise ratio (SNR)of your phone line,and it will also show if the connection retrains (how stable your connection speed is ,and if it has to lower the initial connection rate to stay connected ).If your modem is retraining you will get the dreaded lost udp message . You will have to lower the connection speed .
Disabling V.90 will sometimes fix a problem connect , it helps to make the connection more stable and reliable, Aces doesn't need alot of bandwith so lowering your speed some isnt a problem . It can be done with a modem string , you will have to post what brand modem you have along with the model, and i can find one for you to try .
A good harware modem helps gaming on 56k , I have a usr 5686E External and out of all the ones ive tested it seems to work the best in my situation . They are a little pricey (around $100) but worth it if your going to be on dial up for a long time . A hardware modem also takes the load off the cpu , it handles all the processing of info itself. If you dont want to spend than much , you can look for a controller based modem , if in doubt find one that supports linux , then you will be sure its not a winmodem (software) .
If your looking for more bandwith , you can shotgun two modems together for a theretical 106kbps connection (53K is the limit of 56k due to regulation). Depending on the connection speed you are currently getting . Id guess if your really in the sticks its prolly 28.8 or lower, so doing this probably isnt cost effective due to the cost of another phone line , and isp subscription.
ISDN ,which is a digital phone line that is normaly 64k , is available in most rural areas, and can be bonded to make higher speeds . Isdn can be expensive , it fluctuates from state to state. Some people can get residential for $50ish a month while others have to pay for bussiness isdn for $100ish a month ( i know NEW YORK doesnt do residential anymore). If you look into this beware of HOUR LIMITS . I tried to get it here but the local CO didnt have the right switch to handle it .
Well there is a start , as you can see ive had to deal with dial up for many years . My luck has changed and the cable company is wiring my street next month . People who have broadband really dont know what its like to be stuck on dialup , most people think your just too cheap to get a better connect. My email is
Rukkee@toast.net , feel free to drop a line , i'll help in anyway i can , i know the feeling . Oh btw after next month my external usr will no longer be needed , if you can wait that long you can have it cheap hehe.
38maw
