Aces High Bulletin Board
Help and Support Forums => Technical Support => Topic started by: PapaFox on December 06, 2000, 09:10:00 PM
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I've heard that the Dish Network (dishnetwork.com) is offering two-way broadband satellite internet service. It just began. Has anyone tried it yet? Specifically, is the connect any good when used with AH? Two friends stand by waiting for an answer.
regards,
PapaFox
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I couldn't think of a worse type of connection for gaming.
-Westy
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I couldn't think of a worse type of connection for gaming.
-Westy
Please elaborate!
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What he means is that most sat. systems are asynchronous. That is they use different routes for the incoming and outgoing data, and those routes move at different speeds. Normally your incoming or download is via sat. at about 400 kbps, while your outgoing or upload is via regular modem at about 32 Kbps. In a game like Aces High having a problem with either of those two parts of your route will cause issues. Having your incoming and outgoing data streams take different routes tends to cause connection problems with games like AH that rely on a high quality connection.
In this regard, cable and dsl systems tend to be superior. Most of them have upload and download speeds that are both fast enough to not be an issue, and route both streams of data takes is usually the same.
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Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs http://www.flyingpigs.com (http://www.flyingpigs.com)
"A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!" -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
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I just re-read that post. Two-way sat. connect? How does that work? You mean you actually have a ground station that sends data up to the sat. itself? If so, it's a new technology to me. It also may be that the normal problems with sat. network connects don't apply.
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Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs http://www.flyingpigs.com (http://www.flyingpigs.com)
"A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!" -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
[This message has been edited by Lephturn (edited 12-07-2000).]
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make sure bad weather won't affect it as is the case in FL with DSS and the default 18" dish.
Eagler
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All of the above and more. I work for one of the major telecom firms. You do not even want voice going over sattelite if you do not have to. The delay from you on the ground, to the satelite and back down again to the destination is far worse than if you were using a landline. Or vice versa.
Video is fine. Three seconds or more delay in what you see is barely noticable on a live event, let alone watching a pre-recorded program or movie. It's not interactive or require fast two-way communication.
A signal going from NY to San Fran or Tokyo via landline/undesea fiber will beat a signal from NY to San Fran/Tokyo via satellite hands down - no contest. I real-time, online gaming you want as little delay as you can possibly get.
-Westy
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"In this regard, cable and dsl systems tend to be superior."
Lephturn
Darn, I was putting my hopes on the satellite internet service. Heck, they don't even pump water where I live.
Ozark
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332nd Flying Mongrels (http://www.ropescourse.org/flying.htm)
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In my area they have a service called LOOK. Its basically microwave service similar to the minidish tv services. They advertise 3mbps download and 2 way wireless. As soon as the tower goes up within sight (these systems are line of sight dependent) I am gonna try the service out.
The problem with 2 way satellite service is latency... the signal has to travel 100's of miles, mebbe thousands through bad weather and the big hole in the atmosphere.
Satellite will be fine fer surfing, but likely suck bad for gaming.
The line of sight microwave service maybe a good alternative. we'll see
AKSKurj
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Ahhh, it's a latency issue. A 3 second lag would really suck. In this regard a regular 36k modem would out-perform it for gaming.
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Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs http://www.flyingpigs.com (http://www.flyingpigs.com)
"A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!" -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
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Ahhh physics. Remember, the speed of light is not infinite.
It takes light approximately 7.92 micro-seconds to cover 1 mile (about 1.5ns/foot).
How high are those geosynchronous satellites? I believe they orbit at 22,500 miles above the earth.
So that would mean a bit of data would have to cover at least 45,000 miles between to land points.
That translates to roughly 3.564 seconds.
To cover a land based connection from NY to SF (roughly 2300 miles) it would only take about 0.18 seconds.
Big difference for a real time anything.
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Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net
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I have a friend that has been in the pilot of this program. It is the ONLY type of high speed connects we can get in this area. He has great downloads and no downtimes due to weather yet. Here is the catch as Skuzzy said. 900ms + pings from him to the server. After that it is fine but 900ms+ to the server. Talk about ungameable unless ya like yahoo ;p
S!
Rocket
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It would make a great porn-pipe. But not something for real time interaction.
-Westy
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LOL Westy!
Hahaha. Porn-pipe.
You could start a new sat. net service with just that marketing slant. LOL, I bet you'd make millions. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs http://www.flyingpigs.com (http://www.flyingpigs.com)
"A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!" -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
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'We'd' make millions (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif) Let's do it! lol
-Westy
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Well, I think you've given me a pretty good idea what to expect from a satellite system for gaming purposes. One of the users can a slower version of DSL in his area, so that sounds like a much better gaming solution. My thanks to all who responded.
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Something too, most connectionless systems don't include error correction in the packets. TCP/IP has it in "connectioned" environments, which is why less dumpage. TCP/IP can request a rebroadcast of a bad packet, usually, keeping the conection alive. In AW Classic, we used to turn modem connections down to 9600 for better rates and connections. Sometimes "faster" ain't so good. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
K-KEN
http://www.cutthroats.com/ (http://www.cutthroats.com/)
(http://www.cutthroats.com/art/buttons/on_patch8Xs.gif)
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I need to clarify that KKEN.
The TCP/IP protocol suite contains two very different transport protocols. They are User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). All types of TCP/IP Internet connections should support both types of connections, the exception being when you are behind some kind of a NAT or Proxy that won't let UDP function properly. UDP is the connectionless protocol in this case. UDP packets get sent, and their is no tracking to see if those packets actually get received. TCP is connection based, and does check to see if each packet is received, and will re-transmit as necessary. Most internet gaming will use UDP packets, since these packets are faster and use less overhead. Aces High can also use TCP packets, and is smart enough to switch to TCP if UDP is not available.
Which one is better? For gaming UDP is much better because it is faster. TCP is more reliable, but it is not as fast, so it tends to be a bad choice for gaming. By the time a TCP connection re-transmits positional data in AH, it would be useless anyway, so there isn't any benefit there. In Aces High, a UDP connection will be faster and will generally show less "warping". A TCP connection may not disconnect as easily, but will be higher latency and will tend to warp more. Now AH does use TCP packets for some information such as damage info that MUST get through and isn't as time critical as the positional data that makes up the bulk of the data flow.
Your comment about turning down the modem speed is valid, but not for those reasons. Modem connections generally use compression schemes to get better download speeds for surfing the web and downloading files. Those are not the important properties of the connection for playing a game like AH, we need quality, stability, and low latency. If you are a modem gamer you can generally get a better quality and "better" connection to a game like AH by turning the modem "speed" down a notch so it doesn't use the compression algorithms that degrade the connection quality somewhat. For example if you have a 56k modem, you are much better setting the connection speed to only 36k. This connection will be better optimized for a quality connection, just what we need in a game like AH. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs http://www.flyingpigs.com (http://www.flyingpigs.com)
"A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!" -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
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Uhmmm,...a little more infor in order Lephturn.
Actually compression still is in effect at 33.6K modem speeds, the big difference and the reason why you want to slow your connect down is to get the upload and download rates matched as closely as possible.
56K style of connections usually only have an upload rate of about 19200. By kicking the modem down to 33.6K it allows enough bandwidht on the phone line for the upload rate to almost match a 33.6K connection.
This is where the big gains are made. Your gaming connection (for anything requiring real-time) will only run as fast as the slowest link in the connection. So by slowing down your download rate, you have increased your upload rate, which actually will speed up the overall gaming connection.
Did not mean to trounce your response theier Lephturn, just thought a little more clarification might be in order.
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Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net
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No problem Skuzzy. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif) I did not know that, thanks for the additional info!
Ya learn something new every day. That's why I love this business and this game! <S>
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Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs http://www.flyingpigs.com (http://www.flyingpigs.com)
"A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!" -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
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Originally posted by SKurj:
In my area they have a service called LOOK. (...) The line of sight microwave service maybe a good alternative. we'll see
Doesn't look like it now for us. Shame. I was looking forward to an alternative to Bell Canada (DSL) and Videotron (cable).
http://www.look.ca/products/video.html (http://www.look.ca/products/video.html)
As part of our restructuring we will suspend all new sales of our UltraFast high speed Internet product to residential consumers, and will limit new sales of our television broadcast service to residents of apartment and condo complexes that already have an antenna installed. We will continue to offer residential customers our dial-up Internet service.
In turn, we will increasingly shift our focus to the small and medium sized business market. We will continue to sell our wireless high-speed and DSL services to small and medium sized businesses and will continue to enhance and offer Web hosting, domain name registration and other related business services.
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DrSoya
308 (Polish) Squadron "City of Cracow" RAF
Part of the Northolt Wing (http://www.raf303.org/northolt) (First Polish Fighter Wing)
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So that would mean a bit of data would have to cover at least 45,000 miles between to land points.
That translates to roughly 3.564 seconds.
Golly-gee Republicans.... have they changed the speed of light AGAIN?
Last time I looked it was 186,000 miles per second. So a data transmission of 45000 miles would have only taken 0.241935 seconds when the Democrats were in charge!
Maybe Al Gore DID invent the internet?
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Ooops. I made a bad inference there Jekyl. I was talking about the speed based on the frequency of the signal, which is much slower than the spped of light.
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Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net
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As far as Gaming goes Cable/xDSL is about as hot as it goes, as far as downloads goes its about the same, even if you have a connection above 1mbit it is doubtful that many sites will accomadate anything higher than 128k a sec (1mbit) so basically for all practical purposes anything abouve 1mbit (cable/DSL) is a waste of money because the performance increase will be neglagable.