Online gaming is growing career field that offers not only massive payout potential, but more realistic wages and side income for the average gamer who doesn't make it big. To be effective at gaming as a business, all roads of success lead to a powerful computer and robust interest connection. You won't get there with many residential internet plans, so take a look at what business internet means for gamers and what they need to watch on their daily connection quality.
Understanding Online Game Data Transfer
Lag--the delay that causes so many problems for gamers--has a lot of untrained rumors and myths surrounding the cause. The actual causes just take a bit of networking and general IT (Information Technology) knowledge.
Online games are similar to streaming videos. They both use a protocol called UDP, which sends information as quickly as possible without asking for confirmation. Most internet usage is on TCP, which has a set of confirmations and requests for confirmation to make sure that your computer received the data. With live internet services like online gaming, there is no "resending" a live action. Either your data went through or it didn't.
Because of this need for fast transfer, all of the quality control needs to happen before transmission. Thankfully, the actual data sent between your computer and the game servers are actually small files with a set of instructions. It doesn't matter how visually-stunning or complex your game looks; your game is basically an interactive movie that comes to life when these small data packets send or receive instructions.
Fighting The Causes Of Lag
If your internet connection is too slow, the information won't get there on time and you'll experience lag. It's unlikely to have a connection too slow for online games in the US because of the average speed of internet plans for Americans, so the more likely "slow speed" cause is from other people on your network taking up bandwidth (internet capacity) with downloads and streaming.
Your computer could also have a virus. Some viruses utilize internet connections to aggressively serve advertisements while downloading information from your computer, but such viruses aren't usually enough to slow down the internet connection.
Another version of lag--considered a misnomer, but popular among gaming communities--is system lag. If your computer's hardware performance slows down because of a virus, too many programs running, or just being too weak for the game, the performance will slow down and become choppy.
The difference matters, because the problems need to be fixed in different ways. System lag issues need either computer file cleaning, virus removal, or better parts (memory, processor, video card to name the major components for games). Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) can't do anything about that. If your game is moving as smoothly as possible with 60FPS performance, but your in-game actions are reacting slowly, that's an internet issue.
At that point, a speed test is just the beginning. You also need to perform a line quality and smokeping test at sites such as DSLReports or Megapath, and give the results to your ISP to figure out if there are physical cable/wire issues that need a technician visit.
Contact an ISP representative to discuss your gaming needs, and ask for a business internet connection for a contractually-obligated level of higher service to get the maintenance you need as soon as possible.
Share15 June 2017
Working from home has opened many doors for me and forced me to learn new things that I previously had no interest in before. Over the ten years that I have been working from home, I have learned a whole lot about internet service providers. I learned what to look for in a good provider, how to maximize the speed of the service that I receive and how to get the best possible price for the service I need to do my job. My site is loaded with tips and advice to help other people get the most from their internet service provider.