You are gonna think I am a moron.

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Jon@lbc said:
This is such a stupid question and you are gonna think I have no brain but. What is Ping on online servers?
I can't give you a technical explanation, but in layman's terms, PING is used to describe/measure the quality of connection between two computers. PING is also used to determine if an IP address is valid or active.

I'm going out on a limb here, but my guess is it is derived from the SONAR usage. A transmitter would send out a tone, or ping, and wait for the bounce back, to determine range to target.
 

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It's pretty much just like pinging with SONAR. It tells you the delay from when you send a message and when you get it back from another computer (in milliseconds).
 

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Not stupid, I'm going through the same learning curve. The way I understand it, like Overseer said, and a smaller number is better than a larger one. Though I don't understand the ramifications from a gameplay standpoint yet.
Anyone? Anyone? ....Bueller?
 
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jthomas said:
Though I don't understand the ramifications from a gameplay standpoint yet. Anyone? Anyone? ....Bueller?
The higher the Ping the longer the time it's taking for the signal to travel to/from your PC, so the worse it is for you, as you start to get serious lag.

Dr. S.
 

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Doctor Sinister said:
The higher the Ping the longer the time it's taking for the signal to travel to/from your PC, so the worse it is for you, as you start to get serious lag.

Dr. S.

Because Lag kills! :dead:
 

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Most of what everyone has said so far...but here is my explanation:

Ping is measured in milliseconds. It is the time it takes for your computer to respond to the server. You want a lower ping because that means your computer can send and recieve data faster. If you have a 100 ping, every 100 ms (or about), you can recieve from the server player positions, and other information. If you have a 1000 ping, you can only recieve that data every 1000 ms. That is pretty slow, so you will see the players "transport" from one place to another, and it is really laggy.

Any ping below 300 is decent, below 200 is preferred.

EDIT: And no, it isn't a stupid question :D.
 
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gobeavs

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scuud said:
Really? I've played in servers that ban if your ping goes over 250
Those were estimates by me, but I do think they are pretty right. It could be that the server just wanted really good ping players, and wanted something as flawless as possible.

Also, it also depends on the netcode. Some games would kill people on dial up (dial up has high ping), but like CoD actually runs decently on dial up. Not as good as DSL, but ok.
 

Ivan Rapkinov

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rofl - I used to play Operation Flashpoint on a 56k with clanmates from all over at 1300 ping :D

I certainly remember the "teleporting" aspect. ;)
 

gobeavs

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Ivan Rapkinov said:
rofl - I used to play Operation Flashpoint on a 56k with clanmates from all over at 1300 ping :D

I certainly remember the "teleporting" aspect. ;)
Haha, yeah. Being from Australia probably hurts your ping a lot, since I bet there aren't too many servers near there.

Thats another note: The closer you are to the server, the lower your ping - since it doesn't have to travel as far. A cool thing to do is go into your command prompt (start>run>"command"), then type "ping www.google.com" (w/o quotes), and you will see your ping with googles servers. You can do it with other websites or IP addresses also, my ping to google is 34ms :D. To the WF here I have an 81 ping.

Man....I get too carried away with computer stuff :p
 
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gobeavs said:
Most of what everyone has said so far...but here is my explanation:

Ping is measured in milliseconds. It is the time it takes for your computer to respond to the server. You want a lower ping because that means your computer can send and recieve data faster. If you have a 100 ping, every 100 ms (or about), you can recieve from the server player positions, and other information. If you have a 1000 ping, you can only recieve that data every 1000 ms. That is pretty slow, so you will see the players "transport" from one place to another, and it is really laggy.

Any ping below 300 is decent, below 200 is preferred.

EDIT: And no, it isn't a stupid question :D.

I used to play CS on dialup and get a little over 200, after I got used to broadband, I can't take a server that has over 60 for me. There's a noticable difference. :D
 

Patrocles

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Overseer said:
I used to play CS on dialup and get a little over 200, after I got used to broadband, I can't take a server that has over 60 for me. There's a noticable difference. :D
i hear ya, man. I think the internet connection and computer make a big difference for online games! I used to be a horrible BF1942 player (usually scoring in the bottom 10% no joke!) with my old and slow comp and dialup. After getting my new comp and cable internet I suddenly found myself getting many more kills and scoring around the middle of the pack!

"This is such a stupid question and you are gonna think I have no brain but. What is Ping on online servers?"
...i'm a firm believer in the old saying, 'There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers!' :laugh:
 
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