Should valve dump 56k support?

[AgentXen]

Do ypou think Valve should dump support for the 56K modem, and have the physics improved online?
And how many people here still actualy have 56k modems?

 

[KagePrototype]

According to the Steam survey, about 2-3% of users have a 56k connection or below.

 

[Hazar]

I have broadband but I think it would be a major let down to thoes who have 56k and can't get anything faster.

 

[XtremesT]

well, although it might be nice to finally drop the 56k support, it really would lose some sales for people who have 56k (possibly), so it might not be a wise choice Yet... i dont know many people who still have 56k.. and I know i dont. I voted yes, since it doesnt affect me

 

[ATI4EVER!]

i have 56k, and I say drop it. It will lag those who pay for broadband, and anyways, we would just lag so much that I myself wouldn't play online, so yes, drop it.

 

[Feath]

It's a misconception that someone with a high ping on a server makes the other players ping rise.

 

[evil^milk]

no, because 56k is the reason why steam & multiplayer run so fast on higher connections.

 

[Dr. Freeman]

i have 56k, and I say drop it. It will lag those who pay for broadband, and anyways, we would just lag so much that I myself wouldn't play online, so yes, drop it.

u sir, are a brave and kind man! :thumbs:

It's a misconception that someone with a high ping on a server makes the other players ping rise.

well it sure doesn't help, does it?
ever try fragging a HPB? i have.. the player tends to blink every time he/she moves.. it becomes a pain in the ass to frag him more than anything.

 

[kalayq]

up until recently, I have only been able to afford a 56k connection. I think it is unfair for those of us who do not have someone else to pay for our broadband. Yes I know that dial-up connections create disgustingly bad pings (my worst ever was just under 1200) but valve should give everyone who has the capability (even the minimum requirement) to partake in their games. Also by including 56k connections, they are expanding their potential user/sales base.

 

[chu]

I am on 56k and I am deeply offended...

Not really. I won't be playing multiplayer.

 

[joule]

Should valve dump 56k support?

Dump it.
And Valve should take a dump on it.

 

[Edcrab]

I don't want them going out of their way to make it 56k friendly, but they should by no means ignore us entirely

Doom 3, for example, just can't be played over a 56k connection- but, conversely (and purportedly) CS:S runs reasonably well.

If HL2's netcode really is better than the originals, I'm not sure what everyone's talking about; there's no point in suddenly throwing unoptimised content into the MP code in order to cripple the poor, misunderstood minority that is the dial-upper... it's genocide! Someone get the United Nations involved

 

[Nightmare]

56k only lags badly if A, the game has shit netcode(very comon these days, play Tribes 1 or 2 to see netcode at its best), or B, your conected to a server thats to far away.
Im sure its easy to vote "yes" when your living in a country that has easy accese to broadband. Try living out in the country in NZ and see how avalible it is.

 

[Letters]

I haven't played Counter-Strike Source so I'm still waiting to see how good it really is already...

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

Until recently, the only ISP available here was 56k. Just last year wireless sattelite became available. So I know how people in that boat may feel.

And as someone said- it's not pings that cause lag. I hate when people complain about something they don't know much about.

It's the latency! http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~cheshire/rants/Latency.html

 

[kaellinn18]

Until recently, the only ISP available here was 56k. Just last year wireless sattelite became available. So I know how people in that boat may feel.

And as someone said- it's not pings that cause lag. I hate when people complain about something they don't know much about.

It's the latency! http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~cheshire/rants/Latency.html

Isn't the ping the measure of the latency?

 

[ecchi]

Yeah. Ping is latency.

One could have a "56k" connection and play HL2 just as well as someone on a T1 - that is, a fast connection with a bandwidth cap of 56 kilobits per second. This is why satellite internet is awful for gaming: your minimum ping is around 500ms, even though your download speeds are huge.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

Yeah. Ping is latency.

One could have a "56k" connection and play HL2 just as well as someone on a T1 - that is, a fast connection with a bandwidth cap of 56 kilobits per second. This is why satellite internet is awful for gaming: your minimum ping is around 500ms, even though your download speeds are huge.

Does depend on the quality of the service and such.

Others I know with services from similar companies get pings like you stated. I usually average a ping of around 70 - 80.

Good example from that article-
Would you say that a Boeing 747 is three times "faster" than a Boeing 737? Of course not. They both cruise at around 500 miles per hour. The difference is that the 747 carries 500 passengers where as the 737 only carries 150. The Boeing 747 is three times bigger than the Boeing 737, not faster.

It gets there at the same time, just with more data.

 

[Tork]

No because i want everyone to be able to play,the more the better thats how i look at it, btw i got 3mb cable.

 

[Tlaloc]

you cant *dump* 56k "support" man.... its just not possible

 

[gamerxr72]

You guys do not know what you are talking about. You don't "support" 56k at all. your modem is just your network connection and has nothing to do with valves software.

Someone on 56k does not slow down the whole server. All that happens is they will lag and die.

 

[f|uke]

It's a misconception that someone with a high ping on a server makes the other players ping rise.

It does lag the entire game. I have experienced this in CSS many times.

You guys do not know what you are talking about. You don't "support" 56k at all. your modem is just your network connection and has nothing to do with valves software

We do know what we are talking about. 56k Support = restricting game data to a low bandwidth. Less packets are sent to accomidate these players. And yes, it does affect everybodys game when somebody slow is on, as it seems the server will 'wait' for them. As I said, I have experienced the evidence of this in CSS.

Personally I think this should be a server option! This is the best way to go about this. Valve can claim to support the 56k'ers, while all the nice, fast servers shut them out so they don't interfere with a clean game.

 

[RFarmer]

I have had my 56k modem through my whole online gaming career. Up until now I have had awesome fun with this thing. But since all the new games are coming out that are much more demanding, I think the 56k modem is almost obsolete. It's a serious bottleneck in a high end system. Even though I have a very high end system, when I play on my 56k, it is re-goddamn-diculous. So for farcry and doom 3 gaming I go to my highschool during open tech lab and play on the extremely fast t1 connection. I am moving out to college in less than a year and going down to orlando florida. I will have a t1 connection there for the appartment I will get so it won't matter.

For all of those people with broadband connections, I feel bad because the game's online capabilities are also made for dial-up connections. But I think it's an even bigger let down for 56k owners who want to play MP, but cannot (Farcry, Doom 3). So I think it should be a server thing, the admin selects if he wants server-side physics or not. Should be pretty simple. Broadbanders can play with server-side physics, 56k'ers can't. On a normal game with no physics, 56k'ers would have bad ping but still be able to play and the broadbanders would have an obvious advantage.

 

[Wraith]

why not have both? 56k only servers and broadband only servers?

 

[f|uke]

So I think it should be a server thing, the admin selects if he wants server-side physics or not. Should be pretty simple. Broadbanders can play with server-side physics, 56k'ers can't.

w3rd..

 

[ailevation]

Yeah broadband users get the treats n pussy, and 56ker's don't. Fair game, nobody is being greedy, ya get what you pay for.

 

[Paintballer]

Upstate NY sucks... dont drop support...

<--- 112k Dialup...

BTW: You will not lag any more or any less if someone on 56k comes into a CS server... if someone on 56k joins, and everyone's pings go up, it is the server not being able to handle the load. Watch one person leave and it goes back down...

 

[Acphonehome]

I think that 56k should be a server option. If admins want there server to be laggy, so be it. But in banning all 56kers a lot of costumers would be lost...
-Ac

 

[Eon Blue]

I vote yes. If you can afford the rig necessary to play HL2, as well as HL2, then you can afford to pay $10 more a month for DSL.

 

[gamerxr72]

It does lag the entire game. I have experienced this in CSS many times.

We do know what we are talking about. 56k Support = restricting game data to a low bandwidth. Less packets are sent to accomidate these players. And yes, it does affect everybodys game when somebody slow is on, as it seems the server will 'wait' for them. As I said, I have experienced the evidence of this in CSS.

Personally I think this should be a server option! This is the best way to go about this. Valve can claim to support the 56k'ers, while all the nice, fast servers shut them out so they don't interfere with a clean game.

Considering that I haven't not play CSS, I can only comment. If the servers sync to the lowest ping then they need to fix that fast. Bogging down a game to accomodate inferior minority hardware is absoultely stupid.

 

[Asuka]

I dont care

Doesnt matter to me what they do.

 

[killahsin-[CE]]

I have 3mb internet, but until the day every home can be wired for broadband or dsl they should always have 56k friendly networking.

 

[ne0_shiny]

they should have different servers for different speeds

 

[Hazar]

They do. Look at the latency.

 

[jet jaguar]

Leave it up to the people running the servers.

 

[ailevation]

:naughty: Yeah that's pretty neat. An option that you can check off if you want no 56kers and that will enable all that good shit, or uncheck which will let those guys play but sacrificing the special stuff.

 

[GorgeousOrifice]

Valve already "strongly recommends" a broadband connection for Steam. Considering how few of us use 56K, the day is probably not far off when Valve starts designing on the assumption that its low-end user has something at least as fast as 256/128 DSL.

Also, it would eliminate a whole host of server code problems if clients were required to handle data at a minimum rate.

 

[24Gamer]

It's a misconception that someone with a high ping on a server makes the other players ping rise.

depends on the netcode

 

[Edcrab]

Well, not really, its bandwidth dependant; that'd mean that a guy with a 512k connection eats the server up as effectively as 10 56kers... which is apparently true, according to some of our more technically minded members :rolling: Don't really understand it myself...

I vote yes. If you can afford the rig necessary to play HL2, as well as HL2, then you can afford to pay $10 more a month for DSL.

*BRITISH RURAL SLAP OF JUSTICE!!* ...sorry. Trigger reflex.

Man, I don't think the Government has any right to call us an advanced nation when everyone, including "newer" countries like Brazil and Korea have far better broadband penetration... :frown:

As said, it's fine to leave 56kers on the pile (oddly enough, we don't expect Valve to wander over and perform sex acts or anything) in favour of BBers; they're not going to go out of their way to exclude anyone, though.

Didn't they already say that physics quality would be a server option? And yeah, its perfectly fine to say we'd learn to live with it; it's HL2 for crying out loud! I'd live with Doom-esque graphics to play it...

 

[Brian Damage]

The problem is it's not neccesssarily a matter of expense for the people who don't have a braodband connection, often it's lack of availability in their area. Our area of Melbourne only got enabled sometime last week, for example, and there are areas which probably won't see broadband for two years yet...