Hi all,
My son is asking me for a gaming PC for his 12th birthday in August. I am not opposed to the idea, but I refuse to increase my internet speed to accommodate his hobby. Therefore, I am wondering what level of gaming system I should look for at present internet speed.
This is my speed check info:
Last night: 40 mbps down/36 mbps
This morning: 68/72
This is on WiFi. I’m not cabled into the router so not sure if that improves speed.
Any suggestions? He plays Fortnight mostly, so that would be a baseline for needed speed and computer build. I just don’t want to overbuy.
Off Reddit -
from r/FortniteCompetitive
"
Everyone is using the same connection, no matter what the speed, as long as we are talking the same provider--it's just throttled to what your service level you purchased through your provider. EG: 1Gbit or 50 Mbit. You are still going through the same backbone equipment, routers, switches etc--you can't exceed a certain limit being throttled according to your service level.
In my case I can only get Xfinity, and it makes no difference if I have their top tier plan or lower tier plan, I still get relatively the same ping. As one response said, "it may make it more consistent" which is true, but it won't lower your ping more than 5ms going from a 50Mb plan to a 1000Mb plan/gigabit on the same provider. Fiber is preferred.
What you can do with most providers:
Upgrade your network equipment and get rid of your providers equipment. This gives you more control and often the provider will give you outdated equipment that doesn't support the latest standards. For instance my Xfinity modem was DOCSIS 3, I upgraded to a DOCSIS 3.1 modem a couple of years back because it offers DSCP tagging and a few other features that make the connection more stable. DOCSIS 4 is the latest protocol and offers further advantages, like LLD. Comcast is supposed to be offering LLD by the end of the year in most markets.
Install a gaming router behind the modem that has some easy QOS options, I use an ASUS router. Netgear makes some good stuff. This will prioritize your gaming traffic over streaming and other traffic if you configure it to do so. These 2 options (modem and router) reduced my ping by around 10ms on average. You can load DD-WRT on to an old router and there is a thread on Reddit that's about 5 years old, with a guy that used QOS and TCP Vegas to get better ping. When I did this on my 10 year old router I believe I got more consistent ping than what I get with my new router. It takes a lot of testing to setup DD-WRT, as well as knowledge.
Change your DNS, which can be done on your gaming router. Cloudflare is what worked best for me, they have regional data centers. I use their 1.1.1.1 service. Initially I didn't think it would make a difference, but Xfinity's DNS was horrible and would send me to a AWS datacenter that was further away. There's utilities to test DNS servers. The easiest way is to try DNS servers from 4-5 companies, Google, Xfinity, Cloudflare, OpenDNS and others. To do this in Fortnite start the game, make note of what your ping is to your server in the settings. Close the game and reopen, make note of ping again. Do this 3 times. Then change your DNS servers and restart your system. Open the game 3 more times with each new server you try. I would do this during the hours you typically play. After you have tested a few DNS servers you should get a pretty good idea of which one is sending you to the best server. Google, Cloudflare and OpenDNS all had better responses than Xfinity for me.
Use a wire, and ditch the wireless. PvP gaming is just better over a wire. If you don't have to go against other players, you can use wireless IMO.
Enable any QOS options available in your consoles networking options. For instance there's DSCP tagging and WMM tagging in XBOX consoles that was implemented in the last 18 months or so. There's also DSCP tagging that can be enabled on Windows 10.
In some cases if your existing wiring is 10 years old or older you can have your provider come out and re-pull the wire. They'll do this especially if you are having packet loss and disconnects. Chances are if your thick cable that comes out of the wall is the same as the wiring coming into your house, then this is not necessary. If it's thinner coax, then it might help. Also check your patch cable running between your system and your router. You'll want a CAT 6 or higher cable if you purchase a new one, there will be less ping jitter with a higher standard cable. CAT 5 usually works fine, but is a lower standard cable.
Focus on increasing your frames with a new monitor and/or hardware. With an Xbox One or PS4 your max framerate is 60fps. If you are playing on a TV, moving to a gaming monitor will help. At 60 fps, there's 16ms latency, at 120 fps there's 8ms latency (plus additional input latency specific to the monitor and your system). The newer consoles have to have a high refresh rate display of 120 Hz or more to take advantage of the higher frame rates, so get at least a 144 Hz monitor, it's probably the best place to put your money if you are still on console...
These are all relatively easy ways to address latency that really work. My ping averages 15-20 ms less on average using the above. I got ping in the 40s originally, on average, and now its typically at or below 30 ms with very few pops up above 50 to both East and Central. There's other things you can do, but they don't seem to have as much significance or in some cases you may not have an option to change providers."
- upgrade the router if it can make use of the provided speed
- LAN cable into the PC if possible
- make sure the router is using 5G and he's using the 5G network
- tell your son to get gud
PC build wise you need to ask:
- laptop or desktop PC
- modern laptops with integrated AMD GPUs are plenty powerful, camp out on r/buildapcsales and wait for a sale for a Lenovo or HP gaming one with a dedicated graphics card (even a 4060 is plenty good) and he'll be set, can crank up the graphics to ultra with plenty of FPS
- desktop PC will give you the most upgrade headroom since you can swap out parts to upgrade, a mid-tier processor (AMD Ryzen 5, Intel i5) and GPU (RTX 4060, 6600xt), will exceed the performance of an equivalent laptop by 20-30% but you'll lose portability which could be good for school, going mid-tier with part will leave some money on the table for a gaming keyboard / mouse which he'll appreciate
Mid-tier build FTW, over 200fps with Fortnight on performance mode. Stick to 1080p.
Would be good to see what he currently has what you get will be an upgrade over the current.
Topic: What was the last video game you played? (Read 572079 times)